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This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.
Albanese bows to relentless pressure for Bondi royal commission but scepticism remains
Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion
SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has finally bowed to pressure from the Murdoch News Corp’s relentless media campaign and advocacy by political critics and victim’s families to announce a royal commission of inquiry into “antisemitism and social cohesion”. The commission advocates were seeking his political downfall over last month’s Bondi
SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has finally bowed to pressure from the Murdoch News Corp’s relentless media campaign and advocacy by political critics and victim’s families to announce a royal commission of inquiry into “antisemitism and social cohesion”. The commission advocates were seeking his political downfall over last month’s Bondi Beach massacre that killed 15 people at a Jewish religious holiday of Hanukkah with complaints that he had “not done enough” against antisemitism. One of the two allegedly ISIS-aligned terrorist gunmen was also killed at the scene of the tragedy and the other was wounded and arrested. He has been charged with 59 counts, including 15 charges of murder and committing a terrorist act. READ MORE: What is a royal commission? Could one into the Bondi attack create meaningful change? Australian PN backflips over royal commission into the Bondi shootings Israel’s propaganda machine endangers every Jew on the planet — including me — Antony Loewenstein Mapping selective media coverage of the post-massacre discourse Albanese held a press conference in Canberra yesterday and confirmed that former High Court justice Virginia Bell would lead the national inquiry. While the royal commission has been mostly welcomed by survivors, victims’ families and Jewish community groups that have been lobbying for a national inquiry, some advocacy organisations have criticised the time it has taken before being called. However, even more serious criticisms have emerged over the terms of reference and a widespread belief that the real objective is to mute criticism of Israel and its brutal policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Award-winning journalist and Lamestream co-host Osman Faruqi, for example, argues “this royal commission won’t give us answers to Bondi — it’s set up to protect Israel.” “The terms of reference for the Royal Commission should put aside any doubt: this is an inquiry designed to castigate critics of Israel.” In the media release yesterday that Albanese, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland confirmed the four main areas to be covered, they stated: Tackling antisemitism by investigating the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in institutions and society, and its key drivers in Australia, including ideologically and religiously motivated extremism and radicalisation. Making recommendations that will assist law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to tackle antisemitism, including through improvements to guidance and training within law enforcement, border control, immigration, and security agencies to respond to antisemitic conduct. Examining the circumstances surrounding the antisemitic Bondi terrorist attack on December 14, 2025. Making any other recommendations arising out of the inquiry for strengthening social cohesion in Australia and countering the spread of ideologically and religiously motivated extremism in Australia. Missing from the terms of reference is anything related to the rise of Islamophobia in Australia. The brief is far too narrowly framed compared with what many had hoped for. The Australian Government has announced the establishment of a Royal Commission following the antisemitic Bondi terror attack. This devastating event deeply affected the victims, their families, the Jewish community, first responders and the broader Australian public. The Royal… pic.twitter.com/kFQbrJh5IZ — Australian Human Rights Commission (@AusHumanRights) January 9, 2026 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had cynically jumped in within hours of the Bondi shootings to lambast Albanese and connect the massacre to the massive protests against the Gaza genocide — including 300,000 on the Sydney Harbour Bridge — even though there was no evidence of this. He blamed the deadly Bondi attack on Albanese, accusing the Australian prime minister of pouring “fuel on the antisemitism fire” by recognising a Palestinian state. (The State of Palestine is recognised as a sovereign nation by 157 UN member states, representing 81 percent of membership). “You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” said Netanyahu, who is wanted on an International Criminal Court (ICJ) warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israeli authorities have a pattern of blaming criticism of the Israeli government and military’s over its genocidal actions in Gaza for fuelling antisemitism. Globally popular phrases such as ‘Globalise the intifada’, ‘From the river to the sea Palestine will be free’, and ‘Death to the IDF’ have frequently been targeted by Israeli officials and lobbyists seeking to shield their government’s atrocities. Jewish-Australian author and journalist Antony Loewenstein, who wrote the 2023 bestselling book The Palestine Laboratory with powerful insights into Israel’s cruel military machine of repression against Palestinians, has been scathing in his television and newspaper commentaries, accusing Tel Aviv of “outrageous lies” that endangered Jews worldwide. “Within hours of the horrific, antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney [last] month, the Israeli government and its proxies started pushing false narratives, outright lies and racism to a grieving nation,” he wrote in Middle East Eye. “Netanyahu and senior Israeli ministers blamed an Australian government that ‘normalised boycotts against Jews’, recognised the state of Palestine this year, and refused to shut down pro-Palestine marches. “Former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy posted on X (formerly Twitter): ‘Jews around the world live in fear because we are being hunted. October 7 inspired millions around the world and launched a global war against Jews.’ “There was no logic or sense to this verbal onslaught at a time when the dead bodies were still warm on Bondi Beach. At that point, and still now, there’s no clear picture of the motives of the father and son accused in the slaughter of mostly Jews who had gathered to mark the first night of Hanukkah, although a link to Islamic State has been explored. “It was an outrageous intervention from a disgraced Israeli government accused of committing genocide in Gaza — and yet too many in the Australian and global media treated Netanyahu and his cronies as credible commentators, deferring to their supposed wisdom.” “Israel’s propaganda machine endangers every Jew on the planet – including me” Opinion by Anthony Loewenstein https://t.co/eQP0rdHB5I — Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 23, 2025 Indeed, what has been shocking for this New Zealand journalist holidaying in Australia for the past month — in Adelaide, South Australia — is the blatant way Israel has been allowed to “shape” the public discourse and in the media. Remember, Netanyahu himself, has resisted a full Israeli inquiry into the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, including his own alleged security failings, for more than two years. One of the most recent cudgels being used to beat the Albanese Labor government was an open letter signed by 100+ “business leaders” supporting the royal commission call. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-122189" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Business-open-letter-DR-680wide.png" alt="Part of one of the series of full page business open letter advertisements calling for a royal commission carried across the nation in the Murdoch News Corp titles such as The Australian and The Adelaide Advertiser and other newspapers" width="680" height="406" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Business-open-letter-DR-680wide.png 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Business-open-letter-DR-680wide-300x179.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Part of one of the series of full page business open letter advertisements calling for a royal commission carried across the nation in the Murdoch News Corp titles such as The Australian and The Adelaide Advertiser and other newspapers. Image: Asia Pacific Report But what they wanted was a probe into the alleged “antisemitism” in Australia. What about the other forms of racism and harassment such an Islamophobia? Signatories included billionaire businessman James Packer, News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller, and a whole bunch of banking and industry executives. Mainstream media selective outrage.@Mondoweiss pic.twitter.com/9lgpNcpE1y — Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) December 24, 2025 Editorials and cartoons in The Australian and other Murdoch media, such as The Advertiser in Adelaide, parroted each other in calling on Albanese to “serve the nation, not yourself.” For almost four weeks none of the countless pages of articles canvassed other perspectives; to gain some balance it was necessary to turn to credible independent sources on social media. The job of the media is to serve the public interest, not themselves. Take “serial inventor and entrepreneur” Jaqueline Outram posting on X for a counter view. “More than 100 ‘business leaders’ signed a letter? “Whoop-de-frickin-doo. “Hundreds of thousands of Australians marched and will continue to march against genocide. “Some capitalist opportunists signed a letter. “Pfft …” She added in a separate post, “Stop treating business leaders like they’re some kind of moral authority . . . Nobody cares what they think.” More than 100 “business leaders” signed a letter? Really? More than 100? Signed a letter? Whoop-de-frickin-doo. Hundreds of thousands of Australians marched, and will continue to march, against genocide. Some capitalist opportunists signed a letter. Pfft…#FreePalestine — Jaqueline Outram (@JaquelineOutram) January 2, 2026 Commenting on the royal commission decision, prominent Brisbane journalist and media educator Kasun Ubayasiri questioned the “privileged” status of one section of the multicultural Australian society. “So the government announces a royal commission on antisemitism when we have never had a Racism Royal Commission. Why the privileged status for one type of racism over others?” The Jewish community in Australia numbers about 117,000 in a total population of 28 million – the ninth largest globally, and the biggest in the Indo-Pacific region. The Muslim community is about 815,000. “More worryingly, the royal commission terms of reference seem problematic,” added Ubayasiri. “It makes no real attempt to untangle the morally repugnant antisemitism from anti-Zionism. “The latter is easily defendable especially in its current format. The terms of reference particularly note the acceptance of the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism as a working definition, suggesting this distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is unlikely to be made by the royal commission. “IHRA is already widely seen as chilling legitimate criticism of Israel. Arguably allowing the royal commission to draft its own definitional framing would have made more sense.” Associate Professor Joseph Fernandez, a media law scholar and journalist, added: “Be very afraid of this exercise being hijacked to produce outcomes that will serve narrow and dubious interests — at the expense of the public interest generally, in a sound democracy.” Apart from the royal commission issue, controversy has also blown up over an invitation by Albanese to the Israeli President, Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, the first head of state born in Israel since its founding in 1948, to make an official visit. Mounting calls are being made to drop the invite over Herzog’s implication in incitement to genocide. <img decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-122190" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Israeli-President-APR-680wide.png" alt="A poster condemning Australia's invitation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog next month" width="680" height="600" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Israeli-President-APR-680wide.png 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Israeli-President-APR-680wide-300x265.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Israeli-President-APR-680wide-476x420.png 476w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> A poster condemning Australia’s invitation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog next month. Image: Asia Pacific Report The move was welcomed by Jewish community groups and February was touted for a likely date. However, his visit would be certain to attract protests from pro-Palestinian groups condemning Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 71,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Such a trip would require a heavy security commitment and the Labor Friends of Palestine, a party group supporting the creation of a Palestinian state, has appealed to Albanese to call off the invitation. Other pro-Palestinian groups have called for an investigation into allegations of incitement to genocide. Also, at least 50 writers and poets are reported to be withdrawing from the Adelaide Writers Festival — Australia’s largest free literary festival — on February 28-March 5 in protest over a cancellation of an invitation to a Palestinian author, lawyer and advocate because she has been critical of Israel. Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko declared they would boycott the event in protest over featured Randa Abdel-Fattah being cancelled. Others, including journalism professor and former foreign correspondent Peter Greste who was jailed by the Egyptian government for the “crime of being a journalist”, have also pulled out. “We do not help social cohesion by silencing voices,” Greste posted on X. My statement in response to the racist decision to cancel me from Adelaide Writers’ Week. https://t.co/HktwrcWveT pic.twitter.com/EDqTOteA1S — Randa Abdel-Fattah (@RandaAFattah) January 8, 2026 Dr Abdel-Fattah accused the Adelaide festival board of “blatant and shameless” anti-Palestinian racism and censorship, adding that the attempt to associate her with the Bondi massacre was “despicable”. “The Adelaide Writers Festival Board has stripped me of my humanity and agency, reducing me to an object onto which others can project their racist fears and smears.” She had been expected to discuss her novel Discipline, which raises ethical issues about whose voices are allowed to be heard. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
They Couldn’t Access Mental Health Care When They Needed It. Now They’re Suing Their Insurer.
The post They Couldn’t Access Mental Health Care When They Needed It. Now They’re Suing Their Insurer. appeared first on ProPublica.
In late 2024, Nimrod Shimrony, an emergency medical technician for the New York City Fire Department, tried to end his life. After completing an intensive outpatient treatment program, he and his wife searched for a therapist for months. Valeria Calderón, a special education teacher with New York City’s public school system, suffered a miscarriage that same year. Before she tried to have a baby again, she sought help with the depression and anxiety she had been struggling with. She called more than a dozen therapists. The therapists Shimrony and Calderón contacted were listed in their insurance plan’s provider directory, meaning they were supposedly in-network and the fees associated with visiting them would be lower. Given the number of names listed, there should have been lots of options. But Shimrony and Calderón couldn’t find any in-network provider who would see them. “It blows my mind that I couldn’t find a therapist” through the directory, Shimrony said. “It was impossible.” “I was hanging on by a thread,” said Calderón, who eventually paid more for an out-of-network provider. “There’s only so much you can vent to your family about and only so much support that they can do.” Shimrony and Calderón are among the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week against EmblemHealth, which offers the most popular health plan for New York City employees. The city employees allege that extensive errors in EmblemHealth’s directory left them with a “deceptive” and “misleading” impression about the size of the insurer’s provider network. The employees were forced to delay care, forgo treatment or seek help from costlier out-of-network providers, said the lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1128" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman with brown bangs and her hair pulled back wears a black T-shirt and small hoop earrings. She stares directly at the camera. Out-of-focus pink and green shapes slightly obscure her." class="wp-image-63178" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg 2000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=768,1152 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1024,1536 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1365,2048 1365w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=863,1295 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=527,791 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=752,1128 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1149,1724 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_008_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Valeria Calderón, a special education teacher in New York City’s school system, struggled to find an in-network mental health provider. Sarah Blesener for ProPublica Health insurers rarely face consequences for errors in their provider directories that make it difficult for many consumers to find in-network mental health care. ProPublica’s 2024 series, “America’s Mental Barrier,” examined the harms that patients face from so-called ghost networks. The series, which is cited in the lawsuit, also detailed the many ways that insurers have prompted mental health providers to quit accepting insurance. Many insurers overseeing ghost networks have faced only small and sporadic fines from regulators, and patients often have limited legal recourse against them because of restrictions on the damages that typically can be recouped under federal law. But there are health plans, such as ones local governments offer to employees or that some individuals buy through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, that aren’t covered by the federal law that restricts damages. Damages levied against those plans in lawsuits can be more substantial. That’s the basis for the current suit. “We hope this case can use state consumer protection laws to better advocate for plan members,” said Sara Haviva Mark, an attorney representing the city employees. ProPublica sent EmblemHealth a list of questions about the lawsuit. Shimrony and Calderón also signed documents waiving their rights to privacy so the insurer could answer questions. “We don’t comment on pending litigation,” a spokesperson for EmblemHealth wrote in an email. Attorneys have filed lawsuits similar to the New York one in at least two other states against insurers such as Kaiser Permanente and Molina. Last spring, the mother of an Arizona man who died after being unable to find mental health treatment sued his plan, which was overseen by Centene, saying it broke the law by publishing false information that misled its customers. (ProPublica had chronicled the man’s struggles to find mental health care.) Those lawsuits are still ongoing and the insurers in those cases have disputed the allegations. This past fall, health insurers overseen by Centene agreed to a $40 million settlement over a similar lawsuit that had been filed by San Diego’s city attorney. A spokesperson for Centene did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment. The New York lawsuit was also filed on behalf of the American Psychiatric Association, which alleged that some of its 39,000 members had been listed in EmblemHealth’s directory without their consent. It also claimed that those listings “artificially inflate[d] its provider network at psychiatrists’ expense.” The lawsuit claims that the directory contained many duplicate listings, with one psychiatrist listed 29 times. The directory errors increased the chances that its psychiatrists’ reputations could be damaged, the lawsuit said. That’s because customers reaching out for appointments couldn’t actually get care — and could post negative reviews. “What we do is based on trust,” said Dr. Robert Trestman, a leading ghost networks expert for the association. “So when our name appears in a listing that says you can get care, and then they call us, and we say, ‘Sorry, not taking new patients,’ it has a really negative impact.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="766" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg" alt="A woman facing away from the camera sits on a windowsill in a dimly lit room. She wears a black T-shirt and khaki pants and she is surrounded by bookcases filled with books and rolled up tubes of paper propped upright, with framed pictures hanging on the walls." class="wp-image-63172" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250326_Blesener_GHOSTNETWORKS_019_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=2000,1333 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Calderón at her apartment in Queens. After suffering a miscarriage in early 2024, “I was hanging on by a thread,” she said. Sarah Blesener for ProPublica The insurance industry’s top trade group, AHIP, has told lawmakers that its members take steps to keep their directories accurate. AHIP claims errors could be fixed faster if providers better updated listings after they move or retire. Mental health experts have disputed that point: They say that insurers don’t always remove listings even after providers formally drop out of a network. EmblemHealth covers more than 3 million people in New York and in neighboring states. New York city employees have been offered numerous options for health plans as part of their employment. But in recent years, roughly 3 out of every 5 city employees chose an EmblemHealth plan in which the premium was fully covered by the city. That plan was replaced by another one from EmblemHealth and UnitedHealthcare at the beginning of 2026. The employees had expected to pay $15 or less to see an in-network mental health provider under the old plan, according to the lawsuit. All they had to do was find one in the company’s directory. But, according to the lawsuit, some employees using the directory were unable to find an in-network provider willing to take their insurance. Some providers in the directory had long waitlists and many had incorrect contact information, which the insurer is supposed to check. Others no longer accepted EmblemHealth, and a few never had accepted it. The plaintiffs’ claims follow a series of practices by EmblemHealth — and the companies that merged over the years to form it — that have come under scrutiny from state officials. In 2010, the New York state attorney general’s office found that Group Health Inc., one of the insurers that merged into EmblemHealth, had “failed to maintain an accurate” directory. As part of a settlement, Group Health Inc. was supposed to confirm each year that the listed providers were still in the network and to correct inaccurate listings. In 2014, the attorney general’s office reached a separate settlement with EmblemHealth after it found that the insurer “improperly denied” coverage of treatment for mental health and substance use disorders. EmblemHealth agreed to change some of its practices to reduce barriers to getting those treatments. At the time of the settlement, an EmblemHealth spokesperson said in a statement that the insurer was working to “improve the management of behavioral services.” And in 2023, the attorney general’s office published a report that found that EmblemHealth and another dozen insurers had failed to keep their listings of mental health providers free of extensive errors. The office’s staff had contacted a sample of doctors — nearly 400 providers listed in the 13 insurers’ directories — and the vast majority of them were “unreachable, not in-network, or not accepting new patients,” the report said. In EmblemHealth’s directory, the report found, 82% of the providers that were called were not available for an appointment. The report called on health plans to conduct routine checks of its directories to ensure the listings were accurate. It also recommended that the state’s insurance regulator “vigorously enforce the law” and fine insurers over violations. When ProPublica previously reached out to New York’s insurance regulator, a spokesperson couldn’t point to a single fine related to a ghost network. Last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a new regulation to “eliminate so-called ‘ghost networks.’” But the state’s insurance regulator, which publishes enforcement actions on its website, hasn’t posted any notice of fines against EmblemHealth or other health insurers for inaccurate provider directories since then. ProPublica asked the state’s insurance regulator if there had been any fines against health insurers for inaccurate provider directories since the 2024 story. The regulator did not answer our questions. The post They Couldn’t Access Mental Health Care When They Needed It. Now They’re Suing Their Insurer. appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Max Blau.
How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela
Chevron met with Trump and spent millions lobbying him to let it continue operating in Venezuela. Now it is uniquely positioned to profit from the country’s vast oil reserves.
On Saturday, hours after U.S. forces in Caracas killed at least 80 people and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump sounded less like a wartime commander than a developer surveying a newly acquired property. The country’s future, he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, belonged to “very large United States oil companies,” which would soon be pumping “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.” The land in question includes the largest proven oil reserves on Earth — at some 300 billion barrels, roughly 17 percent of global totals. But after years of political turmoil and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela accounts for barely 1 percent of global crude production. “It’s true that they know the oil is there,” said Samantha Gross, the director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings. “But the above-ground risks are huge.” <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1159 1159w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1546 1546w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vz-oil-reserves-map.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="Map of Venezuela showing oil reserve locations, concentrated around Lake Maracaibo in the northwest and in a large band across the north-central region toward Guyana (the Orinoco Belt). Data from Provita/Natural Earth." data-caption="" data-credit=""/> Chevron is the only major U.S. firm still operating in Venezuela, after other oil giants pulled out in 2007 when former President Hugo Chávez nationalized the industry. By continuing to operate as a minority partner under the state oil company’s terms, Chevron preserved its infrastructure, personnel, and legal foothold — giving it geopolitical leverage in the ongoing tug-of-war between the United States, China, and the Maduro government. “We play a long game,” CEO Mike Wirth explained in November at a U.S.-Saudi investment summit in Washington. Today, Chevron is uniquely positioned in the aftermath of the invasion: Its leadership and board have long orbited Republican circles, with deep ties to the Trump administration and a history of big GOP donations. “Chevron’s in [Venezuela],” Trump said on Saturday, but “they’re only there because I wanted them to be there.” The company did not respond to requests for comment. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Trump-venezuela-maduro-abduction.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A photo of president Donald Trump and a man tensely watching something off camera" data-caption="President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, from Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026. " data-credit="Molly Riley / The White House via Getty Images"/> President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, from Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026. Molly Riley / The White House via Getty Images When Trump returned to office, his administration revoked Biden-era licenses that had allowed the oil major to operate in Venezuela despite the sanctions. Though told to stop producing by April, the company made no attempt to wrap up contracts, pull out personnel, or wind down supply chains. Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy program at Rice University, said in March that it appeared “Chevron is very confident it can obtain an extension.” Behind the scenes, executives were busy meeting with Trump and top officials, spending almost $4 million on lobbying in the first half of the year to keep their Venezuelan foothold alive. In March, Wirth joined Trump in the Oval Office, hashing out how to tweak or extend Chevron’s license. The president finds Wirth’s TV appearances entertaining, regularly calling him after cable news appearances. The CEO followed that blitz up with private sit-downs with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and staffers from the National Security Council, making the case for his company’s continued presence in the country. By July, the gamble had paid off. The administration issued a new license, letting Chevron resume operations in Venezuela. As it did so this fall, the company saw record-breaking production and earned $3.6 billion in its last reported quarter. Though Venezuela accounts for just 100,000 to 150,000 barrels daily — a sliver of Chevron’s production — that oil is heavy, the kind the company’s Gulf Coast refineries are designed to process. Having access to Venezuelan crude can help those facilities run more efficiently, increasing supplies and reducing costs. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254500005.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="Trump stands behind Pete Hegseth at a podium" class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254500005.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254500005.jpg?resize=330%2C220&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254500005.jpg?resize=768%2C512&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254500005.jpg?resize=150%2C100&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="683" width="1024" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> Trump invaded Venezuela to restore an oil industry he helped destroy Naveena Sadasivam Just before Chevron celebrated its renewed lifeline, it scored another victory: After years of wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission, it finally acquired Hess Corporation, one of the biggest independent oil producers in the United States. Last year, the agency had banned CEO John Hess from joining Chevron’s board as part of its anti-trust review, alleging that he had colluded with OPEC representatives to fix oil prices. That victory, however, did not occur in a vacuum. The Hess family is a major donor to the Republican party, and contributed more than $1 million to Trump’s first inauguration. (Chevron, for its part, donated $2 million to the president’s 2025 ceremony.) Hess — whom Trump has called “a friend of mine for a long time” — petitioned the FTC to revisit its decision. The agency later reversed course, unlocking the deal. On July 18, Chevron officially closed its $53 billion merger, and Hess took his seat on the board. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/john-hess-trump.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="two old men shake hands in front of a row of US flags and behind a podium" data-caption="President Donald Trump shakes hands with John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., as he delivers remarks before signing a series of bills related to California’s vehicle emissions standards on June 12, 2025. " data-credit="Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images"/> President Donald Trump shakes hands with John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., as he delivers remarks before signing a series of bills related to California’s vehicle emissions standards on June 12, 2025. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images This bought Chevron’s entry into what many analysts call the decade’s most consequential oilfield, in Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor. In 2015, Exxon Mobil announced a huge reserve off the tiny country’s shoreline. That discovery catapulted Guyana — a nation of fewer than one million people — into the petroleum spotlight. Hess’ 30 percent stake in the project was a key part of Chevron’s recent acquisition. Thanks to Trump, one of the largest remaining political obstacles to the Guyana project was just removed. Maduro had challenged Guyana’s control over the offshore area. Venezuela has periodically claimed the territory since the 1960s under a long-running border dispute. As production in the region ramped up in 2019 and as Venezuela’s own industry faltered, Maduro escalated his attacks, sending naval ships into Guyanese waters and vowing Venezuela would take “all necessary actions” to stop its development — rhetoric remarkably similar to what Trump used to justify his own actions against Maduro this week. But though Trump claims he spoke with oil companies before and after the invasion, taking over the Venezuelan government may have been more than the industry bargained for. “There aren’t oil companies just running to get rid of tens of billions of dollars right now to rebuild the Venezuelan industry,” David Mares, the former Institute of the Americas Endowed ​Chair for Inter-American Affairs at the University of California-San Diego, told Grist. “It’s not even clear there’s a legitimate government in place to make the contracts they sign for legal.” Then there’s the question of Venezuela’s tangled debt. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the state oil company, has racked more than $150 billion in liabilities over decades of defaults and expropriations. Creditors — from energy companies like ConocoPhillips to so-called “vulture funds” that bought defaulted contracts at deep discounts — have pursued arbitration against the country, and won court rulings for damages that remain unpaid. China has been the country’s largest foreign lender, loaning it more than $60 billion over the years. Only some of that has been repaid, mostly in the form of oil exports. As Mares notes, “As soon as Venezuelan oil starts to flow, some of those claimants can attach the proceeds, and they’re going to demand their money back.” Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="A man holds a placard showing President Donald Trump drinking from a barrel of oil during a protest outside the American embassy in Madrid. Trump has justified his abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro by claiming the United States will help tap Venezuela's oil reserves." class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1600w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="900" width="1600" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> Trump says he’ll unleash Venezuela’s oil. But who wants it? Jake Bittle Experts warn that returning to even modest levels of production would require upgrading Venezuela’s aging infrastructure, a process that would require massive investment and political stability — conditions that have eluded Caracas for years and seem unlikely to materialize anytime soon. “There is no realistic prospect of immediately increasing Venezuela’s crude output,” Gus Vasquez, the head of oil pricing in the Americas for commodity markets analyst Argus Media, wrote in an emailed statement. “Venezuelan oil infrastructure would take years and possibly hundreds of billions to bring up to something close to its former capacity. Repairing refineries would be even harder.” Chevron’s existing assets give the company a very different calculus than newcomers would face. But the timing could not be worse: Global crude oil prices have steadily declined over the last several years, recently dropping below $60 a barrel — approaching the break-even point for many American operators. That’s been driven by global supply surpluses and by weakening demand, as renewable energy prices drop. “I think what we’re seeing is that the days of the oil and gas industry being the growth engine of economies is well behind us,” said Trey Cowan, an oil and gas energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Despite these structural shifts, Gross notes, “Trump has a very old-school way of thinking about resource economics,” as a blunt lever of power. As companies like Chevron have found, aligning with his priorities can bring financial and regulatory advantages, even if they are not supported by broader market conditions. This week, the company’s stock jumped 6 percent. On TruthSocial on Tuesday, Trump announced that Caracas would be “turning over” between 30 and 50 million barrels of “Sanctioned Oil.” that will then be sold. “[T]hat money will be controlled by me,” he wrote. Trump hopes to lower oil prices to $50 a barrel, which would squeeze shale producers and destabilize the U.S. oil industry. On Wednesday, the Department of Energy issued a brief announcement elaborating, as Chevron entered talks with the administration to increase its operations and resell oil to other refiners. The statement declares the U.S. will sell the sovereign nation’s crude on the global marketplace, and describes the proceeds as going to “U.S. controlled accounts at globally recognized banks,” an unusual setup that bypasses the U.S. Treasury. The money is vaguely promised to serve both Americans and Venezuelans, and the arrangement will be indefinite. “You’re going to see, probably, a growth in Chevron activities there quickly,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said on Thursday. Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s communications with oil companies, which they claim occurred 10 days before the invasion, while Congress was not briefed. “The suggestion that taxpayers could pay the cost of rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure raise serious concerns about how the Trump Administration engaged with the oil companies prior to his decision to use military force,” they wrote. Gross says to the extent Trump can be described as a populist, it is largely a performance — one “he might play on TV” — but she added that typically, “when you see populist governments take over oil industries, it doesn’t usually turn out well.” In all the turmoil, what no one appears to be asking is what is good for Venezuela. “The saddest part of this is that unwinding the Maduro regime does not seem to be a part of what Trump policy is aiming for,” said Cynthia Arson, former director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Latin American Program. In its statements after the strike, the White House has largely overlooked questions about a democratic transition, sidelining concerns about human rights abuses and the treatment of political prisoners. Even when oil starts flowing, a new Venezuelan government will likely struggle to meet public expectations while attracting foreign investment. Before Chávez, the country’s oil contracts typically gave the government around 50 percent of revenue, helping fund social programs and the middle class. U.S. oil majors, by contrast, often offer royalties around 12 percent. The contrast highlights just how fragile and uncertain the path ahead is: Years of economic collapse, which have driven millions abroad, have left those remaining struggling with profound political and social upheaval that can’t be solved by oil alone. “If good things happen, they’re going to take time,” Gross said. “Bad things could actually happen pretty quickly.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela on Jan 9, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lois Parshley.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land.
After the tribe sued to stop an immigration detention center, the White House vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded Miccosukee land and environmental stewardship.
On Thursday, Republicans in the House failed to override President Donald Trump’s first two vetoes in office: a pipeline project that would bring safe drinking water to rural Colorado, and another that would return land to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida. Their inability to block the president’s move signals their commitment to the White House over their prior support for the measures. The Miccosukee have always considered the Florida Everglades as their home. So when Republicans in Congress voted to expand the tribe’s land base under the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act – legislation that would transfer 30 acres of land in the Everglades to tribal control – the Miccosukee were thrilled. After years of work, the move would have allowed the tribe to begin environmental restoration activities in the area, and better protect it from climate change impacts as extreme flooding and tropical storms threaten the land. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24355470183176.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A tribal village resides near the Everglades" data-caption="A portion of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida’s Everglades known as a tree island, Thursday, July, 11, 2024. " data-credit="Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo"/> A portion of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida’s Everglades known as a tree island, Thursday, July, 11, 2024. Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo “The measure reflected years of bipartisan work and was intended to clarify land status and support basic protections for tribal members who have lived in this area for generations,” wrote Chairman Cypress in a statement last week. “Before the roads and canals were built, and before Everglades National Park was created.” The act was passed on December 11th, but on December 30th, President Donald Trump vetoed it; one of only two vetoes made by the administration since he took office. In a statement, Trump explained that the tribe “actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” after the tribe’s July lawsuit challenging the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration detention center in the Everglades. “It is rare for an administration to veto a bill for reasons wholly unrelated to the merits of the bill,” said Kevin Washburn, a law professor at University of California Berkeley Law and former assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs for the Department of the Interior. Washburn added that while denying land return to a tribe is a political act, Trump’s move is “highly unusual.” When a tribe regains land, the process can be long and costly. The process, known as “land into trust” transfers land title from a tribe to the United States, where the land is then held for the benefit of the tribe and establishes tribal jurisdiction over the land in question. When tribal nations signed treaties in the 19th century ceding land, any lands reserved for tribes, generally, reservations, were held by the federal government “in trust” for the benefit of tribes—meaning tribal nations don’t own these lands despite their sovereign status. Almost all land into trust requests are facilitated at an administrative level by the Department of Interior. The Miccosukee, however, generally must follow a different process. Recognized as a tribal nation by the federal government in 1962, the Miccosukee navigate a unique structure for acquiring tribal land where these requests are made through Congress via legislation instead of by Interior. “It’s ironic, right?” said Matthew Fletcher, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “You’re acquiring land that your colonizer probably took from you a long time ago and then gave it away to or sold it to someone else, and then years later, you’re buying that land back that was taken from you illegally, at a great expense.” While land into trust applications related to tribal gaming operations often meet opposition, Fletcher says applications, like the Miccosukee’s, are usually frictionless. And in cases like the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act which received bipartisan support at the state and federal levels, in trust applications are all but guaranteed. On the House floor on Thursday before the vote, Florida’s Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said “this bill is so narrowly focused that [the veto] makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance that seems to have emanated in this result.” The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, did not respond to requests for comment. In July last year, Gimenez referred to the Miccosukee Tribe as stewards of the Everglades, sponsoring the bill as a way to manage water flow and advance an elevation project, under protection from the Department of Interior, for the village to avert “catastrophic flooding.” “What you’re asking is for people in the same political party of the guy who just vetoed this thing to affirmatively reject the political decision of the President,” Fletcher said. The tribe is unlikely to see its village project materialize under Trump’s second term unless the outcome of this year’s midterms invites a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Studies show that the return of land to tribes provides the best outcomes for the climate. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land. on Jan 9, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Miacel Spotted Elk.
Many of the people who have spent the last five years denouncing the killing of Ashli Babbitt for raiding the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election are celebrating the murder of Renee Nichole Good, a terrified mother killed by masked men from unmarked cars who chased her down a neighborhood street and shot More The post Roaming Charges: In ICE Cold Blood appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396515" class="wp-image-396515 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/stillofshooting.png" alt="" width="680" height="379" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/stillofshooting.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/stillofshooting-500x279.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/stillofshooting-600x334.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Still of an ICE agent shooting Renee Good from a video posted to X by Max Nesterak. Many of the people who have spent the last five years denouncing the killing of Ashli Babbitt for raiding the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election are celebrating the murder of Renee Nichole Good, a terrified mother killed by masked men from unmarked cars who chased her down a neighborhood street and shot her in the face. At 9:30 on Wednesday morning, Renee Good was sitting in her Honda Pilot, with her life partner and dog, on Portland Avenue in the Central neighborhood of Minneapolis, when two unmarked cars approached her. Good waved her hand, signaling for the unmarked cars to go around her. Instead, they stopped. Masked men got out. Good told them: “I’m pulling out.” As two of the men advanced near her maroon Pilot, one of them told her to drive away, while the other shouted, “Get out of the fucking car.” These contradictory instructions are a frequent tactic, since, however you respond, you violate one of the orders, and offer an excuse for escalation. One of the masked men tried to open the passenger door and reach through the window toward Good. Meanwhile, the other agent grabbed the side door. Good put her car in reverse, backed up a little, then pulled forward slowly, turning away from the masked ICE agent who was slightly in front of her. He moves out of the way, almost casually. Then one of the agents fired three shots into Good’s car, hitting her in the face. As she slumped forward, her foot reflexively pressed down on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, hitting a parked car and a light pole a few yards down the street, where it came to a rest. Her partner was heard screaming, “They’ve killed my wife! “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do. They shot her in the head.” A bystander who witnessed the shooting rushed forward to help, but was stopped by an ICE agent. The man said he was a doctor and could render medical aid to the woman who was shot. The ICE agent responded brusquely: “I don’t care,” and ordered him to stay back. Fifteen minutes passed until an ambulance pulled onto Portland Avenue. But it was blocked from coming to Good’s aid by ICE vehicles. Finally, two paramedics trekked through the snow to the scene of the shooting, where they tried to treat Good’s fatal wounds. She was later pronounced dead at Hennepin Hospital. Before her blood was even dry, the President and his henchmen had smeared this bright young woman, this mother and poet, as a domestic terrorist, as an attempted assassin, as a leftist thug. They smeared her before knowing anything about her, what she’d done that day, how she lived her life, who she loved and cared for, what her friends and neighbors and colleagues thought of her. To Trump and his minions, she was an obstacle, someone standing in the way and, therefore, someone who deserved whatever she got, even if it was a bullet in the face. Now the FBI is blocking Minnesota law enforcement officials from analyzing evidence from the shooting. You wonder why they bother. What is there to hide? The murder of Renee Good happened in plain sight. We’ve all seen it from various angles. There was no one in front of Good’s car when she pulled out. No one was run over. The shots were fired from the side, not the front of her Honda. The ICE agent shot her and he walked away. He didn’t limp. He didn’t flinch in pain. He simply walked away. He didn’t seek treatment from the paramedics on the scene. Or show any wounds to his fellow agents. He just walked away. He walked around the scene for three minutes. Then he got in a car and left. (The Intercept identified the shooter as Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent based in St. Paul.) Renee Good was denied medical care and left to bleed out in her car. There’s nothing left to cover up. And perhaps that’s how ICE and the Trump administration want it. <img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396516" class="wp-image-396516 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM-680x517.png" alt="" width="680" height="517" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM-680x517.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM-828x630.png 828w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM-768x584.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM-500x380.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM-600x457.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3.47.07-PM.png 1046w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Renee Nicole Good. Photo: Old Dominion University English Department/Facebook. ICE’s rules of engagement are to intimidate, to terrify. And not just its targets, but entire neighborhoods, communities and cities. They brutalize the innocent not by accident but by tactic. They offer the security of fear. They want you so afraid of them that you’ll snitch your neighbor out, turn in the women who clean your toilets and take care of your kids, denounce the men who mow your lawn, rake your leaves and clean your gutters. They want you to stay inside with your doors locked when you hear a familiar voice scream, as masked men raid your block. Like the cascading violence of the raids themselves, the smearing of the victim is strategic. It’s meant to frighten and paralyze those who might otherwise object. Stand in the way and you will be blamed for whatever happens to you. You will be slimed and slandered beyond all recognition. If you survive, your life will be made hellish, your reputation splattered with lies and calumnies by your own government. ICE has killed before and will kill again. In the last year, ICE agents have fired shots at least 15 times, killing four people. They shot at people trying to warn them of children in the area of their raids and they shot people running away from them. They shot people in a very similar way that they shot Renee Good: while they were in their cars, driving away and then blamed them for trying to run over ICE officers. On September 3, an ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a Mexican national, after dropping his daughter off at pre-school. ICE originally said that Villegas-Gonzalez was shot after he tried to run over an ICE agent, who DHS claimed had been severely wounded. Then, a video of the incident recorded the voice of the officer grazed by Villegas-Gonzalez’s car saying his injury was “nothing major.” Another video showed that Villegas-Gonzalez was driving away from the ICE officers, not toward them. DHS tried to smear Villegas-Gonzalez as a dangerous criminal with a “history of reckless driving.” But a new report by NBC News Chicago shows that he had never been convicted or even charged with a crime. On October 4, an immigration agent shot Marimar Martinez five times while the 30-year-old teaching assistant and US citizen was driving around the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, warning residents of an impending ICE raid. The Border Patrol officer who shot Martinez pulled up beyond her car and shouted, “Do something, bitch!,” as he aimed his assault rifle at her. He later bragged about the shooting in a text message to fellow agents: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” The agents falsely claimed that Martinez had tried to ram them with her car and arrested the seriously wounded woman. The charges against her were later dismissed. A day after the Minneapolis shootings, Border Patrol agents in Portland shot two people, a man and a woman, during a traffic stop in the parking of a medical center complex. Once again they claimed they had tried to use the vehicle as a weapon, although both of them couldn’t have been driving at the same time. DHS also claimed both were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, though they offered no evidence to buttress the charge. The couple, who are reportedly married, escaped on foot and were later taken by Portland to a hospital. The man was shot twice and the woman suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. Portland’s Mayor, Keith Wilson, called for ICE and Border Patrol to leave the city, saying “Portland isn’t a training ground for militarized agents.” So in the course of two days, Trump’s immigration shock troops shot a mother of three and a married couple. These kinds of raids, while shocking to most Americans, are familiar to many immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, countries still haunted by the death squads funded, armed and trained by the CIA. Horrors that they fled and have now reappeared like ghosts from the past here on the streets of Chicago and Minneapolis and Los Angeles. They know all too well that collateral damage is a feature of all paramilitaries. With the murder of Renee Good, ICE has now advanced from scaring the hell out of American citizens to killing them. +++ + Find one true thing in this despicable screed… <img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-396467" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/611609109_10164098937858529_3465070342918970829_n.jpg" alt="" width="520" height="480" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/611609109_10164098937858529_3465070342918970829_n.jpg 520w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/611609109_10164098937858529_3465070342918970829_n-500x462.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px" /> + Trump tried to defend his slanderous comments in an interview with The New York Times… As a slow-motion surveillance video of the shooting played on the laptop, we told him that this angle did not appear to show an ICE officer had been run over. “Well,” Mr. Trump said. “I — the way I look at it …. ” + As far as I can tell, everything this ridiculous clothes-horse said about the killing is a lie, ie, I.C.E. Officers got stuck in the snow. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them, and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396404" class="size-medium wp-image-396404" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-680x1038.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="1038" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-680x1038.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-413x630.jpg 413w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-768x1172.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-1006x1536.jpg 1006w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-500x763.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl-600x916.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/noemcowgirl.jpg 1216w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Kristi Noem blaming the victim in the Minneapolis ICE shooting. + Edward Abbey: “A cowboy is a farm boy in leather britches and a comical hat.” + People who sprouted from what Cockburn called the “mulch of American nutdom” are now running the country. + The only position one can morally take on ICE is the original position many of us advanced years ago: Disarm and Defund ICE, that’s not the Democratic position, which calls for better training and better weapons! A well-trained officer with the right gun should be able to kill an unarmed woman from five feet away with one shot, not three. Three is reckless and wasteful <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396401" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM-680x666.png" alt="" width="680" height="666" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM-680x666.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM-644x630.png 644w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM-768x752.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM-500x489.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM-600x587.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.02.29-PM.png 1038w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + I guess any Minnesotan is now fair game for federal agents to kill because of the childcare “scandal” and the fact that they’ve let Somalis live in the state. + Sarah Lazare, In These Times: “If Trump’s deportation machine were an army, it would be the 13th most heavily funded on earth. This puts it above the militaries of Australia and Canada, and just below Israel’s. This force is invading US cities, yet depicting itself as the victim.” + ICE agents are dressing up as utility workers in Oregon to spy on and gain access to people’s houses. In response, NW Natural Gas issued a public notice about how to identify its employees and contractors in the field. + Minneapolis pastor Rev. Kenny Callaghan on being detained by ICE: “I saw ICE agents circling a young woman who appeared to be Hispanic. I said to this ICE agent, ‘Take me, stop harassing her.’ The agent got in my face, pointed a gun at me, and said, ‘Are you afraid now?’ To which I said, ‘I am not afraid.’ The next thing I knew, they were putting handcuffs on me, and they put me in the back of an SUV. I asked them if I was under arrest. They said to me, ‘Well, you’re white, you won’t be any fun anyway.’” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396525" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-680x389.png" alt="" width="680" height="389" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-680x389.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-1101x630.png 1101w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-768x440.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-1536x879.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-2048x1172.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-500x286.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.22.32-PM-600x343.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Last month, I wrote about the dismaying case of Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, a young Maryland mother who was abducted by ICE while leaving a Taco Bell with her sister and detained, even after her legal team presented proof that she is a US citizen, born in the United States. ICE claimed, with no evidence, that the documents were fakes and kept her imprisoned, facing deportation. This week, ICE finally relented to reality and released her after 25 days in captivity, during which time ICE transferred her to five different detention jails in Maryland, Louisiana, Texas and New Jersey, in an apparent attempt to keep her location hidden from her family, lawyers and the courts. Just another “minor inconvenience” from racial profiling run amok, eh, Justice Kavanaugh? + It’s trigger-happy ranks already swollen with illiterate, obese, and intemperate rejects from the DEA, ATF and county sheriff departments, ICE plans a “wartime recruitment” drive, according to the Washington Post, that will target gun show attendees and military fanatics, using imagery that would embarrass DW Griffith and Lenni Reifinsthal … <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396269" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-680x768.png" alt="" width="680" height="768" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-680x768.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-558x630.png 558w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-768x867.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-1360x1536.png 1360w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-500x565.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM-600x678.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-3.16.41-PM.png 1376w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + The Trump administration has been sending migrant teens caught up in its ICE raids to a juvenile prison in Pennsylvania run by the Abraxas Academy, a company with a history of child abuse. Trump’s Office of Refugee Resettlement awarded Abraxas $9 million to detain young immigrants, many of whom have no criminal record, even though (or perhaps because) the state of Pennsylvania had partially revoked its license after allegations of systemic abuse. + Using federal tax dollars, the Department of Homeland Security posted this ethnic cleansing fantasy on its social media account on New Year’s Eve. Appropriately, the image is by a Japanese artist. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396279" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost-680x960.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="960" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost-680x960.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost-446x630.jpg 446w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost-768x1084.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost-500x706.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost-600x847.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dhsethniccleansingpost.jpg 982w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> +++ + It’s been nearly a week since Trump’s Venezuelan coup and his declaration that the US is running Venezuela. But the US still isn’t running Venezuela. + Trump is doing his best to subvert his own DoJ’s case against Maduro. First, in a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump accused Maduro of heading a drug cartel that his own DoJ now admits doesn’t exist. Second, in his social media post announcing Maduro’s kidnapping, he referred to Maduro as “President Nicolas Maduro,” which contradicts his DOJ’s position that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela and shouldn’t be afforded sovereign immunity. (It was for the reason that the previous Trump administration stopped referring to him as president in 2019, when they were considering a similar operation.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396527" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.28.36-PM-680x362.png" alt="" width="680" height="362" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.28.36-PM-680x362.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.28.36-PM-768x409.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.28.36-PM-500x266.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.28.36-PM-600x319.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.28.36-PM.png 902w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + In his Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump claimed that Maduro was the head of “the vicious cartel known as Cartel de los Soles, which flooded our nation with lethal poison.” In fact, the term Cartel de los Soles is slang for “drug corruption in the military.” When your case crumbles before you even present it to a judge… + One of the Department of Justice’s key witnesses in its case against Maduro is Hugo Carvajal, a former Venezuelan general, who pleaded guilty last year to drug trafficking charges and, in December, wrote a letter asking for leniency, in which he backed the farcical claim that Venezuela had helped rig the 2020 election for Biden. + The big question in Venezuela remains: who was the CIA’s source inside the Maduro government? Much of the focus has been on VP, Delcy Rodriguez, who, though she has publicly denounced the raid and kidnapping, seems to be maintaining a back-channel to Rubio. But her hold on power remains tenuous, with Chauvistas to the left of her, MUD to her right and the generals watching for any false step. Jon Lee Anderson: “I guess she’s expected to keep the heads of the military and the intelligence services from doing any power grabs or displacing her. But there may be mutual suspicions there. So it’s kind of a knife-edge situation.” + Stephen Miller: “We’re a superpower and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries but not to us. We are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country. We set the terms and conditions. We have a complete embargo on all of their oil and their ability to do commerce.” + So the Pentagon has been low-balling the number of people they’ve killed in boat strikes. The latest tally they admit to: 123. + Does a confident “superpower,” secure in its own invincibility and awesomeness, have to boast that it’s a “superpower”? +++ + Trump has spent the last year furiously deporting as many Venezuelan immigrants in the US as he can without affording them any kind of due process. Now he has kidnapped the same nation’s President and First Lady, hauled them into the US and is putting them on trial in federal court in New York City. The irony is worthy of an O. Henry story. + Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities: This sort of spectacular operation is very consistent. Trump likes to hit adversaries that can’t hit back, whether it’s small drug-smuggling boats, or Iran with no air defenses, or Venezuela, which is also weak…. And to me, that explains the more accommodating approach to Russia and China, in the sense that his view of military power is kind of go big or go home. But that model doesn’t work against Russia and China. + The Democratic Party position on Venezuela is beginning to congeal back into its default mode: Maduro is an evil dictator who had to go, but Trump doesn’t have a long-term plan! <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396278" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro-680x422.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="422" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro-680x422.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro-1016x630.jpg 1016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro-768x476.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro-500x310.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro-600x372.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/newsommaduro.jpg 1290w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + On Tuesday, Brazil’s Health Minister, Antonio Padilha, announced that the government is sending drugs, doctors and medical equipment to Venezuela in response to the US bombing of a dialysis center there. “We can’t forget that Venezuela sent 135,000m³ of Oxygen to Manaus during the pandemic,” Padilha said. + The judge in the Maduro case is 92-year-old Alvin Hellerstein. Perhaps after the trial, he can run for the Senate as a Democrat. + If you’re going to shamelessly exploit your brother’s death (at the hands of Big Pharma) to defend two kidnappings and the slaughter of more than 80 people by the US military, you’ve got to come with better game than this Witkoff… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396267" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs-680x716.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="716" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs-680x716.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs-598x630.jpg 598w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs-768x809.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs-500x527.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs-600x632.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/witkoffdrugs.jpg 1018w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Instead of double-tapping airstrikes to kill boat strike survivors in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the US is now simply leaving them to drown. The Intercept reports that the Coast Guard has called off its searches for people who jumped into the sea after watching the U.S. military destroy other ships. + Stephen Miller, declaring Venezuela as a de facto colony of Trumplandia: “The only maritime energy transport allowed will be that consistent with American law and national security. There is unlimited economic potential for the Venezuelan energy sector through legitimate and authorized commercial avenues established by the United States.” + The New York Times interviews Beelzebub on Venezuela, who, surprise!, wants more kidnappings and bloodshed… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-396416" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abramsvenez.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="664" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abramsvenez.jpg 614w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abramsvenez-583x630.jpg 583w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abramsvenez-500x541.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abramsvenez-600x649.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px" /> +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396468" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup-680x609.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="609" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup-680x609.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup-704x630.jpeg 704w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup-768x688.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup-500x448.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup-600x537.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/chevronpostcoup.jpeg 1206w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Chevron holds a near monopoly on oil allowed out of Venezuela under the Trump blockade. Its stock spiked on Monday after the semi-coup. + Matt Breunig: “These ‘American’ oil companies are these publicly-traded entities collectively owned by the global capitalist class. It’s very anachronistic to think of them as national entities.” + Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Venezuela: “I reject President Trump’s belief that we should be engaging in regime change wars… It sounds like a massive nation-building project with basically no plan for what comes next, other than him stealing Venezuela’s oil to enrich his friends.” + Sen. Rick Scott: “I’m glad the president didn’t just take Maduro and walk away. I’m glad that he’s committed to freedom and democracy in Venezuela. Now, I can’t tell you how they’re going to get there …” + Greg Grandin: “The promise of limitlessness combined with the idea that the US is an anticolonial power has created a syndrome: “borderline on the borderlands,” in which no socializing ego can mediate tween narcissism of superego (US good) and Id (US bad). True for politicians as for intellectuals.” + David J. Bier: “The dehumanization of foreigners never ends at the border. Once you consider a group to be not worthy of human rights, you don’t suddenly think, “Maybe we shouldn’t kill them and take their stuff” once they’re outside of the country.” + Tucker Carlson: “Rather than manage the country on a day-to-day basis, Washington will likely attempt to pull its strings from afar, effectively ruling it with the implied threat of further military action. If that strikes you as the behavior of an empire, you are correct.” + A senior Pentagon official told Nick Turse of the Intercept that after the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores: “The liberal rules-based order is dead.” If so, Biden and Blinken put it on life support and the Trump Gang pulled the plug. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396450" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder-680x480.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="480" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder-680x480.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder-893x630.jpg 893w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder-768x542.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder-500x353.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder-600x423.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mcfaulliberalorder.jpg 1032w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + If McFaul’s right, then the “Liberal International Order” gave us the catastrophes of Vietnam, the Chilean coup, genocide in East Timor, Central American death squads, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, to pick merely some of the highlights of the past half-century’s “rules-based order”… + McFaul is proof that any simpleton can become an ambassador and translate that into a career as a talking head. As Jeffrey Sommers reminded me, McFaul made the following admission in 2016, while he was regarding offering an “informed” opinion on Syria: “I’m on TV all the time where I have to use the phrase ‘moderate opposition,’ and I don’t know what it means.” + Doug Henwood reminded me that McFaul was a regular, if notably foolish, presence on Johnson’s Russia List back in the 1990s. Johnson’s List was a read so essential to understanding what was going on inside post-Soviet Russia that the pre-Mac Alexander Cockburn made me read every entry and forward him a summary of the “nuggets” by fax. +++ + Israel has now killed more than 420 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire, causing OED editors to scramble into order to enlarge the definition of “ceasefire.” + Despite 969 Israeli violations over 80 days, including the killing of 420 Palestinians, the wounding of 1,141 and allowing only 40% of the aid trucks mandated by the truce into Gaza, Trump declared last week that Israel is “100% in compliance” with the ceasefire. Later, Netanyahu announced that Trump would be the first non-Israeli to receive the Israel Prize, which is the near opposite of the Nobel Peace Prize. + Amid reports that Israel has killed more than 700 relatives of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate cited the ghastly number of deaths as evidence that Israel is using collective punishment to crush reporting of its genocidal war in Gaza. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396277" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-680x280.png" alt="" width="680" height="280" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-680x280.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-1200x494.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-768x316.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-1536x632.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-500x206.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists-600x247.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/roughyearjournalists.png 1904w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + “A rough year”? Is that how AP refers to Israel killing hundreds of Palestinian journalists and their families? + Trump/Netanyahu ceasefire plan for Gaza: keep them houseless, starving, hypothermic and sick…until they leave or die. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396387" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups-680x551.png" alt="" width="680" height="551" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups-680x551.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups-777x630.png 777w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups-768x623.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups-500x405.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups-600x486.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gazaaidgroups.png 930w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Israel is the first country in the world to ban the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders. + Dershowitz: Palestinians haven’t “earned” the right for statehood the way Jews have: “You can’t just create a state out of nothing!” + Haaretz reported last week that a month before the October 7, 2023, attacks, Israel asked Qatar to increase the funds transferred to Hamas in Gaza. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396414" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM-680x191.png" alt="" width="680" height="191" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM-680x191.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM-1200x338.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM-768x216.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM-500x141.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM-600x169.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-4.46.51-PM.png 1422w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + New study (this one by the London School of Economics), same old results: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down. Indeed, Julian Limberg, a co-author of the study, said the opposite is true: “Based on our research, we would argue that the economic rationale for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak. In fact, if we look back into history, the period with the highest taxes on the rich — the postwar period — was also a period with high economic growth and low unemployment.” + Communities across the country are rising up and beating back AI data centers. According to Data Center Watch, $98 billion in planned AI data center development was derailed in a single quarter last year alone. + 36 states have given tax exemptions to data centers. In 2025, Virginia lost $1.6 billion in revenue because of the tax exemptions granted to data centers. + Elon Musk’s wealth increased by $24 billion in 2025. That’s about $4 billion more than it would take to end homelessness in the US. + Elon Musk overruled the concerns of his safety engineers and demanded electric doors in his Tesla Model 3 sedans. Now Bloomberg reports that at least 15 people have died in more than a dozen crashes where those doors refused to open… + Tesla sales fell by nearly 10 percent in 2025, hammered by Musk’s association with Trump and Trump pulling the plug on EV incentives. Tesla is falling further and further behind China’s cheaper and more advanced BYD. + Taylor Lorenz reported for Zeteo how Musk’s AI bot Grok is being used to “undress women and children” and post the images online, including disrobed images of Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji. + C. Wright Mills: “People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves ‘naturally’ elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.” + Mathematician Joel David: “Current AI models are basically zero help for mathematics. They produce garbage answers that are not mathematically correct, then, when you point out the exact error, they still argue that they are fine. If I were having this conversation with a person, I wouldn’t talk to that person again.” + Last spring, Trump abolished a Biden rule that capped overdraft fees at $5. Now, banks are back to charging as much as $35 per overdraft. Last year, he 20 biggest US banks made over $3 billion in overdraft fees alone. + Using the alleged Minnesota childcare scandal as a pretext, Trump suspended $10 billion in federal childcare funds to five blue states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York. They really want mothers out of the workplace and back in the house. + Historically, first responder calls in California have been free. Now that’s changing. This year, people in the Bay Area will have to pay the fire department for paramedical services: San Francisco: $567 Vallejo: $561 San Jose $427 Alameda: $393 Napa: $333 + Nineteen states increased their minimum wage last year. By the end of 2026, 17 states and DC will have minimum wages over $15 an hour. In Washington state and NYC, the minimum will be over $17 an hour. +++ + Dr. Neil Stone on RFK Jr’s decision to drop the recommendation for vaccinating children against meningitis: “Meningitis can kill kids within hours. CDC data shows meningococcal vaccines reduced U.S cases by over 75% since 2005, with effectiveness exceeding 90% in young children.” + RFK, Jr on the expanding measles outbreak: “Only very sick kids should die from measles.” In fact, no kid should die of measles, since vaccines almost entirely prevent the disease. + 2750 gigatons: amount of CO2 emitted since the Industrial Revolution from the burning of fossil fuels and land use change–more than the mass of all living things on earth and everything humans have ever built combined. + Despite Trump’s tantrums, threats and tariffs, Europe bought less energy from the US in 2005 than it did in the previous three years… European Imports of oil and liquid natural gas from the US in Billions of $ 2025 $66 bn 2024 $68 bn 2023 $73 bn 2022 $118 bn + “Vandals” makes them sound like drunken high school boys out smashing mailboxes instead of the racist goons they are, engaging in terroristic tactics to crush dissent–environmental, native or labor– that has typified the mining companies from the beginning of their assault on the American West… <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2026/01/06/oak-flat-vandalism-could-have-harmed-apache-stronghold-leader/88048442007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z11xx52p119850c119850d00----v11xx52d--54--b--54--&gca-ft=222&gca-ds=sophi&fbclid=IwY2xjawPLx5NleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE3WmZNZGZJOVU5YmVqajRqc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHmEcEB3lRgsp-csX8dLOWFxF0So7l-R5Jrp8F4yE_FR1MAcXihvvbc9M3PQy_aem_spfqQ5zh_PyoxpK_ONFgLQ"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396405" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals-680x351.png" alt="" width="680" height="351" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals-680x351.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals-1200x620.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals-768x397.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals-500x258.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals-600x310.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/vandals.png 1402w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> +++ + Here’s JD Vance’s political Svengali, Curtis Yarvin, doubling down on his admiration for Hitler, Adolf Hitler… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396281" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yarvinhitler-680x349.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="349" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yarvinhitler-680x349.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yarvinhitler-768x394.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yarvinhitler-500x256.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yarvinhitler-600x308.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yarvinhitler.jpg 1190w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Stephen Miller: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” Almost invariably, people who have lived by this “iron law” have tended to come to rather unpleasant ends… + Speaking of Reich fantasies, is the soundtrack for this post from Trump’s Labor Department meant to be the Horst Wessel song or Wagner’s Götterdämmerung at full-blast? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396259" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-680x1068.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="1068" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-680x1068.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-401x630.jpg 401w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-768x1206.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-978x1536.jpg 978w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-500x785.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme-600x942.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dojreichmeme.jpg 1038w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Looking forward to the ADL’s defense of this… + Of course, there was something deeply wrong with this country long before Donald Trump came to power. Imagine playing a New Year’s Day football game just down the road from Ground Zero in Nagasaki, as a celebration of an atomic blast that killed 70,000 people only five months earlier? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396390" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl-680x537.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="537" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl-680x537.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl-797x630.jpg 797w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl-768x607.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl-500x395.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl-600x474.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/atomicbowl.jpg 1116w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> +++ + Citing “dangerous times,” Trump said this week that the US needs to increase the Pentagon’s budget by 50 percent, which, when combined with his tax cuts, will balloon the deficit. These “dangers,” of course, are almost entirely of his own making. + Newly released UK government files suggest that former Prime Minister Tony Blair pressured officials to ensure British soldiers accused of mistreating Iraqi civilians during the war would not be tried in civil courts. + Trump’s ICE agents have been tear-gassing, body-slamming, clubbing and shooting “rubber” bullets at peaceful protesters for the last 12 months… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396280" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-680x439.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="439" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-680x439.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-975x630.jpg 975w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-768x496.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-1536x992.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-500x323.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet-600x388.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpirantweet.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + 500: Number of bombing raids by the Trump administration in 2025, according to ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data). + Trump wants to sanction the judges who found French fascist Marine Le Pen guilty of corruption and embezzlement of funds from the European Union… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions-680x769.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="769" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions-680x769.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions-557x630.jpg 557w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions-768x868.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions-500x565.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions-600x678.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/lepenjudgessanctions.jpg 918w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Trump ranting about the media at an event Republican celebrating the Jan. 6 riots: “They have the worst policy. How do we have to even run against these people. Now I won’t say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news with say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ Nobody is worse than Obama.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396245" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-680x424.png" alt="" width="680" height="424" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-680x424.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-1010x630.png 1010w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-768x479.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-1536x958.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-2048x1278.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-500x312.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-12.33.09-PM-600x374.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Newly released emails showed that the Trump/Bondi Justice Department misled a federal judge when they told him that local prosecutors had acted alone in charging Kilmar Abrego Garcia. + Over the last five years, Baltimore has reduced its homicide rate by nearly 60 percent. + NYT on the Brown and MIT shooter’s videos: “What he does not do is explain an explicit motive for the two shootings, though threaded through his disturbing, meandering and occasionally nonsensical monologue is a profound sense of grievance about unspecified things he has had to endure.” Sounds familiar… + Engagé! Former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander on Dan Goldman’s re-election campaign launch: “Goldman literally chummed it up with Don Jr. on vacation in the Bahamas, praising Trump’s Israel policy.” + Nancy Pelosi to Lander on his plans to challenge Goldman: “I’m a Dan Goldman Democrat. [Of course, she is.] Democrats don’t run against Democrats.” Isn’t that what primaries are all about? +++ + Who needs Fox News? (The problem for Bari Weiss and the Ellisons will be that Fox News does this stuff better and the people who watch CBS News won’t want to watch Fox News Lite.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396275" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica-680x896.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="896" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica-680x896.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica-478x630.jpg 478w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica-768x1012.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica-500x659.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica-600x791.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsweloveamerica.jpg 1058w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + We all know there’s no crying in baseball, but there is at the new Bari Weiss-run CBS News… + Bari Weiss is the elite working for a company owned by the 2nd or 3rd richest man in the world, depending on the daily vagaries of the market, who decides which “Average American” gets to give CBS viewers their “analysis” of what’s going on… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396413" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy-680x763.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="763" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy-680x763.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy-562x630.jpg 562w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy-768x861.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy-500x561.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy-600x673.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/cbsaverageguy.jpg 1038w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Spencer Ackerman: “We don’t have to be naive about the failures of elite journalism before the Ellisons bought CBS and installed the unqualified Weiss to recognize that this is no alternative to those failures but instead their logical result.” +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396412" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber-680x766.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="766" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber-680x766.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber-559x630.jpg 559w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber-768x866.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber-500x564.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber-600x676.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/taibbiblabber.jpg 1338w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Matt Taibbi sinks lower and lower into a quagmire of his own making. He is now suing an excellent journalist, Eoin Higgins, over his portrait of Taibbi in Owned, Higgins’ scathing account of how tech billionaires bought off a group of once “enterprising” young journalists. As if to prove Higgins’s thesis, Taibbi’s defense of his censorious libel action is printed in Bari Weiss’s Free Press. Weiss, of course, was his partner in the Elon Musk-funded escapade to prove how Twitter allegedly censored rightwing voices. (Higgins was a regular contributor to CounterPunch for several years.) + James Marriott: “Democracy is the creation of a print culture. I’m very skeptical you can have democracy without print. It’s basically never been tried.” This seems more and more evident every day… + I watched Jafar Pahani’s No Bears again on New Year’s Day. And it makes almost everything coming out of Hollywood, even the so-called independent films, seem puerile by comparison. Set aside the extraordinary circumstances under which it was made (the director banned from making films or leaving Iran, the film secretly made on relatively cheap digital cameras in a remote village and, like Bresson, using mainly non-actors, then smuggled out of Iran on hard-drives inside a cake, with the director jailed upon its release), No Bears is tense, funny, stylistically inventive, introspective, politically subversive and beautifully shot and composed with Pahani playing a slightly fictionalized version of himself. I don’t know how long it will be on Criterion, but if you haven’t seen it, check it out. Few film-makers have ever risked so much, under an unforgiving and repressive regime, and achieved such a morally complex and aesthetically moving, and I rarely use this term for film, work of art. The ending, or endings, since there are two–one of the film No Bears and the other for the film inside the film–leave you suspended, not in a gimmicky Hitchcock fashion, but suspended as Pahani himself is, as well as Iran itself. Panahi’s latest film, It Was Just an Accident, is one of the best films of 2025. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396274" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears-680x1002.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="1002" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears-680x1002.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears-427x630.jpg 427w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears-768x1132.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears-500x737.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears-600x884.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nobears.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Sometimes hope comes in the strangest places, like the hacker who deleted “Tinder for Nazis” and leaked thousands of its profiles online: Livestreaming the moment while dressed as a pink Power Ranger, the German web activist – styling herself as “Martha Root” – said the site’s security was so weak it ‘would make even your grandma’s AOL account blush’. She has since extracted 8,000 profiles and posted them online – though the total number of profiles in the leaked data is believed to be much higher… + Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård: My father told me something when I was very small to instill confidence in me: ‘Nobody in the world is worth more than you, but nobody’s worth less.’ It is an egalitarian view that I’ve carried around in my life. That’s why I am for free schools, free universities, free health care, and free babysitting. Because our society could afford it. In America, people think social democracy is some kind of communism. They think capitalism is freedom. It’s not. It’s only freedom to exploit people. + A few years after Alexander Cockburn died, the novelist (Zone of the Interior) and screenwriter (Frida) Clancy Sigal, who had been Doris Lessing’s lover and was the model for the Saul Green character in The Golden Notebook, told me that he and Cockburn went on “double dates” with Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton in London in the mid-60s, switching partners each outing. Alex never boasted to me about these revolving assignations and he certainly wasn’t shy when it came to recounting his flirtations with beautiful women, including playing “footsie” with Norris Church, while her husband, Norman Mailer, pontificated at length across the dinner table in Martha’s Vineyard one night…So who knows the veracity of the tale? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396386" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-680x945.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="945" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-680x945.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-453x630.jpg 453w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-768x1068.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-1105x1536.jpg 1105w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-500x695.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips-600x834.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/shrimptonlips.jpg 1118w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> She had hair just like Jean Shrimpton back in 1965 She had legs that never ended I was halfway hypnotized + Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies was one of several novels to enter the public domain last week. It’s a slashing, funny and acerbic portrait of a vacuous class of people and a better read than Brideshead, IMHO. + I was never bewitched by the “genius” of Duane Allman (I thought Dickie Betts was the driving creative force of the Allman Bros, a better songwriter and guitar player), so I was pleased to have my heterodox views confirmed by the great Bobby Whitlock’s appraisal of Duane’s “famous” collaboration with Derek and the Dominoes during the recording of Layla and Other Love Songs: Duane was a hired gun. He played with us twice, and it was not good both times he played, because he was not a fluid player … He could play parts, but he couldn’t sing with his guitar. Whitlock’s contributions to that record and the short-lived band’s live recordings were equal to Clapton’s, though he had to fight to get songwriting credits, most egregiously for “Bell Bottom Blues.” (As for Slowhand, he was always a demigod, not God.) Whitlock, child of Memphis and a Stax original, died last summer. But here he is, a few years back, still in fine form, playing in Austin with his wife, the sax player Coco Carmel… Booked Up What I’m reading this week… Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain Nicholas Wright (St. Martin’s) The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media Nathan Jurgenson (Verso) Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left Eoin Higgins (Bold Type) Sound Grammar What I’m listening to this week… Marchin’ On The Heath Brothers (Strata East) Golden Flower: Live in Sweden Yusef Lateef (Elemental Music) Fuzz’s Fourth Dream Fuzz (In the Red) When Moral Indignation Goes Extinct “The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness. We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion. Very often, the fear of total permanent war paralyzes the kind of morally oriented politics, which might engage our interests and our passions. We sense the cultural mediocrity around us-and in us-and we know that ours is a time when, within and between all the nations of the world, the levels of public sensibilities have sunk below sight; atrocity on a mass scale has become impersonal and official; moral indignation as a public fact has become extinct or made trivial.” – C. Wright Mills The post Roaming Charges: In ICE Cold Blood appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.
CPJ, partners: RSF must release Sudanese journalist Muammar Ibrahim
New York, January 9, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists was joined by 75 other rights groups and journalists in expressing concern over the continued detention of Sudanese journalist Muammar Ibrahim by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and calling for his release and protection. Ibrahim has been held since October 26, 2025, following his detention in...
New York, January 9, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists was joined by 75 other rights groups and journalists in expressing concern over the continued detention of Sudanese journalist Muammar Ibrahim by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and calling for his release and protection. Ibrahim has been held since October 26, 2025, following his detention in El-Fasher, North Darfur. Videos circulated by the RSF confirm he remains in custody, but no independent or verifiable information is available regarding his health, legal status, or conditions of detention, as he has largely been held incommunicado. The statement underscores that journalists are civilians entitled to protection under international humanitarian law and urges all parties to the conflict in Sudan to respect the work and safety of journalists. Read the full statement in English and العربية. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
On January 3rd, the United States invaded and bombed Venezuela and abducted President Maduro and First Lady Flores. This violent act of imperialist aggression by the Trump regime is a continuation of over two decades of hybrid warfare aimed at suppressing the Bolivarian Revolution. Over the past months, the US has been escalating aggression against More The post Hugo Chávez Predicted This appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396546" class="wp-image-396546 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-680x497.png" alt="" width="680" height="497" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-680x497.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-862x630.png 862w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-768x561.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-1536x1123.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-2048x1497.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-500x365.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.23.07-PM-600x439.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> A mural of Hugo Chávez in Mérida city. Image Wikipedia. On January 3rd, the United States invaded and bombed Venezuela and abducted President Maduro and First Lady Flores. This violent act of imperialist aggression by the Trump regime is a continuation of over two decades of hybrid warfare aimed at suppressing the Bolivarian Revolution. Over the past months, the US has been escalating aggression against Venezuela, but this abduction is the culmination of over two decades of imperialist war. In fact, it was predicted 20 years ago this year by Hugo Chávez, the first president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, at an address to the UN General Assembly. In 2006, in what became one of his most iconic speeches, Hugo Chávez said: “The government of the United States doesn’t want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war. It wants peace. But what’s happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What’s happening? What’s happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela — new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?” Chávez could have made this exact speech today, last year, or really any time in the past two decades. His words are so apt for today because US foreign policy has not changed. It is the same violent maintenance and exertion of its hegemony and deadly system of exploitation and hegemony, no matter if orchestrated in blue or red. This is what we have been seeing with Israel’s genocide in Gaza, attacks on Lebanon and Yemen, regime change in Syria, threats and attacks on Iran, suffocation of Cuba, provocations and war preparation against China, proxy war in Ukraine, and continued regime change attempts against Venezuela. Chávez’s words will remain timeless as long as US imperialism remains intact and the <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=a5b37747-3cea-4f47-b48d-67e2fcecd6d4&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3Da5b37747-3cea-4f47-b48d-67e2fcecd6d4%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793492000&usg=AOvVaw0VABWGiAzVRapRW9ko78Yu">smell of sulfur remains. Since 1998, with the election of the revolutionary leader Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution, the United States has been hellbent on overthrowing the government of Venezuela. Before Chávez, American companies ran wild in Venezuela, extracting and exploiting natural resources and labor. In the 1980s, Venezuela adopted US-backed neoliberal reforms, which emphasized an open oil market, deregulation, and privatization, which accumulated huge profits for US companies at the expense of the Venezuelan people. This is the Venezuela that the United States wants; in fact, this is the US’s modus operandi across Latin America. Today, the media class is doubling down on its line of Venezuela’s fall from grace as the richest country in Latin America. This regime change propaganda has been plastered across media platforms, like CBS’s <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=1eb39e85-587d-48e0-9d0f-2790e802be36&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3D1eb39e85-587d-48e0-9d0f-2790e802be36%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793492000&usg=AOvVaw0o5N8pBAIYoZicZK1hX9-2">60 Minutes, to manufacture consent for US regime change operations, impending invasion, and for continued US war crimes against small boats in the Caribbean. Coincidentally erased from these media narratives are the impacts of suffocation with US-led sanctions, which have slashed Venezuela’s oil revenues by 213% between January 2017 and December 2024. This amounts to $77 million in losses every single day. These unilateral coercive measures are a form of warfare aimed at impoverishing the Venezuelan people, blaming the Bolivarian Revolution for hardships, and triggering regime change from utter suffering. It is shameful, though unsurprising given these are the same media outlets justifying US-Israeli genocide, to peddle this lie, which purposefully erases the true history of neoliberal Venezuela. In this era, romanticized by these imperialist mouthpieces as a haven to which they want Venezuela to return, just 20% of the Venezuelan population was benefiting from oil wealth, while the other 80% suffered from poverty. Also erased from these narratives are the horrors of IMF austerity, which overnight locked out millions of people from basic necessities and essential services, leading to Caracazo, an uprising of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans opposing these neoliberal reforms. It is convenient for 60 Minutes and others to erase the deaths of over 3,000 people from the military crush of these protests, just as it is to remove all traces of the neoliberal crisis that the US enforced on the country. But despite attempts, they cannot redact how the horrific neoliberalism of the 1980s and 1990s brought about the popular uprising led by Commandante Hugo Chávez, which eventually led to his successful election as president in 1998. While Chávez’s victory did not immediately alert Washington, and the Clinton administration adopted a “wait and see” policy, in the years following, alarms certainly began to ring. Chávez’s openly anti-imperialist politik, including selling oil to Cuba and supporting anti-imperialist resistance and governments, and the imposition of Venezuela’s sovereignty, quickly made US politicians, oil tycoons, and those with stakes in the US empire tremble. Sabotage Made in the White House (2001-4) With the arrival of Bush in the White House in 2001, US policy towards Venezuela became more overtly aggressive, with Chávez as the target fresh from re-election victory. This shift was deepened in response to Chávez’s opposition to Bush’s so-called “war on terror” and refusal to join the “coalition of the willing, as well as Venezuela’s escalating assertion of its oil sovereignty. As the US escalated attacks across Afghanistan and Iraq, Chávez criticized and called out the terror and violence the US imposed across the world and domestically. Chávez’s bold opposition to US terror was a substantial threat to the imperialist coalition that sought to impose its violent will on the peoples of West Asia. In response, the US accelerated its hybrid warfare from a campaign of pressure and isolation to regime change. This came to a head in 2002, when the US backed and coordinated right-wing elites to kidnap Chávez in an attempted coup where they tried to dissolve the constitution of the Bolivarian Republic. In quick succession, the US recognized the short-lived 47-hour coup , which embarrassingly failed as popular forces rallied in tandem with the military to brush off the coup. Rather than demoralize the Venezuelan people, this coup galvanized the socialist project with oil revenues now reinvested in education, healthcare, and housing rather than the pockets of US tycoons. The government built 3,000 new schools and, by 2005, <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=ddfb2894-c935-4d2a-bf61-5c826d700dd6&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3Dddfb2894-c935-4d2a-bf61-5c826d700dd6%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw25bxFczWwBGCMDaA9Vlhmr">eradicated illiteracy with the support of Cuba; set up 6,000 community health clinics as 15,000 Cuban doctors provided healthcare for millions of Venezuelans; and by 2009, infant mortality was cut by <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=8a93113d-a16d-4fee-8578-0eced301bc92&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3D8a93113d-a16d-4fee-8578-0eced301bc92%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw1k-3mBcwYqIWw372gOntlH">40%, and the free healthcare system was caring for millions of Venezuelans. In the face of overwhelming support for the revolution, the US changed course and used economic and technological warfare to try to strangle the revenue the government was relying on to fund its sweeping reforms. 8 months after the failed coup, the US-backed opposition groups sabotaged the nationalized oil company, PDVSA, through INTESA (majority owned by US weapons company SAIC) , a company working in PDVSA. At the same time, US-funded opposition groups provoked a “strike” at PDVSA. The strike and lockout cost the country <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=a5c03a24-e3b9-4f94-9424-aca4e69768a9&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3Da5c03a24-e3b9-4f94-9424-aca4e69768a9%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw3o48BrohsVJsAWwvBPUvLi">$20 billion, which could have been used to fund the healthcare system, to build a million homes, or continue to better the lives of Venezuelan people. In 2004, US-trained thugs violently attacked and killed people in Caracas in another attempt to oust Chávez. This was quickly followed by a NED- and USAID-funded campaign, led by US puppet Maria Corina Machado, for a referendum to recall President Chávez. This was yet another attempt to impose regime change that was crushed repeatedly by the streets. Despite relentless attempts to overthrow Chávez, the revolutionary government pushed ahead with anti-imperialist worldbuilding in forming the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, as an anti-hegemonic alternative to the US ‘Free Trade Area of the Americas’ (FTAA) which prioritized social programme and solidarity over neoliberal, extractive “trade”; leadership of OPEC to facilitate development and constitute the progressive bloc across Latin America; and challenged US imperialist violence, with powerful statements like: ‘From Latin America, from Venezuela, we send out our heart to our brothers the Iraqi people, and the Arab peoples … who are fighting the battle against the imperialist aggressor” (Hugo Chávez, April 2004) Second Offensive (2005-08) As Venezuela continued using oil incomes to develop Venezuela in the interests of the people, the US imperialist aggression continued in full force. This pushed the United States into formulating a multi-pronged approach aimed at overthrowing the Bolivarian revolution. In 2005, the Bush administration imposed formal sanctions on Venezuela and funnelled millions of dollars into opposition figures to cause chaos and suffering. This approach has been tried and tested by the US empire across the world, most notably in Cuba, where a decades-long total blockade has sought to produce immense suffering amongst the Cuban people, that they support the overthrow of their own government via US-backed figures. Between 2005 and 2012, the US used the National Endowment for Democracy to funnel $30 million into opposition parties, non-governmental organizations, and other opposition groups in Venezuela. This spiked ahead of the December 2006 presidential election with the aim of propelling figures to undermine the democratic process and provide domestic calls for US invasion. One of the key figures to emerge from this money was Maria Corina Machado, the 2025 winner of the Nobel “Peace” Prize and vocal supporter of the US imperialist invasion of Venezuela. After the Trump regime killed over 110 Venezuelans and abducted their President, totally undermining the sovereignty of a country, Machado stated the US had fulfilled its promise to enforce the law. Such figures, despite being snubbed by their puppet master, Trump, are paraded to give the sense that imperialist invasion has a domestic face. In 2005, the US officially labelled Venezuela a “non-cooperative” country and banned the sale of all weapons, parts, and software, including maintenance of F-16 fighter jets and any regional defense cooperation. Under the guise of “terror, the Bush administration effectively imposed an embargo on the country as an attempt to suppress its international solidarity, bold policy, and socialist construction. Over the following years, the Bush administration continued imperialist attacks, including propaganda of “authoritarianism” and human rights abuses, lawfare imperialism via companies like Exxon, as well as escalating targeted sanctions, including on the financial sector, the first OFAC designations for senior Venezuelan officials, as well as other individuals and businesses at whim. All the while, Venezuela was providing free heating oil to Americans across 25 states. The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program began in 2005 and provided over 2 million Americans with free and discounted heating services, including for homeless shelters and Native American communities. While the US was investing millions of dollars into attacking Venezuela and bringing about regime change, the Chávez government was providing aid to the American people. This material international solidarity provided to exploited Americans was part of a wider and sweeping investment in public services in Venezuela itself. By 2008, Venezuela’s GDP grew by almost 5%, driven by the oil boom, which facilitated the massive investments in public spending. In this period, 25% of oil revenue went directly into the government’s Fonden national fund for direct investment into public projects for food sovereignty, housing, education, healthcare, transportation, cooperatives, sanitation, and socialist construction. <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=e9dfdc57-e9fd-49bf-8c45-f55fcad3f2f4&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3De9dfdc57-e9fd-49bf-8c45-f55fcad3f2f4%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw3C-mjDjyExX7BU_l-_UpGr">Between 1998 and 2008, 17 large hospitals were built, primary-care physicians increased twelve-fold, infant mortality fell by more than a third, death from malnutrition cut by half, higher education enrolment more than doubled, foreign debt fell by more than half, five million people were brought into formal sanitation systems, major new transportation networkers were built, and 6,200 new cooperatives received funding. The Venezuelan people’s material conditions were vastly improved by this ambitious and socialist government, using oil revenue in the interests of the people. This, of course, motivated the United States’ coercive measures. Coercion and control (2009-13) The Obama regime’s first moves marked an escalation in direct attacks on revolutionary leaders in government in Venezuela. Between 2010 and 2013, Obama sanctioned 19 Venezuelan officials, froze their assets, and denied them travel, all based on lies over “drugs.” Such a turn marked a move to designate individuals as enemies of the United States and provide propaganda points for further actions. Years before, Chávez predicted this labelling of “narco-trafficking” as justification for invasion and regime change. The same formula was also imposed on Diosdado Cabello and then Maduro. In an <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=92912614-1ee2-48d2-9f1a-d4d7300f9a81&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3D92912614-1ee2-48d2-9f1a-d4d7300f9a81%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw3UzOb2s0x5ML8jfLUeTKuR">interview in 2005, Chávez said: “Years ago, someone told me: ‘They’re going to end up accusing you of being a drug trafficker—you personally—you, Chávez. Not just that the government supports it, or permits it—no, no, no. They’re going to try to apply the Noriega formula to you.” In 2013, Hugo Chávez passed away, leaving behind a legacy inspiring Venezuelans and all those across the world who moved to build societies based on peace and justice. The Presidential election of 2013 set out the same playbook the US was to use in all preceding elections. The vote was won by Nicolás Maduro, who contested a NED-funded candidate, Henrique Capriles, who refused to accept his defeat and claimed it was a rigged election. The Obama regime used this opportunity to give grounds for regime change by denouncing the election results and labeling Maduro the illegitimate leader. Thus arose the newest villain in Venezuela, deemed an authoritarian human rights-abusing dictator, or whichever combination of words the US ruling class selected that day. US-funded groups instigated violent riots across Venezuela, providing the ideal conditions for the “imperialism of peace” waged by the US on the country. The “Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act” passed in 2014 provided further basis for widespread sanctions, using so-called “human rights” as the rationale for interference and punitive measures. The most prominent propaganda lines the US used to peddle during this time were over “human rights”, “corruption”, and “drugs”, all to demonize Venezuela and justify all coercive measures, just as the lies of the “terror” threat were the rationalization for the US to kill over 4.5 million people. Lethal Actions (2015-2019) On March 9, 2015, the Obama regime labelled Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to US national security, invoking the Emergency Economic Powers Act to do so. This Executive Order froze the assets of seven senior Venezuelan officials and banned them from the US, as well as critically providing the legal scaffolding for all further unilateral coercive measures imposed on Venezuela by subsequent administrations. Obama seamlessly set up the scaffolding that enabled Trump’s more abrasive, lethal attacks on Venezuela. Between 2015-17, the US Treasury <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=519ae596-f471-458b-b996-23665def0f8a&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3D519ae596-f471-458b-b996-23665def0f8a%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw03Lj0IwVIG2V8tJYCFuU8p">pressured financial institutions to cease operations in Venezuela and to close the accounts of their clients. In quick succession, this economic strangulation had <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=51717e45-5784-407b-bc67-fff0a36770b0&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3D51717e45-5784-407b-bc67-fff0a36770b0%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw12q6obUyLNfRh_E6xy3JQQ">deadly effects: Citibank rejected Venezuela’s payment for 300,000 doses of insulin, UBS Swiss Bank delayed a purchase of vaccines for months, Pfizer, Abbot, and Baster refused to issue certificates for cancer drugs, and a $9 million payment for dialysis supplies was blocked. The US deliberately disrupted the free healthcare the government was providing to Venezuelans. In 2017, during Trump’s first presidency, the US imposed a more robust financial blockade on Venezuela, seeking to cut Venezuela off from financial markets. The US imposed bans on financial engagement between US and Venezuelan individuals and companies, and issued warnings of penalties for foreign banks if they did so. In an attempt to circumvent these attacks and fund public services, the Maduro government introduced the Petro, a cryptocurrency based on oil reserves. Immediately, the US sanctioned that too as it continued to stack lethal sanctions, blocks, and bans intended to destabilize, attack, and destroy the country’s ability to function on its own. In 2019, the Trump regime escalated its terrorist maximum pressure campaign on Venezuela. They imposed a total oil embargo and de facto economic embargo, seized Venezuelan company CITGO, sanctioned the Central Bank of Venezuela, and continued to add officials to the sanctions list. While these coercive measures sought to economically strangle the country, the US continued to push opposition figures. In January, Juan Guaidó declared himself president of Venezuela. With US pressure, at least 60 governments across the world were pushed into recognizing this illegitimate statement. In order to push him to challenge Maduro’s legitimate government, the US handed Guaidó control of foreign frozen Venezuelan assets, including CITGO, as well as Venezuelan embassies. Despite being handed all of the concessions needed, Guaido failed to garner any popular support as people in Venezuela and across the world saw this as an open and weak attempt at regime change. Between 2015 and 2019, food imports fell by 73%, which caused chronic hunger to skyrocket by 214%; 180,000 surgeries were halted due to a lack of antibiotics and anesthetics; 2.6 million children could not access vaccines; and over 60% of HIV/AIDS patients were forced to suspend their treatment. These all-out sanctions forced public services to cut their capacity by half as shortages of fuel, spare parts, and imports reduced their ability to function, according to <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=c2296ad3-3508-4820-91ed-bf60258d1892&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3Dc2296ad3-3508-4820-91ed-bf60258d1892%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw0CizexBC9ChQIbvPSfvFP-">UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan. US sanctions <a href="https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c=49334756&l=6e6e66d6-1993-4d46-aa8a-f19128e79baa&r=6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://codepink-org.qmailroute.net/x/d?c%3D49334756%26l%3D6e6e66d6-1993-4d46-aa8a-f19128e79baa%26r%3D6a7f4f90-71c6-4ac2-bcb5-a2d22d62a358&source=gmail&ust=1767998793493000&usg=AOvVaw1s0Kv9XrD0PvOxb2FC4Dwz">killed 40,000 people in one year, between 2017 and 2018. The true cost of US measures is in its hundreds of thousands, all victims of the US empire, hellbent on imposing its interests and will on a sovereign nation. Suffocation (2020-2024) In response to the Maduro government’s resilience and popular support, the US set a $15 million bounty for the capture of Maduro and four other officials, as well as imposing ridiculous charges over “narco-terrorism” and corruption against Maduro and 14 other officials. US sanctions, mercenary-backed coup attempts, and Guaido’s meddling continued to harm Venezuelan people as medicine shortages leaped, the US blocked aircraft and bullied foreign insurers to drop their coverage of oil tankers. The sanctions regime caused a quarter of Venezuelans to leave the country, many to the United States, where they were told they would find safety. Migration has been weaponized, just like with Cuba, in order to build domestic pressure for those outside of Venezuela propagandized to believe the suffering in Venezuela is at the hands of the government, not US warfare. Biden’s government, purporting to be interested in “democracy” in Venezuela, made a big show of easing some sanctions in the run-up to the 2024 elections. This was set up in order to feign concern, attempt to hide US hybrid warfare, and to justify the propaganda push denouncing the elections. In quick succession, the US sanctioned more officials and seized Maduro’s presidential plane. Invasion (2025-26) As power changed hands from Biden to Trump, the outgoing government imposed further fresh sanctions on Venezuelan officials, including Maduro, paving the way for further moves by the incoming Trump government. The Trump regime designated US-created “drug cartels” as “foreign terrorist organizations. In August, the US raised the bounty on Maduro to $50 million and began a renewed propaganda campaign on the grounds of “narco-terrorism” and “cartels. This all provided the justification for the escalated aggression against Venezuela, with repeated war crimes as the US bombed small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which killed over 117 people. Despite negotiations and diplomacy on the part of the Maduro government, including when Trump deported thousands of Venezuelans, the US only ramped up its aggression. All the while, the US has been continuing its funding and promotion of opposition candidates in elections, pushing propaganda in domestic and international media, and attempting to wrangle control of Venezuela’s oil. In the past month, this aggression showed to the world just how the US operates without any consequence or accountability. On December 10, the US hijacked and stole 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan oil and a tanker set for Cuba. A few weeks later, they hijacked and stole another oil tanker in international waters and tried and failed to hijack another. From December 21 until January 7, the US was chasing an empty oil tanker, which was put under Russian protection. Despite this, on January 7, the US hijacked and stole this tanker in the North Atlantic as well as another tanker in the Caribbean. These continued attacks, while the US and Israel threaten to bomb Iran, continue a slower, quieter genocide in Gaza, and threaten to attack Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Colombia, are part of the US empire’s monstrous operation. They seek to suffocate any challenge to its maintenance of an international system of plunder and exploitation. Right now, the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores are captured in chains in New York, facing sham charges that are more for the spectacle than any justice. The US is continuing to steal Venezuela’s oil, broadcasting videos and cheering about hijacking another tanker. They are throwing around threats and gloating about deadly bombings that have killed over 110 people. It can feel hopeless, just as over two years of US-Israeli genocide go on without any justice for those who carry it out, who justify it, and who protect it. All over the world, people are rising up against the US empire. Chants of “Yankee go home” have rung out across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Venezuelans have been taking to the streets every day, chanting “Maduro, aguanta, que el pueblo se levanta / Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up”. When we take a look back at the past 20 years of US violence against Venezuela, we know that the biggest fear for the imperialists is a popular uprising. That is why they make the people suffer, that is why they fund figures to pretend to speak for them, that is why they spend billions of dollars on propaganda. 20 years ago this year, when Chávez took to the floor in the United Nations, he was not only speaking to the people of 2006 nor to Bush, but to us today as we rise up: “What is happening is that the world is waking up and people everywhere are rising up. I tell the world dictator: I have a feeling that the rest of your days will be a living nightmare, because everywhere you will see us rising up against American imperialism, demanding freedom, equality of peoples, and respect for the sovereignty of nations. Yes, we may be described as extremists, but we are rising against the empire, against the model of domination.” The post Hugo Chávez Predicted This appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nuvpreet Kalra.
Democracy Challenged: Who Governs Gaza? Who Runs Venezuela? “Who Does New York Belong To?”
Is Mamdani merely a New York phenomenon? Will his victory and positions have influence outside the five boroughs? He seems not afraid to stand up for his beliefs beyond New York-specific issues. He challenged President Trump after the Venezuela strikes and kidnapping of Maduro. “I called the president and spoke with him directly to register my opposition to this act,” he said. The New York Times reported on the call in which Mamdani recounted that “he told Mr. Trump that he was ‘opposed to a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal and international law.’” More The post Democracy Challenged: Who Governs Gaza? Who Runs Venezuela? “Who Does New York Belong To?” appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="481" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-891x630.png 891w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-768x543.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-600x424.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png 1528w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png 1528w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-891x630.png 891w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-768x543.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-600x424.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1528px) 100vw, 1528px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1528" height="1080" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png 1528w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-891x630.png 891w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-768x543.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-600x424.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1528px) 100vw, 1528px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1528" height="1080" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-768x543.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-600x424.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1528px) 100vw, 1528px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="891" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-891x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-891x630.png 891w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-768x543.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-600x424.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png 1528w" sizes="(max-width: 891px) 100vw, 891px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396499" class="size-medium wp-image-396499" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png" alt="" width="680" height="481" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-680x481.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-891x630.png 891w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-768x543.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order-600x424.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_K._Mamdani_signs_executive_order.png 1528w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: NYC Mayor’s Office – CC BY 3.0 2025 was an annus horribilis for democracy. Within the United States, Donald Trump, his administration, Congress, complicit state legislatures, and the Supreme Court systematically attacked civil liberties and weakened core democratic institutions. Internationally, there were at least two examples of undemocratic impositions. U.N. Security Council (SC) Resolution 2803 created a so-called “Board of Peace,” chaired by Donald Trump, and a temporary International Stabilization Force to govern Gaza without the consent of the those who live there. Recently, Trump announced that Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would “run” Venezuela, an extraordinary assertion of external control over another state’s political future. Did 2026 start better? Yes. Zohran Mamdani’s taking office as Mayor of New York City offers several reasons for democratic optimism. As the first-ever mayor to be sworn in on a Quran, the 34 year-old surprise winner has shown a progressive, democratic sensitivity and agenda that offers promises for New York City and beyond. Mamdani’s election could signal a revival of true democratic politics in the United States, and an eventual model for democratic governance elsewhere. At his January 1 inauguration, Mamdani gave a moving presentation of new possibilities for democracy after being sworn in as mayor by Bernie Sanders and following an opening speech by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from cramped kitchens in Flushing and barbershops in East New York, from cellphones propped against the dashboards of parked taxi cabs at LaGuardia, from hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only neglect. I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day.” The new mayor asked, “Who does New York belong to?” “For much of our history, the response from City Hall has been simple: It belongs only to the wealthy and well-connected,” he answered. He then offered a very different answer about whom New York could belong to: “New York could belong to more than just a privileged few. It could belong to those who operate our subways and rake our parks, those who feed us biryani and beef patties, picanha and pastrami on rye. And they knew that this belief could be made true if only government dared to work hardest for those who work hardest.” “[I]f only government dared to work hardest for those who work hardest,” Mamdani declared at the very moment of Trump’s new Gilded Age where the richest 1 percent of Americans own roughly 30% of national wealth and the top 10% control nearly two-thirds. The chief executive of JP Morgan Chase made $770 million in 2025. A recent economic study shows that in recent decades the Supreme Court has favored the rich. Mamdani’s inaugural speech presented what many consider a radical position. President Trump has derided Mamdani as a “communist fanatic.” Yet when Trump met Mamdani in the Oval Office in November, the New York Times reported that “they were just two iconoclastic New Yorkers who were all smiles.” “The better he does, the happier I am,” Trump said. “Because he has a chance to really do something great for New York,” the president added. “It was a great meeting.” There is no question that Mamdani will face staunch opposition as mayor. Several very wealthy individuals have threatened to leave New York if he raises city income tax on million-dollar earners or increases corporate taxes. John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the grocery chain Gristedes, told the Free Press in June he may “consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business” in the event of a Mamdani victory. There were also obvious religious criticisms of the city’s first Muslim mayor. “On his very first day as @NYCMayor, Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of antisemitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel. This isn’t leadership. It’s antisemitic gasoline on an open fire,” the Israel Foreign Ministry wrote in a post on the social platform X. But the essential criticisms of Mamdani lie in the class position he has taken. Bill Reilly claimed in The Wrap that “He’s a communist…Seizing the means of production.” Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis argued in The Times of India, that his ideas were “straight out of Karl Marx’s Communist playbook,” and Bishop Robert Barron, writing in the New York Post, cited Mamdani’s embrace of “the warmth of collectivism,” that collectivism has historically led to oppression. Is Mamdani merely a New York phenomenon? Will his victory and positions have influence outside the five boroughs? He seems not afraid to stand up for his beliefs beyond New York-specific issues. He challenged President Trump after the Venezuela strikes and kidnapping of Maduro. “I called the president and spoke with him directly to register my opposition to this act,” he said. The New York Times reported on the call in which Mamdani recounted that “he told Mr. Trump that he was ‘opposed to a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal and international law.’” It is uncertain that Mamdani will succeed in implementing some of his ambitious policy proposals, such as free childcare, free bus service, and a rent freeze for those living in rent-stabilized apartments. Nevertheless, he declared, “Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never we will be accused of lacking the courage to try.” The essence of Mamdani’s “courage to try” is his commitment to re-establish democracy in New York City. His inaugural speech was a clarion call for the city to belong to all New Yorkers, regardless of wealth, class, or religion. Internationally, based on his call to the White House, the same principles apply; respecting international law as a just system should give equal rights to all peoples and states – the Preamble of the United Nations Charter does begin with “We the Peoples.” Amid the undemocratic Trump 2.0, U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803 and the arrogant gunboat diplomacy of the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” there is a potential shining light coming from New York City, at least based on Mamdani’s inaugural speech. Given the current gloomy global situation, a little light is more than welcome as we begin the new year, still hoping, like Abraham Lincoln, that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The post Democracy Challenged: Who Governs Gaza? Who Runs Venezuela? “Who Does New York Belong To?” appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Warner.
The crisis of the existing order is not going away. Instead, it is fueling an opposition movement that could challenge the legitimacy of the ruling class. It is a perfect time for us to consider how the empire maintains “hegemony,” that is, its command over both the social order and the world of ideas. More The post Cultural Hegemony Today appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-500x374.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-600x449.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2890px) 100vw, 2890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2890" height="2161" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-scaled.jpeg 2890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-680x508.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-843x630.jpeg 843w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-768x574.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-1536x1149.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-2048x1531.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-500x374.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-600x449.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2890px) 100vw, 2890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="843" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-843x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-843x630.jpeg 843w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-680x508.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-768x574.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-1536x1149.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-2048x1531.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-500x374.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-600x449.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 843px) 100vw, 843px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-369631" class="size-medium wp-image-369631" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-680x508.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="508" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-680x508.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-843x630.jpeg 843w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-768x574.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-1536x1149.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-2048x1531.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-500x374.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7860-600x449.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair The crisis of the existing order is not going away. Instead, it is fueling an opposition movement that could challenge the legitimacy of the ruling class. It is a perfect time for us to consider how the empire maintains “hegemony,” that is, its command over both the social order and the world of ideas. Crisis, Reality, and Hegemony Despite over half a century of austerity, perpetual warfare, climate crisis, vile corruption, broken promises, creeping fascism, and even genocide itself, people continue to support the ruling parties and the class they represent. Even the many millions who do so unwillingly go only halfway, adopting stances of neutrality, withdrawal, and waiting. Why? To find the answer, we must look to “culture:” the realm of feelings, values, beliefs, ideas, and perceptions. The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas…the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force…Thus, their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.[1] The main idea behind cultural hegemony is that the most popular and powerful ideas and narratives are those of the ruling class. On the battlefield of the mind, ruling ideas exert a kind of “full-spectrum dominance” to eliminate rivals, but their victory is never final. The ultimate struggle is not over fine points or policy but over the nature of political “reality,” since perceived reality determines what seems practical or possible. The hegemon creates its own reality, and its leadership is measured by the fact that even self-described socialists cite this reality as proof that fundamental challenges are not viable. It’s never the “right time.” The first step in creating a world that belongs to the people is the recognition that reality is always and forever provisional, fluid, and historical. Gramsci: Reality does not exist on its own, in and for itself, but only in a historical relationship with the people who modify it. [2] Life is nothing if not bursting with contradictions, and surviving this crazy world demands that we all develop what the great Black thinker, W.E.B. Du Bois, called “double consciousness.” This “twoness” is the cultural basis for challenging ruling class hegemony.[3] Everyone is a Philosopher Gramsci understood hegemonic thought as a “spontaneous philosophy proper to everybody.” We are all philosophers, whether we know it or not. He argued that the ruling class’s ideas shape everyone’s thinking so profoundly that it appears as “common sense.” It is an everyday philosophy that — despite being the vehicle for ruling-class supremacy — is uncritically absorbed by the very people it lords over. It is learned from the sum total of human interactions: collective, institutional, and individual. And it is embedded in language itself. Deep and damn near invisible. Hegemony is not as simple as overt propaganda, although it is a part of it. If hegemonic common sense is the algorithm, propaganda is the keystrokes that tap into it and reinforce it. For example, the propagandist knows they need not loudly proclaim that the Americans are the chosen people; they must simply talk incessantly about the evil of rivals or immigrants, knowing full well that the audience will fill in the “common sense” of American Exceptionalism. Given the enormous impact of media, propaganda, and nonstop hot takes and memes, it’s easy to miss the importance of the broader cultural arena. Media studies help us to track the daily lies and distortions, while the concept of cultural hegemony shows us the historical context and ultimate meanings of political language. The First Commandment The empire cannot rely solely on force. Yes, the state rules with violence, but its legitimacy is won in the battle for hearts and minds. And its most pure, essential teaching is that its superiority — its right to rule — is normal, natural, eternal, or simply reality. When political activists talk too much about “realism” or “viability,” they claim to be making tactical statements — that just coincidentally conform to the first commandment of corporate hegemony. Hegemony works implicitly to achieve what the Judeo-Christian First Commandment makes explicit: “I am the Lord your god, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.” The ruling class is a jealous god, too, but one that prefers to pull its levers behind a curtain. Unlike religious law etched in stone with divine fire, hegemonic culture is whispered. But, like the First Commandment, ruling-class hegemony appeals to the highest values of freedom to win our acceptance. Both God and the rulers in the “Land of the Free” claim to have delivered us “out of the house of bondage.” No ruling class can win the support of the people indefinitely without a credible claim of deliverance, of freedom, of universal values. By this measure alone, the hegemon lives on borrowed time. As Gramsci warned us: “The old world is dying, and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”[4] Some of the most loved and hated political figures of our day (and their followers) are truly “morbid” in that they still try to revive and redeem the decrepit and decayed political order. Take it Personally, Really Hegemony reaches right into our personal lives. For example, parasocial relationships with celebrity politicians and influencers are carefully cultivated by social media. These illusions of intimacy try to satisfy our inner cravings for pleasure, hope, and joy, even if our “imaginary friend” is a fascist, dirty cop, sexual criminal, fraud, or genocider. As second-wave feminists, and generations of gender and sexual rebels have taught us, what we experience as private and personal is always deeply political. They knew it well because patriarchy is the original hegemonic system cloaked as a natural reality. How does a system so fundamentally at odds with either freedom or pleasure still manage its mastery using “common sense?” The slogans of the “purity test,” or “voting is a chess move, not a valentine,” are revealing. These talking points are thinly disguised demands that we forfeit our morals, desires, and interests. When loyal Democrats mock “purity” and treat minimum standards of life, or democracy, or basic human dignity as valentines, ponies, or shiny objects, they are subtly endorsing hegemonic culture by denying the link between personal and political. All they have to offer is classic “realpolitik.” Realpolitik, often called realism or pragmatism in everyday language, is the belief that cunning power maneuvers and national interests should guide politics with little room for ideals or values. U.S. politicians are the ultimate realists. But the use of “purity” to undermine opposition is itself the purified essence of hegemonic thinking: amoral realism that allows the existing power structure to determine the outer limits of our political possibilities. If we take this view, the Democrats and, by extension, the system itself, become “the only game in town.” The “purity test” and “chess move” pose as level-headed, hard-nosed realism but are, in fact, the purest distillation of the prime directive of hegemonic culture: There is No Alternative. Mocking “purity” is a preemptive strike on our imaginations and visions for a better world. Realism is surrender. The hegemon, on the other hand, imposes no such limits on itself. Caution! Hegemony at Work! Consider the strange career of the 14th Amendment. While it recognized due process and human rights for formerly enslaved people, the corporations had other ideas. In a series of Supreme Court decisions beginning in the 1890s, corporations asserted their claim to the status of persons and sought due process protections against government abuse under the Constitution. Yet, their supremacy simultaneously demanded political control to minimize competition, ensure profits, and safeguard their future. Such control was achieved through a merger between the corporation and the state. In Buckley v. Valeo 1976 and First Nat’ l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti 1978, the ruling class won unlimited rights to purchase parties and politicians. By 2010, this class of “people” had their hoarded wealth sanctified as free speech in Citizens United. So purely human had the corporations become that in 2014, Hobby Lobby recognized their religious conscience. Meanwhile, what little remained of the 14th (and the 1st, 4th, and 5th) was attacked again as due process was crushed under the weight of the police state. And they did not have to start from scratch: the Bill of Rights never applied to Black and Brown people without mass struggle and always stopped at the workplace door, leaving the bosses free to maximize profits and impose austerity. In the end, the corporations won due-process protections of people from the very government they had taken ownership of, while simultaneously crushing the rights of real people — a stunning achievement. While corporations gained recognition of their humanity, real people are told to sacrifice the very values, ideals, and passions that make us truly human. This is how the liberal rhetoric of purity and realism, of chess matches and valentines, keeps the working class in check and the hegemon on top. This is not simple hypocrisy, but rather the hegemon making a legal and political “reality” of its choosing. But no matter how well-played or slick its champions are, the ruling class cannot erase the fractured world it has forced us to endure. Double Consciousness Dubois and Gramsci help us envision a counter-hegemonic move. In Souls of Black Folks, Dubois realized that the structure of Black thought was “double consciousness.” It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others…One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Double consciousness, or what Gramsci described as “two theoretic consciousness (or one, contradictory consciousness),” is the saving grace of cultural hegemony.[5] This double consciousness is also a “philosophy proper to everybody” that appears just as spontaneously as those of the ruling class. Double consciousness means that raw materials for an opposition movement already exist in the minds of the millions. Wave after wave of resistance led by Black people both inspired and proved Dubois’s theory. To claim this contested terrain and raise a counter-hegemonic banner, we will need independent, creative, massive political action. Dubois’s “dogged strength” and Gramsci’s “optimism of the will”are both calls to action.[6] Double consciousness is the antidote to the poison of purity. While purity insists that we cancel our ideals and actions, double consciousness fully embraces “two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals.” Into that breech the opposition must rush. That doesn’t make us pure — it makes us both fully human and revolutionaries — something no one is supposed to be according to hegemonic common sense. Hegemony and History If the ruling class aims to abolish historical change, then historical consciousness is the stuff of counter-hegemony. The current phase of US cultural hegemony took shape at the end of the First Cold War and the Soviet Union’s collapse. The triumphant celebrations that followed were captured in Francis Fukuyama’s internationally influential book, The End of History and the Last Man. For Fukuyama, there was no more history to be made: Western liberalism and free markets were the final human achievements. The existing order is reality, he assured us, so just Trust and accept it.[7] If history is over, then opposition forces with their revolutionary aspirations should be silenced and made to disappear — repressed, scapegoated, or smeared as aberrations or disorders. Instead, an opposition positioned outside of the system is indispensable to the cultural challenge of our time: millions are still swayed by the idea that the existing system is an expression of “human nature” (the conservative) or “reality” (the liberal). In both cases, the existing order, as a historical and political construct, almost vanishes. But in truth, this belief system is a product of human thought. We can drag it into awareness where it can be studied and criticised, and someday dismantled. The lower classes, historically on the defensive, can only achieve self-awareness…via their consciousness of the identity and class limits of their enemy; but it is precisely this process which has not yet come to the surface, at least not nationally. [8] We study history to reveal the constructed, and transient, nature of the existing order. But historical analysis will remain unfinished unless we simultaneously make new history through actions and alliances that build alternatives in our minds and in our lives. We might see the existing order as settler/colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, imperialism, fascism, anthropocentrism, extractivism, or a fusion of all these. We might see all these as interrelated, connected, mutually reinforcing — just like the movements that aim to replace them. The old synthesis of oppression demands a new synthesis of opposition. Where is it? Look first to the people in motion: Occupy, Standing Rock, and BLM 2020 are recent examples. Between ICE Resistance and the Peace Movement, we have the making of a true united front against empire and fascism. Next, look at those forces outside the ruling parties that are politically and intellectually free from them. Show me an example of a challenge to ruling-class hegemony that occurred without a principled, clear-cut, unequivocal, and visionary opposition movement. In the end, one of history’s greatest lessons is simply that political systems belong to the inescapable cycle of birth, life, and death that defines all known social orders and living things. Take heart. We must find the “optimism of the will” and “dogged strength” because action and movement are the best way to forge a new common sense, a new opposition, and to finally meet our own historical moment. Humankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve…that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.[9] Ready or not, here we come! Notes. 1/ Marx and Engels in The German Ideology. Since I am using classic sources to explore the core ideas and main themes of hegemony, I have taken the liberty to update some of the language, replacing “Mankind” with “Humankind” and so forth. 2/ Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci is the primary theorist of hegemony, and Prison Notebooks (PN) is the key text, but be forewarned, it’s a real bear. What Capital is to economics, Prison Notebooks is to culture. It’s dense, historical, detailed, and polemical. It was a long, slow read for me; the guidance of other writers was indispensable. I would start with Prince Kapone for the contemporary context. Jackson Lears sees Gramsci as blazing a trail to new thinking about history. I found the work of Laurie Adkin, Valeriano Ramos, Jr., Mathew Wilson, Sheetal Sharma, and Gianmaria Colpani to be very helpful. The quote is from PN 346. 3/ W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folks. 4/ PN 276 5/ PN 333 6/ PN 345 7/ Fukuyama’s sequel is literally titled Trust. 8/ PN 273 9/ Marx and Engels, Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy The post Cultural Hegemony Today appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Moser.
From Venezuelan Communes to U.S. Blocks: Same Struggle, Same Fight.
It’s a different country, but the same question: who does a government serve? By now it seems clear that with the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, the Trump crime organization didn’t topple a regime in Venezuela so much as acquire one, in a deadly takeover that swapped the CEO but seems willing to keep the board in the form of Maduro’s former VP, Delcy Rodríguez and her loyalists, as long as they’ll manage the populace while the new owners raid the store. More The post From Venezuelan Communes to U.S. Blocks: Same Struggle, Same Fight. appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3941-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, 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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair It’s a different country, but the same question: who does a government serve? By now it seems clear that with the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, the Trump crime organization didn’t topple a regime in Venezuela so much as acquire one, in a deadly takeover that swapped the CEO but seems willing to keep the board in the form of Maduro’s former VP, Delcy Rodríguez and her loyalists, as long as they’ll manage the populace while the new owners raid the store. It’s too soon to tell much about how the Trump takeover will work out, but while the money media focus entirely on the boardroom, the story with the most lessons for the rest of us lies outside of it, with Venezuela’s experiment attempting to shift who actually wields power in the state. Chávez’s Bottom-Up Bet In a slip, at his press conference Saturday announcing the snatch-and-grab invasion, Donald Trump said Venezuela was “a great country twenty years ago.” He didn’t mean it, but plenty might. Twenty years ago, a popular military officer called Hugo Chávez was president. Chavez sought to redistribute power downwards by pouring state funds into bottom up architecture: “Bolivarian Circles”, communal councils, and communes were funded to manage local resources, build popular confidence and essentially, run neighborhoods. Neighbors could directly decide on projects, manage funds, and even run services like trash collection, food distribution, or security. Chavez spent hours every week on state radio talking with citizens and invested in public media to bring news from the provinces to the cities, and from around the world to Venezuelans. In the capital, the Chavez administration built Caracas’s stunning Metro systemwhich flew residents from isolated hilltop barrios down into the capital below in graceful, gap-bridging, cable cars, affordably, and fast. Even years after his death in 2013, Chavez’s populist fire lingered. On my one and only brief trip to Caracas in 2015, I gazed at that impressive Metro and met students and artists who had been squatting in a gleaming office building without government interference for years. High above a bustling downtown street, the residents showed us proudly, how they’d turned a foreign capitalists’ suite into a collective home for former shanty town dwellers. They sent earnest messages of solidarity and encouragement to the revolutionaries of Occupy Wall Street. Smothered But the abandoned office was also a sign of capital flight. The US’s relentless embargo and internal destabilization campaign put Chavez under political and economic siege, and depending entirely on oil to fuel the state’s operations gradually smothered more distributed approaches not only to energy – but to governance. The communes’ budgets—and often their legal authority—were tied to central-state funding, party structures, and oil revenues far beyond neighborhood say-so. When Venezuela’s economy crashed under pressure from the Obama administration and destabilization stepped up during Trump’s first term*, the same communal structures that were supposed to empower the masses became militarized mechanisms of patronage and control. By this fall, as Edgardo Lander, a retired professor at the Central University of Venezuela and leading thinker of the independent left, told Tempest Magazine, “What we have is a government that long ago abandoned any political project. The whole discourse of deepening democracy, of socialism—those have simply disappeared from the horizon. The government’s practically sole objective now is its own survival in power.” Echoes and Warnings As anti-imperialist Americans condemn Trump’s illegal assault and defend, absolutely, Venezuela’s independence, it’s worth spending at least a moment to consider the fate of the Bolivarians. Theirs is a story the US media will never tell but we should, not to fight sectarian wars — for and against — but for the lessons we just might learn from it. In the US, we too, are facing rogue rule, fueled by concentrated wealth, thug power, and the corrosion of local democracy. Opposition parties still stand, but the resistance to fascist consolidation is being led by the grassroots. Local mutual aid networks, neighborhood defense collectives, public defenders, workers unions, and community-based coalitions are at the forefront, not politicians. Venezuela’s lesson, about the danger of funding traps, seems worth paying attention to. Especially, as we head into an election year with urgent enticements to co-optation. You can almost hear the Bolivarians cry: build self-reliance now, while your institutions creak but stand. Chávez’s attempt to build popular power from above didn’t fail absolutely. Huge early gains came in the form of literacy, clinics, poverty reduction and electrification. But alongside Washington’s criminal embargo and efforts to destabilize the regime, oil’s extractive curse led inevitably to conflict and repression. Think Globally, Act Locally In the U.S., democracy is being defended from below. The question for change-seekers here is, can it be rebuilt from below, too — sans oil overlords, or dependence on party patrons — with real resilience, and self-reliance? Finally, and crucially, can our home front resistance movements rekindle some sense and practice of internationalism? If we’re ever going to reverse the takeovers, we’re going to need viable alternatives – and those, as we learned again this week, cannot survive long within the borders of a single nation. The post From Venezuelan Communes to U.S. Blocks: Same Struggle, Same Fight. appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Laura Flanders.
An ICE Murder in Minneapolis and its Horrific Aftermath
The fascist Trump Gestapo murder of the 37-year-old legal observer, poet, and mother Renee Nicole Good two days ago is horrific almost beyond words: three or four point-blank head shots from an ICE officer as Ms. Good was trying to move her vehicle away from the Homeland Security gendarmes who were conducting a giant racist More The post An ICE Murder in Minneapolis and its Horrific Aftermath appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396541" class="wp-image-396541 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.15.34-PM-680x494.png" alt="" width="680" height="494" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.15.34-PM-680x494.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.15.34-PM-768x558.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.15.34-PM-500x363.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.15.34-PM-600x436.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.15.34-PM.png 842w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> YouTube screenshot. The fascist Trump Gestapo murder of the 37-year-old legal observer, poet, and mother Renee Nicole Good two days ago is horrific almost beyond words: three or four point-blank head shots from an ICE officer as Ms. Good was trying to move her vehicle away from the Homeland Security gendarmes who were conducting a giant racist immigration raid in Minneapolis. (Here is a useful breakdown of the video of the police state murder by Brenna Perez) It was a cold-blooded murder, as anyone can see with their own eyes. Also horrific was the aftermath of the atrocity. The Atlantic reported this: “A doctor at the scene attempted to help the woman who was shot, but was kept away by federal agents. When an ambulance finally arrived, it was blocked from reaching her by law-enforcement vehicles, and paramedics had to reach her on foot.” ICE Gestapo agents were filmed brutally and chemically attacking outraged witnesses to the murder. An ICE agent kicked away candles placed on a vigil memorial to Ms. Good, telling an activist that he didn’t “give a fuck” about the incident. And then there was the fascistic murder of truth regarding the murder on the part of the Trump fascist regime. Within minutes of the ICE homicide, Trump praised the shooter as a “hero,” absurdly claiming that the victim was a “radical Leftist” trying to kill one of his officers. Trump would later preposterously claim that he saw Ms. Good “run over the ICE agent,” putting the agent in a hospital! There’s the standard authoritarian lies and then there’s the batshit crazy fascist lies, like that one and like Trump’s deranged Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem’s claim that ICE officers were trying to “push their vehicle out of the snow” (the streets were clear) when they were attacked by “terrorists” and compelled to defend themselves with lethal force. Nobody should be surprised by the murder and its aftermath including the deranged lies. Listen to the world view recently articulated by the supreme Republi-Nazi Stephen “We are the Storm” Miller, Trump’s top political operative and the leading advocate and architect of the regime’s Amerikaner-fascist ethnic cleansing program. Explaining to CNN why the Trump regime will in his view rightly seize the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, Miller said this: “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else But we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” That is the language of Joseph Goebbels and Adolph Hitler, trumping the rule of law with the rule of violent men – pure force and lethality over decency and legality. That was the mindset of the masked thug who murdered Ms. Good yesterday and of the ICE gendarmes who sprayed poison gas at the murder’s outraged witnesses. ICE is the Gestapo of the Trump fascist regime. It is a vast racist terror machine ready, willing, and able to kill not just brown-skinned folks but white people who get in the way of its white supremacist and xenophobic nationalist rendition, detention, and deportation program. More than thirty people have died in ICE’s concentration camps so far. It was just a matter of time until Trump’s Gestapo murdered a US citizen resisting the regime’s fascist fugitive slave-catching operation. Lies? Of course. Like other fascist regimes, the Trump order is built on and all about rampant and mind-boggling untruthfulness, the constant insidious inversion of reality. A chilling example is the terrifying White House webpage the regime put up one day before the murder in Minneapolis to honor the fascist thugs of January 6, who tried to cancel an election outcome at the behest of their Dear Leader Mein Trumpf. It is a monument to the brazen and blatant reversal of objective historical reality. Making Orwell blush with upside-down falsification of the past, it: + Says that the overwhelmingly accurate claim that January 6 was an attempted right-wing insurrection is a radical left “lie” and the that pro-Trump folks in and around the US Capitol that day were “peaceful protesters.” + Claims “the Democrats staged the real insurrection.” + Accuses Capitol Police of violently attacking “crowds of peaceful protesters, injuring many and deliberately escalating tensions.” + Claims that Capitol Police “inexplicably remov[ed] barricades, opening Capitol doors, and even waving attendees inside the building—actions that facilitated entry—while simultaneously deploying violent force against others.” + Insanely depicts Trump as an agent of calm who “repeatedly call[ed] for peace” on J6. + Blames then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the assault on the Capitol. + Depicts the violent fascist putschist Ashli Babbitt as an innocent victim of “cold-blooded murder.” + Claims that three other J6 protesters were killed by Capitol Police and denies that any Capitol Police officers died. + Says that Mike Pence failed to honor his constitutional duty to block the Congressional Electoral College count. + Repeats multiply, legally, and exhaustively disproven Trump claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. + Portrays January 6 as an “FBI entrapment operation.” + Calls the brilliant US House January 6 Committee report on January 6 nothing more than an exercise in the partisan “demonization” of Trump. + Claims that Trump won a “landslide” victory in 2024. + Attributes the pretend “landslide” to “Patriotic Americans” and “God’s unmistakable grace.” All of this is completely and insanely false. War is Peace, Black is White, Love is Hate and 2+2=5 because Big Brother says so! Please see and spread the two following videos I put up yesterday on why this fascist murder in Minneapolis needs to become the spark for a mass sustained popular movement calling for the removal of the Trump fascist regime: The Trump Gestapo Outrage in Minneapolis Needs to Spark a Mass Sustained Uprising from Coast to Coast https://paulstreet.substack.com/p/the-trump-gestapo-outrage-in-minneapolis How ’bout We Get Serious about What We’re Up Against? https://paulstreet.substack.com/p/how-bout-we-get-serious-about-what The post An ICE Murder in Minneapolis and its Horrific Aftermath appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Paul Street.
For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a More The post Plunging Into the Abyss appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-680x453.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-680x453.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yaopey-yong-6sbHb1kcN7k-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, 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For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a world-historical perspective, that day will represent a dramatic turning point, with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic consequences. For the first time in 54 years, the world’s two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish — a step both sides appear poised to take. It’s hard to imagine today, but 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia (then the Soviet Union) jointly possessed 47,000 nuclear warheads — enough to exterminate all life on Earth many times over. But as public fears of nuclear annihilation increased, especially after the near-death experience of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the leaders of those two countries negotiated a series of binding agreements intended to downsize their arsenals and reduce the risk of Armageddon. The initial round of those negotiations, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I, began in November 1969 and culminated in the first-ever nuclear arms-limitation agreement, SALT-I, in May 1972. That would then be followed in June 1979 by SALT-II (signed by both parties, though never ratified by the U.S. Senate) and two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II), in 1991 and 1993, respectively. Each of those treaties reduced the number of deployed nuclear warheads on U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers. In a drive to reduce those numbers even further, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in April 2010, an agreement limiting the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side — still enough to exterminate all life on Earth, but a far cry from the START I limit of 6,000 warheads per side. Originally set to expire on Feb. 5, 2021, New START was extended for another five years (as allowed by the treaty), resetting that expiration date for February 5, 2026, now fast approaching. And this time around, neither party has demonstrated the slightest inclination to negotiate a new extension. So, the question is: What, exactly, will it mean for New START to expire for good on February 5th? Most of us haven’t given that a lot of thought in recent decades, because nuclear arsenals have, for the most part, been shrinking and the (apparent) threat of a nuclear war among the great powers seemed to diminish substantially. We have largely escaped the nightmarish experience — so familiar to veterans of the Cold War era — of fearing that the latest crisis, whatever it might be, could result in our being exterminated in a thermonuclear holocaust. A critical reason for our current freedom from such fears is the fact that the world’s nuclear arsenals had been substantially diminished and that the two major nuclear powers had agreed to legally binding measures, including mutual inspections of their arsenals, meant to reduce the danger of unintended or accidental nuclear war. Together, those measures were crafted to ensure that each side would retain an invulnerable, second-strike nuclear retaliatory force, eliminating any incentive to initiate a nuclear first strike. Unfortunately, those relatively carefree days will come to an end at midnight on February 5th. Beginning on February 6th, Russian and American leaders will face no barriers whatsoever to the expansion of those arsenals or to any other steps that might increase the danger of a thermonuclear conflagration. And from the look of things, both intend to seize that opportunity and increase the likelihood of Armageddon. Worse yet, China’s leaders, pointing to a lack of restraint in Washington and Moscow, are now building up their own nuclear arsenal, only adding further fuel to the urge of American and Russian leaders to blow well past the (soon-to-be-abandoned) New START limits. A Future Nuclear Arms Race? Even while adhering to those New START limits of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, both Russia and the United States had taken elaborate and costly steps to enhance the destructive power of their arsenals by replacing older, less-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and nuclear bombers with newer, even more capable ones. As a result, each side was already becoming better equipped to potentially inflict catastrophic damage on its opponent’s nuclear retaliatory forces, making a first strike less inconceivable and so increasing the risk of precipitous escalation in a crisis. The Russian Federation inherited a vast nuclear arsenal from the former Soviet Union, but many of those systems had already become obsolete or unreliable. To ensure that it maintained an arsenal at least as potent as Washington’s, Moscow sought to replace all of the Soviet-era weapons in its inventory with more modern and capable systems, a process still underway. Russia’s older SS-18 ICBMs, for example, are being replaced by the faster, more powerful SS-29 Sarmat, while its remaining five Delta-IV class missile-carrying submarines (SSBNs) are being replaced by the more modern Borei class. And newer ICBMs, SLBMs, and SSBNs are said to be in development. At present, Russia possesses 333 ICBMs, approximately half of them deployed in silos and the other half on road-mobile carriers. It also has 192 SLBMs on 12 missile-carrying submarines and possesses 67 strategic bombers, each capable of firing multiple nuclear-armed missiles. Supposedly, those systems are currently loaded with no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads (enough, of course, to destroy several planets), as mandated by the New START treaty. However, many of Russia’s land- and sea-based ballistic missiles are MIRVed (meaning they’re capable of launching multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) but not fully loaded, and so could carry additional warheads if a decision were ever made to do so. Given that Russia possesses as many as 2,600 nuclear warheads in storage, it could rapidly increase the number of deployed nuclear weapons at its disposal beginning on February 6, 2026. That Russia is keen to enhance the destructive capabilities of its strategic arsenal is evident from Moscow’s drive to augment its existing nuclear weapons by developing new, longer-range ones. Those include the Poseidon, a nuclear-powered, intercontinental-range, giant nuclear torpedo to be carried by a new class of submarines, the Belgorod, meant to hold up to six of them. Reportedly, the Poseidon is designed to detonate off the coasts of American cities, rendering them uninhabitable. Following a round of tests now underway, it is scheduled to be deployed by the Russian Navy in 2027. Another new weapon, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, is being installed on some of Russia’s existing SS-19 ICBMs. After being boosted into space by the SS-19, the Avangard should be able to travel another 2,000 miles by skimming along the atmosphere’s outer surface while evading most missile-tracking radars. The United States is engaged in a comparable drive to modernize its arsenal, replacing older weapons with more modern systems. Like Russia, the U.S. maintains a “triad” of nuclear delivery systems — land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched SLBMs, and long-range bombers, each of which is now being upgraded with new warheads at an estimated cost over the next quarter century of approximately $1.5 trillion. The existing New START-limited U.S. nuclear triad consists of 400 silo-based Minuteman-III ICBMs, 240 Trident-II SLBMs carried by 14 Ohio-class submarines (two of which are assumedly being overhauled at any time), and 96 strategic bombers (20 B-2s and 76 B-52s) armed with a variety of gravity bombs and air-launched cruise missiles. According to current plans, the Minuteman-IIIs will be replaced by Sentinel ICBMs, the Ohio-class SSBNs by Columbia-class ones, and the B-2s and B-52s by the new B-21 Raider bomber. Each of those new systems incorporates important features — greater accuracy, increased stealth, enhanced electronics — that make them even more useful as first-strike weapons, were a decision ever made to use them in such a fashion. When initiated, the U.S. nuclear modernization project was expected to abide by the New START limit of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads. After February 5th, however, the U.S. will be under no legal obligation to do so. It could quickly begin efforts to exceed that limit by loading all existing Minuteman-IIIs and future Sentinel missiles on MIRVed rather than single-warhead projectiles and loading the Trident missiles (already MIRVed) with a larger number of warheads, as well as by increasing production of new B-21s. The United States has also commenced development of a new delivery system, the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N), supposedly intended for use in a “limited” regional nuclear conflict in Europe or Asia (though how such a conflagration could be prevented from igniting a global holocaust has never been explained). In short, after the expiration of the New START agreement, neither Russia nor the United States will be obliged to limit the numbers of nuclear warheads on their strategic delivery systems, possibly triggering a new global nuclear arms race with no boundaries in sight and an ever-increasing risk of precipitous nuclear escalation. Whether they choose to do so will depend on the political environment in both countries and their bilateral relations, as well as elite perceptions of China’s nuclear buildup in both Washington and Moscow. The Political Environment Both the United States and Russia have already committed vast sums to the “modernization” of their nuclear delivery systems, a process that won’t be completed for years. At present, there is a reasonably broad consensus in both Washington and Moscow on the need to do so. However, any attempt to increase the speed of that process or add new nuclear capabilities will generate immense costs along with significant supply-chain challenges (at a time when both countries are also trying to ramp up their production of conventional, non-nuclear arms), creating fresh political disputes and potential fissures. Rather than confront such challenges, the leaders of both countries may instead choose to retain the New START limits voluntarily. Indeed, Vladimir Putin has already agreed to a one-year extension of this sort, if the United States is willing to do likewise. But pressures (which are bound to increase after February 5th) are also building to abandon those limits and begin deploying additional warheads. In Washington, a powerful constellation of government officials, conservative pundits, weapons industry leaders, and congressional hawks is already calling for a nuclear buildup that would exceed the New START limits, claiming that a bigger arsenal is needed to deter both a more aggressive Russia and a more powerful China. As Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the National Security Council, put it in June 2024, “Absent a change in the trajectory of the adversary arsenal, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required, and we need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision.” Those who favor such a move regularly point to China’s nuclear buildup. Just a few years ago, China possessed only some 200 nuclear warheads, a small fraction of the 5,000 possessed by both Russia and the U.S. Recently, however, China has expanded its arsenal to an estimated 600 warheads, while deploying more ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-capable bombers. Chinese officials claim that such weaponry is needed to ensure retaliation against an enemy-first strike, but their very existence is being cited by nuclear hawks in Washington as a sufficient reason for the U.S. to move beyond the New START limits. Russian leaders face an especially harsh quandary. At a moment when they are devoting so much of the country’s state finances and military-industrial capacities to the war in Ukraine, they face a more formidable and possibly expanded U.S. nuclear arsenal, not to mention the (largely unspoken) threat posed by China’s growing arsenal. Then there’s President Trump’s plan for building a “Golden Dome” missile shield, intended to protect the U.S. from any type of enemy projectile, including ICBMs — a system which, even if only partially successful, would threaten the credibility of Russia’s second-strike retaliatory capability. So, while Russia’s leaders would undoubtedly prefer to avoid a costly new arms buildup, they will probably conclude that they have little choice but to undertake one if the U.S. abandons New START. Racing to Armageddon Many organizations, individuals, and members of Congress are pleading with the Trump administration to accept Vladimir Putin’s proposal and agree to a voluntary continuation of the New START limits after February 5th. Any decision to abandon those limits, they argue, would only add hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal budget at a time when other priorities are being squeezed. Such a decision would also undoubtedly provoke reciprocal moves by Russia and China. The result would be an uncontrolled arms race and a rising risk of nuclear annihilation. But even if Washington and Moscow were to agree to a one-year voluntary extension of New START, each would be free to break out of it at any moment. In that sense, February 6th is likely to bring us into a new era — not unlike the early years of the Cold War — in which the major powers will be poised to ramp up their nuclear war-fighting capabilities without any formal restrictions whatsoever. That comfortable feeling we once enjoyed of relative freedom from an imminent nuclear holocaust will also then undoubtedly begin to dissipate. If there is any hope in such a dark prognosis, it might be that such a reality could, in turn, ignite a worldwide anti-nuclear movement like the Ban the Bomb campaigns of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. If only. This piece first appeared on TomDispatch. The post Plunging Into the Abyss appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael T. Klare.
Nicolás Maduro Refused to be a Slave to Empire
The New York Times reported that Trump officials felt mocked by Venezuela’s president. What provoked them was not a speech or a policy, but Nicolás Maduro’s nonchalance—his dancing in the face of escalating U.S. threats. As the Trump administration bombed fishing vessels in the Caribbean, killing at least 115 people at the time of this writing under More The post Nicolás Maduro Refused to be a Slave to Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" 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decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-200x200.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-200x200.png 200w, 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="654" height="526" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396367" class="wp-image-396367 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png" alt="" width="654" height="526" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM.png 654w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-07-at-11.38.47-AM-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> Youtube screenshot. The New York Times reported that Trump officials felt mocked by Venezuela’s president. What provoked them was not a speech or a policy, but Nicolás Maduro’s nonchalance—his dancing in the face of escalating U.S. threats. As the Trump administration bombed fishing vessels in the Caribbean, killing at least 115 people at the time of this writing under the banner of a war on “narco-terrorists,” Maduro danced. As Trump dispatched eleven warships, squadrons of fighter jets, and fifteen thousand troops to menace and blockade Venezuela, Maduro danced. As Pete Hegseth railed against “fat generals,” bemoaned the decline of white American masculinity, and called for a revival of a macho “warrior ethos” in the U.S. military, Maduro danced. As living standards fell and life expectancy declined in the United States, Maduro danced. As Trump blamed immigrants for the decay of an empire hollowed out by addiction, alienation, and extreme inequality, Maduro danced. And as Trump openly demanded Venezuela’s oil and resources—letting the mask slip that this was never about drugs—Maduro danced, chanting in English, “No crazy war,” as if addressing Trump directly. The mockery could not be tolerated. So the United States followed through on its threats. Last Saturday, Trump sent special forces to kidnap Maduro and his wife, First Lady and “First Combatant” Cilia Flores, from the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, bombing and killing all who stood in their way. It was never really about dance moves. Maduro’s real crime was refusing submission, refusing to be a slave to a white supremacist empire. And despite what the United States does or does not do, the tune continues to play. Venezuela dances the same moves as its now abducted president now with a cautious eye toward an unwanted voyeur. Even in chains and behind bars, Maduro’s dance moves still bother Trump. “I am the president of Venezuela, I consider myself a prisoner of war. I was captured at my home in Caracas,” Maduro told a judge in a New York courtroom, facing drug conspiracy charges that even his accusers appear to be now backing away from. (There was no Cartel of the Sun, they admit.) The 92-year-old white judge interrupted Maduro, perhaps afraid he and his wife might start dancing, violating the sanctity of the court and country that had stolen them away. This piece first appeared on Red Scare. The post Nicolás Maduro Refused to be a Slave to Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nick Estes.
On the morning of January 3, U.S. forces, with 150 jets, armed helicopters, and state-of-the-art drones, launched an attack on Venezuela. Strikes hit Venezuela’s largest military complex in Caracas along with targets in La Guaira, Miranda, and Aragua. Less than 90 minutes later, Maduro was kidnapped and flown out of the country. In a subsequent More The post Against U.S. imperial war on Venezuela! appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396471" class="wp-image-396471 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-680x389.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="389" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-680x389.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-1103x630.jpg 1103w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-768x439.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-2048x1170.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-500x286.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-2-600x343.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Planet Volumes. On the morning of January 3, U.S. forces, with 150 jets, armed helicopters, and state-of-the-art drones, launched an attack on Venezuela. Strikes hit Venezuela’s largest military complex in Caracas along with targets in La Guaira, Miranda, and Aragua. Less than 90 minutes later, Maduro was kidnapped and flown out of the country. In a subsequent press conference, Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela until a “safe transition will take place,” meaning a neocolonial transition. In the same press conference, Marco Rubio made it clear that this was to set a precedent for all of Latin America when he said, “If I lived in Havana and were part of the government, I would be worried.” With this act of naked imperial aggression, the Trump administration has entered a new phase of imperial assertion, one defined by open seizure of territory, resources, and political authority. The so-called rules-based order has been exposed as a hollow fiction. No longer even evoked, it has given way to the raw exercise of force justified on the pretext of narcotrafficking. For Latin America, this is not just merely an episode of aggression but also a profound wound to regional dignity and self-determination, one whose consequences will reverberate far beyond Venezuela. The acting president, former Maduro vice president Delcy Rodriguez, has spoken of “collaboration and dialogue” with Trump and the United States, which is to be understood in terms of tutelage and cooperation with full access to oil. This so far has been endorsed by the entire executive branch, the military leadership, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). It remains to be seen whether fractures will emerge. It is important that Trump is going for this “transition” rather than turning to Venezuelan opposition leaders Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado because he believes it can guarantee him greater control and stabilization for his plans of colonial or semi-colonial domination. Since returning to office, Donald Trump has dramatically escalated U.S. pressure on Venezuela. What began as sanctions and rhetorical threats has increasingly taken the form of military intimidation, maritime attacks, oil seizures, and covert dealmaking—often justified under the language of “counter-narcotics” or “national security.” At the time of this interview (before the January 3 attack and abduction), the U.S. had carried out over 30 attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 107 people. At the same time, Trump has quietly extended Chevron’s access to Venezuelan oil under opaque and constitutionally dubious arrangements, even as his administration labels Venezuela a “terrorist state” and doubled the bounty on Nicolás Maduro’s arrest. These developments raise urgent questions: Why is the U.S. escalating now? What explains the contradictions between sanctions, military aggression, and continued oil exploitation? How do internal divisions within Trump’s camp—between hardline regime-change advocates and energy-sector pragmatists—shape U.S. policy? And how has Maduro used U.S. threats to justify intensified repression at home, particularly against workers, left critics, and popular organizations? To help unpack the meaning and consequences of Trump’s latest moves—and to clarify what an independent, anti-imperialist left position should be—Tempest’s Anderson Bean interviews Venezuelan socialist Gonzalo Gómez from Marea Socialista on Venezuelan politics and U.S.–Latin America relations. Note: This interview took place before the events of January 3. +++ Anderson Bean:Trump has intensified sanctions, deployed a massive military presence in the Caribbean, authorized lethal attacks against boats, and seized Venezuelan oil. And yet, at the same time, he has extended Chevron’s license to operate under opaque and secretive terms. How should we understand this combination of escalation and accommodation? What is genuinely new here, and what represents an acceleration of existing U.S. policy? Gonzalo Gómez:I think there is a double game being played by both sides. Trump plays carrot and stick: They are contradictory elements and, at the same time, they combine dialectically in the service of his goals and interests. This situation also seemed functional to the survival of Nicolás Maduro’s government under the conditions Venezuela is currently experiencing. What is new, one could say, is the intensification of military-type actions: the air-naval encirclement, the attacks on boats of alleged drug traffickers (I’ll make an observation about this later), and the restrictions on air traffic and on the movement of vessels carrying Venezuelan oil products—not Chevron’s. Now they also say they attacked a supposed drug production center on land, which is also unclear. That represents an increase in pressure on Venezuela and on the government of Nicolás Maduro, fundamentally on military terrain. But these are still fairly limited actions, and they seem more directed at generating scenarios that force negotiations with the government, or that allow the United States—Trump—to obtain some concession from Nicolás Maduro’s government. They are not yet decisive actions, beyond the fact that they signify an intervention or could be a prelude to something more serious that may come later. These actions are evidently an escalation compared to simple sanctions—both sanctions against regime officials and broader economic sanctions. But they also appear to be a message to the rest of Latin America and to the pro-imperialist far-right opposition demanding signals from the Trump government. They also speak to the positioning of the United States on the geopolitical and strategic plane: its increasingly intense competition with China and Russia and its attempt to prevent any Latin American government from deepening relations with these other emerging imperialist powers, which are gradually reducing U.S. space and influence. The United States wants to reassert itself in the Caribbean and retake control. Of course, conditions have changed, and today many governments are emerging on the extreme right with neoliberal policies that are openly pro-imperialist. This also gives the Trump government opportunities to attack the Venezuelan government. On the issue of opacity, I think it’s important to emphasize that, on the one hand, business with Chevron falls within the framework of the so-called—or rather, misnamed—Anti-Blockade Law, which in reality is not anti-blockade at all. Instead, it serves to manage operations, transactions, and contracts carried out by the Venezuelan government. In Venezuela, what exists is a process of dismantling sovereignty, of denationalization, of advancing agreements with mixed enterprises, and a historic retreat of the state-owned oil and gas company PDVSA’s sovereign capacity for oil production. Although PDVSA still produces perhaps more than 50 percent of total oil output, today one could say that Chevron may be accounting for about one fifth, around 20 percent, of production. This seems contradictory, because the country that is militarily attacking Venezuela maintains licenses allowing a U.S. transnational corporation to operate in the country and allows oil tankers carrying Chevron’s oil to pass through to the United States. Trump, incidentally, says that the Venezuelan government receives little direct benefit in hard currency and that the proceeds mainly go toward maintaining installations, operational and technical costs, etc. But the opposition has said—or complained—that through negotiations, agreements, or contracts with Chevron, the Venezuelan government has obtained around four billion dollars. In any case, this serves as a negotiating tool, because Venezuela depends increasingly on U.S. oil companies. Whether Chevron remains in Venezuela or not ends up being the object of transactions or concessions on both sides and ultimately becomes functional to this game between the Maduro government and the Trump government. Also I think, perhaps the term “accommodation” needs clarification: Who is accommodating whom? In some way, both sides accommodate each other within the corresponding tensions, and either side may be willing to make any move in pursuit of its own interests. The Venezuelan government accommodates the pressure from the Trump government because it maintains Chevron, despite presenting itself as anti-imperialist, as a defender of sovereignty, and as a defender of the national oil industry. Yet it maintains a petroleum company from the aggressor country and depends on it for a significant portion of production. So what kind of anti-imperialism is that? One might say it is “realpolitik,” because PDVSA is not in a position to produce that oil, and if it did not, it would have an impact on the Venezuelan people. But in reality, I do not believe that Venezuelan oil extraction is generating better conditions for the Venezuelan people, because it is appropriated by the bureaucracy and by a policy that benefits national elites—whether from the government or local capitalism—along with imperialism itself. No one has talked about the possibility of Venezuela taking control of the production currently handled by Chevron, or of seeking a mechanism for technical and productive recovery, as it had in the past. And nobody knows anything, because there is no way to audit what is done with PDVSA, with Venezuelan oil, and with the companies operating in Venezuela. A revolutionary, anti-imperialist, socialist government would propose full nationalization under workers’ and social control with audits of all operations—or at least a progressive plan to achieve that. And that is not happening. So yes, there is accommodation. It seems that what they want is to maintain this type of relationship. The Trump government is interested in not leaving space that could be occupied by China, Russia, Iran, or other countries. It is also interested in obtaining information about Venezuela’s oil industry, which Chevron allows it to do. And it holds a lever: At a certain moment it can say, “We stop producing oil” and provoke a sudden impasse for Venezuela. The government of Nicolás Maduro does not appear to be taking preventive measures in the face of this. On the contrary, it is exposing us to an even greater vulnerability vis-à-vis imperialism. AB:These attacks are occurring at a moment of deep exhaustion inside Venezuela: collapsing wages, mass migration, unresolved elections, and severe repression. At the international level, they also coincide with the decline of U.S. influence in Latin America and the growing presence of China, Russia, and Iran. Can you speak about the moment in which this recent escalation of attacks against Venezuela occurs, and the political and geopolitical context of that escalation? GG:I think it occurs at a moment when U.S. imperialism—and Donald Trump as head of government—are seeking to reposition and recover U.S. power and influence, which had been declining in the face of China’s momentum and Russia’s military power. They are doing this through force, through faits accomplis, and through dismantling the multilateral international legal system and international treaties—that is, through an abrupt, de facto approach. To defend its space, it is striking that Trump is willing to agree to peace in Ukraine by ceding territory to Russia without European involvement. At the same time, we observe China’s actions around Taiwan, and the United States positioning itself in the Caribbean as if the world’s regions were being marked out under the primary control of one power or another. That is the scenario we are seeing. But Venezuela’s situation, from the standpoint of the interests of the population and the working class, has not improved at all due to these pressures and actions by Trump. On the contrary, they have served to harden Nicolás Maduro’s government, to provide excuses for increased repression and authoritarianism, and to attack union sectors in order to contain any possibility of struggle, demands, or internal protest. This repression is also directed against the left opposition. It does not represent a numerical threat, but it is a symbolic threat, because it challenges the government’s claim to be left-wing, anti-imperialist, and socialist, by pointing out that it is in fact an authoritarian government with anti-worker policies and even some neoliberal policies. This situation has allowed the regime to sustain its rhetoric and victimization as an anti-imperialist force before certain sectors internationally. And internally, conditions have worsened: There are fewer democratic freedoms and fewer possibilities for organization and action. And I’m not referring only to the government’s claiming that it is defending itself against the far-right opposition like María Corina Machado—who supports an invasion and offers Venezuelan resources to the United States—but also against grassroots sectors and the population for making any demand at all, even for speaking on social media. The bureaucracy is far more intolerant today than before, and it finds justification for this in the external situation. AB:There appear to be marked divisions within Trump’s camp: One faction including the oil lobby and figures like Richard Grenell favors maintaining the Chevron channel; another, led by Marco Rubio and Florida hardliners, pushes for total isolation and regime change. How do these competing priorities explain Trump’s erratic swings and what do they tell us about his real objectives? GG:Beyond the fact that this may reflect real sectors within Trump’s government—on one side,people close to the oil lobby, and on the other those representing Cuban migration in Florida—I think Trump arbitrates between these two seemingly opposing policies. Both serve his carrot-and-stick tactic. At a certain moment when [U.S. special envoy Richard] Grenell arrives and presents himself in Venezuela, they explore possibilities of opening doors or flexibilizing certain things in exchange for immediate concessions, such as the release of U.S. prisoners. On the other side, [U.S. Secretary of State]Marco Rubio draws boundaries—what lines cannot be crossed—and blocks the development of Grenell’s initiatives. I think this is part of the same game. It is not contradictory; it ends up being functional to Donald Trump’s policy, and Trump is the one who arbitrates it. AB:The Maduro government rhetorically denounces U.S. aggression, but at the same time maintains joint ventures with U.S. corporations under the Anti-Blockade Law while repression intensifies against workers, unions, and left critics. How has Maduro responded to the recent attacks, and how has this affected repression inside Venezuela? GG:As we said before, the interventionist siege and everything the Trump government is doing have led the Venezuelan government to harden internal conditions: increasing repression, intolerance, and further restricting democratic freedoms. The union movement is caught up in this. The government always carries out cosmetic operations and puts on shows—such as the so-called “union constituent assembly”—and then says, “we’ve held tens of thousands of assemblies to consult the working class about production.” But nobody talks about wages, collective bargaining, union freedoms, or the ability to freely form unions or act. That is completely closed. Chevron policy goes down a path that is not that of a revolutionary government of workers or the people. The government does not talk about restoring production centered on PDVSA with democratic participation of the working class in controlling oil operations—technical workers, professionals, and so on—nor about social auditing. On the contrary, it has been increasing opacity in all economic actions and increasingly trying to work with private capital. In Marea Socialista, we say that Venezuela today has a form of lumpen capitalism governed by a corrupt bureaucracy that, in recent years, has destroyed everything that had been advanced in the early years of the Bolivarian Revolution. Contradictorily, this scenario is more conducive to the government maintaining the type of control it currently exercises. And just to add one more thing: Several boats have been sunk that Trump claims belonged to drug traffickers. In some cases, the Maduro government says they were fishermen. But the Trump government presents no evidence or indications, does not confiscate recoverable goods, does not show drugs, and does not recover bodies. More than that, they have allegedly executed surviving victims, and those victims have no names. It’s as if they were sardines, not human beings. Where did they come from? What are their communities, their families, their neighborhoods? In Venezuela, there is only diplomatic denunciation: “Boats were sunk, people were killed extrajudicially.” Fine—but where are the data, the lists, the details about these people? There is a dehumanization of the conflict, and both sides are engaging in something similar. As for the right-wing opposition, it is appalling: They do not fundamentally question what is happening. Some may have said they oppose interventionism, but not María Corina Machado. So yes, boats were sunk—but no one really talks about the people. AB:My final question is about what the Left’s position should be, both internationally and inside Venezuela. How can the Left oppose U.S. imperialist aggression and extrajudicial violence without aligning itself with an authoritarian, neoliberal government that is privatizing the oil sector, jailing union leaders, and crushing democratic rights? What would a genuinely anti-imperialist, working-class alternative look like at this moment? GG:We must adopt, first and foremost, a firm anti-imperialist position: against interventionism, against any possibility of invasion, against violations of Venezuela’s territorial sovereignty. We must denounce this frontally, as well as those collaborationist sectors—such as María Corina Machado—that support, approve, or remain silent in the face of what is happening. In reality, they call for U.S. intervention and offer to hand over Venezuela’s resources. That would produce a future equal to or worse than what we have under Nicolás Maduro. This clear anti-imperialist stance does not mean giving political support to Nicolás Maduro’s government. We must continue denouncing its anti-democratic, corrupt, and anti-worker character, and continue demanding democratic, social, and labor rights for Venezuelans and the working class. We must demand improved living conditions. The government claims there is economic growth, but it does not raise wages or comply with the Constitution regarding the minimum wage. People cannot cover the basic cost of living. We must demand the restoration of freedoms and the ability to organize and mobilize. This is also fundamental to defending the country: You cannot defend a country based solely on the will of a bureaucracy that decides everything about the government and the military while oppressing the population and subjecting it to unacceptable conditions. That creates vulnerability to imperialism and space for the far right and for confusion among the population about those proposing intervention as a solution. So: neither imperialist intervention nor authoritarian, oppressive, anti-worker government. We must demand our rights, organize, and mobilize to defend them, and thereby be in better conditions to defend the country against imperialism. This also implies a truly anti-imperialist and nationalist policy toward dealings with companies like Chevron and others—even from other powers—seeking sovereign and independent alternatives for the functioning of our principal national industry, while also attempting to overcome extractivism. Beyond the internal struggle, we must promote a sustained, deep international campaign with all forces willing to confront U.S. interventionism without aligning with the Maduro government. In Marea Socialista, this was part of a resolution approved at the recent Third Congress of the International Socialist League, presented together with sections from Ecuador and Colombia, because the aggression goes beyond Venezuela. We propose an international solidarity campaign, with mobilizations and protests in all possible countries against Trump’s interventionism. This must also involve allies inside the United States willing to mobilize against Trump’s policies—against militarism and interventionism—and who understand that this is also part of defending the U.S. working class against the abuses of that government: its treatment of migrants, the most vulnerable sectors, and workers. That needs to be encouraged, just as it was demonstrated that the large mobilizations against the genocide in Gaza by Israel—with the collaboration of the Trump administration—were important in helping to put a stop to what was happening. I would like to conclude by reiterating that we oppose imperialist intervention, we oppose the pro-imperialist and pro-intervention far right, and Venezuela’s way out cannot come from either of them. Nor does it lie in unconditional defense of Nicolás Maduro’s government, whose nature we already know. This piece first appeared at Tempest. The post Against U.S. imperial war on Venezuela! appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Anderson Bean - Gonzalo Gómez.
Goebbels’s Ghost and Miller’s Dream of a “Unified Reich.”
White House adviser Stephen Miller seems torn from the darkest archive of the 1930s. His ideological fever, spittle-laced tirades, compulsive lying, and theatrical rage are not excesses but instruments: performative rituals through which cruelty is normalized and racism is taught. What he stages is not only a ruthless infatuation with power and updated fascist politics More The post Goebbels’s Ghost and Miller’s Dream of a “Unified Reich.” appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396520" class="size-medium wp-image-396520" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5874-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair White House adviser Stephen Miller seems torn from the darkest archive of the 1930s. His ideological fever, spittle-laced tirades, compulsive lying, and theatrical rage are not excesses but instruments: performative rituals through which cruelty is normalized and racism is taught. What he stages is not only a ruthless infatuation with power and updated fascist politics but also a psychic unraveling masquerading as authority. The spirit animating his rhetoric, saturated with hate, fabrication, and manic spectacle, recalls a historical moment when cruelty became a governing principle and racism the moral grammar of the state. Miller is a grotesque figure granted power, a carnival barker of repression whose racism operates as projection: a deep, unresolved self-loathing displaced outward and weaponized. In targeting immigrants, dissenters, Muslims, people of color, and all those outside the narrow confines of white Christian nationalism, he seeks not just power and disciplinary panopticon order but racial purification, not truth but erasure, transforming inner emptiness into a politics of cruel collective punishment. In this role, he is the archangel of a gangster state, reviving the racial cleansing and colonial violence of a prior age with an apocalyptic urgency driven by nihilism and Trump’s fevered fantasies of a unified Reich. Miller is one of the principal architects of a fabricated “war on drugs,” a manufactured emergency used to justify extraordinary violence—from illegal boat strikes and the killing of more than one hundred people without due process to the kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Maduro and his wife. What appears as a series of discrete acts is, in fact, something far more consequential: the deliberate fusion of the so-called war on drugs with the long-standing war on terror. Under Miller’s ideological guidance, these once distinct campaigns collapse into a single, permanent state of exception in which mafia-style threats and force replace law, and violence becomes the primary instrument of both domestic and foreign policy. Miller aggressively emulates Trump’s relentless calls for militarization, normalizing a logic in which alleged criminals, political opponents, and entire populations are reclassified as enemy combatants. In this convergence, policing becomes warfare, warfare becomes governance, and the language of security is weaponized to erase due process, sovereignty, and accountability altogether. His fear of dissent, people of color, and the very idea of law is not merely rhetorical; it is visceral. It surfaces in his permanent war mentality, his embrace of imperial aggression, and his eagerness to militarize both domestic governance and foreign policy. His unhinged defenses of the invasion and political abduction in Venezuela, along with his casual assertion that Greenland “rightfully” belongs to the United States, reveal a fascist worldview in which legality is meaningless and sovereignty collapses before brute force. For him, law does not restrain power; it sanctifies it. This contempt for ethical and political responsibility is laid bare in his declaration on CNN that the world is governed not by justice or rights but by “strength,” “force,” and “power,” which he calls, with totalitarian assurance, the “iron laws” of history. Taken together, these claims form not only the language of realism; they also constitute the creed of an emerging fascist politics. It echoes the vocabulary of Hitler and the Third Reich, where politics was reduced to struggle, morality dismissed as weakness, and domination elevated to destiny. In this worldview, force turns out to be truth, violence becomes virtue, and the rule of law is replaced by the racialized mythology of survival through conquest. In Orwell’s warning that when the clock strikes thirteen, something has gone terribly wrong, Miller’s language marks precisely that moment—when power openly declares itself the only truth, domination becomes common sense, and fascist lies no longer bother to disguise themselves as reality. Miller’s hatred of dissent is most fully revealed in his relentless effort to seize control of public culture, not as a secondary battlefield but as the central terrain on which authoritarian power is forged and sustained. He operates with the clear understanding that domination requires more than repression, it demands the production of compliant fascist subjects and the systematic erosion of the cultural institutions capable of nurturing critique. As the chief architect of book bans, the hollowing out of schools and universities, and the destruction of culture as a site of democratic possibility, Miller wages war on the very conditions that make resistance thinkable and culture a vital sources of social change. His assault on critical consciousness, historical memory, and critical pedagogy reproduces the racial logic of colonial rule, a politics designed to manufacture terminal zones of exclusion, enforce the violence of organized forgetting, and cultivate a colonized imagination trained to mistake obedience for order and silence for civic virtue. This systematic war on culture is not merely ideological; it is pedagogical in the deepest sense, shaping how people learn to see the world, themselves, and those marked for exclusion. What Miller models is authoritarian pedagogy at work, teaching people how to think, how to feel, and who to despise. In this way, he helps manufacture the fascist subject, training audiences to confuse domination with strength, obedience with virtue, and dehumanization with patriotism. His politics echoes the architecture of a Nazi state; this authoritarian logic is rehearsed daily, disciplining the public to accept exclusion, erasure, moral collapse, and racial terror as common sense. Miller is not a foot soldier of authoritarianism. He is a chief instructor, a propagandist of racial fear whose power lies in shaping the cultural and psychological conditions that make fascism feel normal, necessary, and even virtuous. In that sense, Goebbels is not an exaggeration but a mirror. History is not whispering a warning here; it is returning as a scream, ripping through the present and demanding to be recognized. The post Goebbels’s Ghost and Miller’s Dream of a “Unified Reich.” appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Henry Giroux.
Europe’s Strategic Autonomy Problem is No Longer Abstract
I keep hearing the phrase “strategic autonomy,” including in discussions about the latest joint declaration on Ukraine. The term appears in speeches and policy papers, moving from Brussels to Paris like a chorus and a hook—always about Europe, always about its reliance on the United States. In defence, in technology, in global affairs. At a push, it feels less like a generational project than a much shorter and tighter five-year ambition. “We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot / Five years, that's all we've got...” More The post Europe’s Strategic Autonomy Problem is No Longer Abstract appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-945x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-600x400.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png 1599w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396506" class="size-medium wp-image-396506" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-680x453.png" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg-600x400.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flag_of_European_Ukraine.svg.png 1599w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image Source: Michaelversatile – CC BY 3.0 I keep hearing the phrase “strategic autonomy,” including in discussions about the latest joint declaration on Ukraine. The term also appears in speeches and policy papers, moving from Brussels to Paris like a chorus and a hook—always about Europe, always about its reliance on the United States. In technology, in defence, in global affairs. At a push, it feels less like a generational project than a five-year ambition with a zero-time plan. “We’ve got five years / My brain hurts a lot / Five years / That’s all we’ve got…” Europe talks often about strength, and in some respects, as I have reported before, that strength is growing. Then something happens, such as Washington’s unilateral and dramatic intervention in Venezuela, and the gap between ambition and ability is stripped bare. The song, most abruptly, ends. When a crisis erupts beyond Europe’s borders, especially one involving great-power shenanigans, Europe’s capacity to act independently is always haunted by its limitations. Painfully so. Inside the European Union, “strategic autonomy” has become shorthand for a bundle of goals. In Baroque music, composers wrote only the bass line plus numbers. Maybe it’s like that: the outline is clear, but the performance is left to whoever turns up. In practice, autonomy seems to mean being able to act militarily if the United States chooses not to. It means reducing essential dependencies. It means gaining leverage, albeit with slippy hands, in a choppy transatlantic relationship. The player who sets the tempo here has influence even without playing louder. What it does not mean, at least for now, is slashing ties with NATO, severing the alliance’s oxygen supply with Washington, or embracing geopolitical neutrality—the sort some strands of European Green politics increasingly flirt with. France remains the most vocal champion of autonomy, the loudest voice in the yard, though both France and Germany have recently criticised elements of US foreign policy. Eastern Europe, with its still-visible historical scars and sharper fears, probably remains the most sceptical and least likely to bolt. Still, something is shifting. Defence spending is rising across the beleaguered, often over-hounded continent. Germany’s €100 billion defence fund marked a genuine break with the past. Most EU countries now say they will meet NATO’s 2 percent-of-GDP target. Denmark, subject to the most recent American bullying, is a remarkable 3 percent. Put that in your pipe, Washington, and smoke it, you can almost feel the Danes say. Joint procurement of ammunition and air-defence systems is becoming more common. The change is no longer merely rhetorical. It is structural.. Joint procurement of ammunition and air-defence systems is becoming more common. The change is no longer merely rhetorical. It is structural. Industrial policy is shifting too. EU programmes now aim to steer procurement towards European suppliers. They say the process remains inefficient and slow. But everyone insists, with curious self-loving relief, that it is moving. The appeal of the Saab Gripen over the F-35 is a case in point. An ex-military contact—“Europeans can fight,” he reminded me—argued that this type of preference is driven less by battlefield performance than by concerns over sovereignty, freedom of use, and long-term cost control, and the ability to deploy without external permission, despite the F-35’s acknowledged advantages. Energy policy shows similar shifts. Europe has diversified rapidly away from Russian oil and gas, increased investment in renewables, and revived nuclear in some quarters. Strategic reserves have expanded and joint purchasing platforms emerged. Ironically, the short-term result has been deeper reliance on American liquefied natural gas, with volumes flowing into terminals in England, Wales, and France. Yet Europe remains militarily weak and cannot fight a high-intensity conflict without the United States. The gaps are well known, with the partial exceptions of nuclear-armed France and the UK—though London still leans heavily on American support. Without the keystone, the arch weakens. This may be changing. German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier has just said European security policy needs rewritten. Strategic autonomy sounds neat, but it requires sharp, fast, coordinated decision-making. The EU is a union of 27 governments with different histories, geographies, and fears. The Baltics do not see the world as Spain or Hungary do. Foreign policy gets bogged down in vetoes and internal division. Even as Europe begins to arm itself to the teeth, this may be the greatest obstacle. Public opinion adds another constraint. Most Europeans want security, but not the bill. They reject conscription. And if America remains willing to provide the umbrella, they are largely content to stay beneath it. But Europe will likely see this as necessary oxygen for proper debate. Russia’s war in Ukraine changed the mood, but not the fundamentals. Macron may have said that “multilateral institutions are functioning less and less effectively,’’ but European NATO has grown stronger. Okay, US weapons and intelligence became more essential, and if anything, the war made Eastern Europe more Atlanticist, but the drive for autonomy was also in the process of gaining momentum. Which brings us back to Venezuela. When the United States moved decisively and largely unilaterally in Latin America, Europe hesitated. Responses were cautious, vague, often passive. Governments “monitored the situation.” Few offered alternatives. Official EU statements emphasised democracy and international law, while avoiding a clear stance. Some criticised Washington. Others tacitly approved or stayed neutral. One Eastern European leader welcomed the impact on energy markets. The fragmented response again exposed Europe’s fault lines. In retrospect, many now see Venezuela not as a turning point but as a warning. It is a glimpse of a more transactional, unpredictable US foreign policy, and a reminder that reliance carries risk, especially when Washington moves unilaterally. Greenland, too, underscores Europe’s dependence, though the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, is now preparing Europe’s response to any military action on Greenland. As part of the Kingdom of Denmark, yet embedded in American defence planning, it shows just how Europe’s sovereignty blurs at the frontiers of great-power rivalry. Venezuela may not have changed European capabilities, but it sharpened the argument. It reinforced the case for more autonomous decision-making. This is not because Europe wants to abandon the US alliance, but because it may not always have the choice. That point was reinforced again this week when US forces intercepted two oil tankers in moves that were swift and consequential, though not on the oil tanker sanctioned by the US in 2024 for distributing illicit Russian oil and sailing only this week through the Channel. When rules are broken and escalation risk is real, who acts? Once more, it is Washington, though the UK provided military support such as RAF surveillance aircraft and naval backing. By and large, though, Europe just watched, assessed, and coordinated its language. It was not a failure of diplomacy so much as a reminder of capability and who still calls the shots. The joint declaration by several European states signalling readiness to contribute to a “multinational force” to uphold any future peace agreement in Ukraine fits neatly into this story. It is a meaningful political gesture. It is Europe signalling that it does not intend to outsource the post-war security order on its own continent. It feels like a manifestation of how Europe would prefer things to be. Yet its limits are also revealing. The proposal sits outside EU structures, appears to rely on NATO frameworks, and assumes continued American cover, which everyone fears is a risky strategy these days. The force envisaged would stabilise but would it enforce? Strategic autonomy is no longer abstract, but it is not yet decisive. Watch, as Europe appears to be rising to its feet to say, this space. The post Europe’s Strategic Autonomy Problem is No Longer Abstract appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Bach.
Private Equity in the Doldrums and Out of Favor With Some Institutional Investors
For years, private equity funds attracted institutional investors — pension funds, university endowments, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds – that could afford to tie up funds for long periods of time with a promise that returns would substantially outperform the stock market. And, during the go-go years between 1995 and 2000, the median fund in More The post Private Equity in the Doldrums and Out of Favor With Some Institutional Investors appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. For years, private equity funds attracted institutional investors — pension funds, university endowments, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds – that could afford to tie up funds for long periods of time with a promise that returns would substantially outperform the stock market. And, during the go-go years between 1995 and 2000, the median fund in a smaller PE industry did outpace a rising stock market. For a few years following the 2000-2001 bursting of the tech bubble and the collapse of publicly traded stocks, the median PE fund beat the public equity markets. Since 2006, however, private equity returns have largely tracked the S&P 500 as measured by the public market equivalent — the metric preferred by serious financial analysts over the flawed internal rate of return (IRR) measure preferred by industry insiders. Now a $7 trillion industry, most PE funds can’t beat the stock market. Looking back in 2024 to the previous five years, the S&P 500 outperformed the median private equity fund even when using the flawed IRR to measure fund performance. The S&P 500 continued to outpace private market returns in 2024and 2025. Private markets research firm MSCI estimates that between 2022 and the third quarter of 2025, an index of US private equity funds saw annualized returns of 5.8 percent, compared to 11.6 percent for the S&P 500. PE funds have struggled mightily since mid-2022. In 2022, the S&P 500 fell by nearly 20 percent. PE firms failed to mark the value of their portfolio companies to market. Instead, the general partner (a committee of principals of the PE firm, not an individual that manages the fund) used its own guesstimates of what the companies in its portfolio were worth. Fund managers declared that their portfolio companies had largely escaped the effects of the market downturn. As a result, PE portfolio companies are overvalued, and a persistent gap between buyers and PE sellers has made it difficult for PE funds to exit their investments, either through a sale or via a stock market IPO. Rising interest rates have also stymied PE funds’ exits. The low interest rate environment of the dozen years from 2010 to 2021 facilitated the acquisition of companies using high levels of debt. But the dramatic 5.25 percent increase in interest rates between March 2022 and July 2023, as the Federal Reserve System raised rates to bring down pandemic-induced inflation, made exiting PE investments in portfolio companies challenging. In 2025 the gap between the value that buyers and sellers place on companies in PE fund portfolios and higher-for-longer interest rates on the debt that finances acquisitions remain significant challenges for the PE industry selling its aging companies. . PE’s Persistent Exits Problem Institutional investors in private equity — pension funds, university endowments, life insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds — make money when the private equity funds they invest in buy companies, increase the acquired company’s profits over a few years, and then successfully sell the company for more than they paid. A few PE-owned companies go public through an IPO on a stock market. Traditionally, PE funds have had a life span of 10 years, and have exited all of their investments by the tenth year after they are launched. In recent years, it has taken 12 to 15 years for many funds to sell all their companies and return the cash to investors. Exits are the engine that drive fundraising, deal making, and returns to investors. Sales of portfolio companies provide investors with cash to meet their obligations — pension liabilities or student scholarships, for example. The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2022 and 2023, the number of exits across all PE and VC strategies declined to 658 and 323, respectively, compared with their 2021 high of 1,210. Exits improved in 2024 to 516 but remained depressed compared not only to the peak year of 2021 but to the average of 647 exits a year over the 11 years from 2010 to 2020. This is even worse than it appears, since the numbers of funds and portfolio companies are larger than they were in the past. In 2025, exits declined to 321 (as of December 22). The value of exits, according to the Wall Street Journal, peaked at $527.8 billion in 2021, then fell to $224.4 billion in 2022 and $100.8 billion in 2023 before recovering somewhat to $120.4 billion in 2024 and $243.9 billion in 2025 (again as of December 22). The increase in exit value in 2025 compared with 2024, despite the decrease in the number of sales and IPOs of portfolio companies, is due to a number of mega exits including Medline’s $6.26 billion IPO. Despite an improvement in exit activity since 2023, The New York Times reports that PE funds are sitting on an inventory of 31,000 companies valued by the funds at $3.7 trillion. The slowdown in exits has triggered a number of problems for PE funds and their investors. These include a rise in the number of zombie funds, liquidity problems for PE fund investors, and sporadic fundraising problems for certain PE funds. “Zombie Funds” Zombie funds are funds that are 10 or more years old and still have not liquidated all of their portfolio companies and distributed the proceeds to their investors. The PE firm continues to collect management fees from the investors (referred to as limited partners or LPs), but there is little chance the fund will be able to sell or IPO many of the remaining companies at the price they value them at in investor reports. According to TREO Asset Management, a firm that helps LPs manage and dispose of aging assets, zombie funds historically have been able to return 53 cents on the dollar to LPs for assets remaining in such funds. Currently, these funds return 44 cents on the dollar to investors. The volume of assets under management (AUM) in zombie funds has grown explosively in recent years. For funds located in North America, primarily the US, AUM in zombie funds increased from $372 billion in 2021 to a record $441 billion in 2024. The bad news for LPs is that most of the unsold assets in zombie funds are in large funds ($1 billion to $5 billion at inception) which are likely managed by the most established and well-known general partners (GPs). Zombie funds launched in 2014 have a worryingly 77 percent of capital raised by the funds still unrealized in 2024 (year 10). Low Distributions Squeeze PE Investors The historically low levels of exits in the last few years have meant less cash paid out to investors. The ratio of cash distributions to paid-in capital has become the top of mind metric for PE investors: It can’t be gamed and it measures actual cash returned to investors as a percentage of cash paid in to the PE fund by investors. Even as exits improved somewhat in 2024, distributions to investors hit a low. Distributions below their historical levels and below the expectations of investors create two problems. Institutional investors such as pension funds and university endowments rely on the return of cash through these distributions in part to fund expenditures on pension liabilities or to fund scholarships or research. The problem is especially acute for pension funds that need liquidity to pay out pension liabilities. A small circle of investment consultants steered US pension funds toward investments in private markets — private equity, real estate and hedge funds — as they encouraged pension funds to chase higher returns. The share of total investments held in these alternatives increased from 10 percent in 2000 to about 30 percent in 2025. More generally, the slowdown in exits and cash distributions to PE investors has meant that institutional investors have less money available to invest in future PE funds. Additionally, the slowdown in exits means that the share of PE investments in institutions’ overall investments has increased, often above the institution’s target PE allocation (the so-called denominator effect) which also reduces incentives for future contributions to PE fundraising. The failure to return the usual amount of cash to investors — the so-called liquidity crunch — has created problems for both PE investors and PE firms. Financial Engineering to the Rescue As successful exits have become increasingly difficult for aging PE funds, the funds have turned to other means to raise cash to return to their investors and ease the liquidity crunch. Dividend recapitalizations, a controversial means of returning cash to LPs in ordinary times, were up in 2025. In a dividend recapitalization, PE funds have their portfolio companies borrow money at high interest rates to make distributions to the funds’ shareholders. The shareholders encompass the general partner (GP) — a committee made up of principals in the PE firm that make all decisions for the fund — and the limited partner (LP) investors in the fund. Bloomberg estimates that dividend recapitalization loans reached a total of $28.7 billion in November 2025, on pace to exceed the record of $28.8 billion set in 2021. PE firm Thoma Bravo, for example, raised $1 billion in high-yield debt on Ping Identity Holding Corp in October 2025 and $750 million on Darktrace in November to fund payouts to shareholders. Another workaround PE firms are using to return cash to their investors is to sell companies in one of the funds they sponsor to another fund — a so-called continuation vehicle — they also sponsor. In view of the backlog of 31,000 unsold companies noted above, this has become an increasingly popular exit strategy for PE funds. A fifth of all private equity sales in 2025 are estimated to have involved the PE firm raising money from new investors to acquire companies from one of its aging funds. These transactions — selling assets already owned by the PE firm to a new continuation fund also owned by the PE firm — provide a way for PE firms to return cash to investors. Investors in the original fund have the option of cashing out at this point, although they may receive less than the fair market value of the company. The cash returned to the limited partner investors will be reduced by the carried interest paid to the GP and by any fees related to the transaction. Or they can keep their investment in the company as it moves to the new fund. They will then be obligated to continue paying management fees to the GP for managing this asset. This is a sensible choice if, indeed, the company that is moved to the continuation vehicle is performing well and its sale price is likely to increase if it is held for a longer period. But the value of the company and its expected sale price are not set in a market. Instead, they are guesstimates by the general partner — a committee as described earlier of principals and professionals of the PE firm that represents the firm’s interests. The GP is on both sides of the negotiation. As the GP of the original fund, it should try to get the highest price for the company. But as the GP of the new fund, it should try to buy the company cheaply so there is room for it to appreciate in value. Limited partner investors in the funds cannot be sure the company’s sale price reflects its true value. Nevertheless, most LPs roll over their investment in the company to the new fund. The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund is suing private equity firm EMG for breach of fiduciary duty to the original fund when selling its assets to a continuation vehicle for not looking out for the interests of limited partners in the original fund. PE firms sold assets to themselves at a rapid rate in 2025. The value of assets in continuation vehicles has increased from about $35 billion in 2019 to a total that was expected to reach $100 billion or more by the end of 2025. Some investors — the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas among them — are concerned that this is just delaying the day of reckoning. They fear that these deals may lead to unrealistic valuations for the companies and unrealistic projections of what the companies will ultimately be sold for. Their concerns about these circular deals have intensified following bankruptcies of companies such as Wheel Pro and United Site Services after their sales to continuation vehicles. Net Asset Value loans (NAV), another way to return liquidity to investors, are typically high-yield loans that a fund’s general partner takes out in order to return liquidity to the fund’s LP investors. The fund’s GP borrows against the (estimated) value of all the unsold companies remaining in the fund. Unlike a dividend recapitalization – which is debt taken on by a single portfolio company and is not a liability of the fund – NAV loans are a liability of the fund and the companies in its portfolio. NAV loans have increased in popularity since the liquidity crunch took hold. Thevolume of NAV loans reached $100 billion in 2024. NAV lending experienced a 30 percent compound annual growth rate from 2019 to 2023. GPs use NAV loans in part to increase the ratio of distributions of cash to investors to cash paid in by investors (DPI), now a favorite metric used to evaluate fund performance. The distributions also increase the value of the fund’s IRR to the benefit of the general partner and the PE firm. The GPs expect their LP investors to use the cash returned to them to invest in a subsequent fund managed by the current fund’s GP. While the distributions are welcomed by LPs that face liquidity constraints, many LPs without pressing liquidity needs have questioned the wisdom of such financial engineering. Provisions in some NAV loans that allow the lender to recall the proceeds that the PE fund has paid out are especially troubling. Many LPs park these funds in an account; they do not reinvest the funds or spend them in any way but hold them in case they need to repay the lender. So while the cash paid out to investors shows up as distributions on the books of the PE fund, they do not count as distributions in the accounts of the LPs that receive the money, and they are not available for reinvestment in a subsequent fund until the NAV loan has been repaid. Recent efforts to increase DPI do not appear to have had a major effect on cash in the hands of PE investors. The DPI for the median fund launched in 2014 was 33 percent five years later. For funds launched in 2016, it was 47 percent. However, for funds launched in 2019, the DPI for the median fund in 2024 (five years after launch) had fallen to 22 percent. PE Fundraising in 2025 As we noted above, the record high number of aging unsold portfolio companies has limited the flow of cash from PE (and VC) funds back to the funds’ investors to be used in part to invest in future funds. In VC, and across PE strategies, this was largely due to the continuing weakness in exits that has constrained liquidity. Without receiving distributions from sales of portfolio companies, it has been difficult for LPs to commit money to new PE funds. Mediocre returns are leading institutional investors to rein in their allocations to PE. The opaqueness of private equity and the lack of standard definitions and public reporting means that various data analytics firms will have different definitions of what is counted as a PE fund. For example, does it include growth investing (providing equity to a company without taking it over)? And the lack of reporting requirements means that data in various data sets come from different sources. As a result, reports on the extent of fundraising provide different absolute numbers. While actual numbers may not always match, the direction of fundraising (increasing or declining over time) is useful information. If various data sources report different absolute figures, but the numbers are of similar orders of magnitude and the direction of change is the same, we can have confidence that PE funds are successfully raising capital or that fundraising has been a bust. According to Prequin, global private equity fundraising across all strategies and including venture capital declined in 2022, 2023, and 2024, with the 2024 results driven by the large decline in VC fundraising. Hopes for a fundraising recovery in 2025 were disappointed as the sluggishness continued. Globally, the sharp fall in annual private equity fundraising since 2019 has continued. Across all strategies, PE is expected to raise less than $600 billion in 2025 ($502.1 billion raised through Q3 2025) compared with $734.5 billion in 2019, a peak of $840.9 billion in 2023, and $664.8 billion in 2024. Globally, private equity buyout funds, which account for half of all PE and VC fundraising, raised just $190.2 billion in the first half of 2025. In the US, fundraising by buyout funds is down sharply in 2025 compared with 2024. While the absolute numbers are different, Pitchbook (another private equity data analytics firm) also finds that fundraising is down. Its data show that US buyout funds raised $214 billion through the third quarter of 2025 and were on track to substantially underperform the $360 billion these funds raised in 2024. Private equity’s difficulties fund raising for buyout funds has led them to develop another private market that they can recruit institutional investors to invest in — private credit funds. These are funds sponsored by PE firms that lend money to finance PE buyouts as well as to companies, PE owned or publicly traded, that do not qualify for bank loans or other public credit. The volume of private credit has tripled in the last 10 years. A study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine and Johns Hopkins University found that this market also has unliquidated inventory and investor returns issues. Outlook for 2026 Top executives at PE firms Blackstone and Ares have expressed optimism that improvements in the IPO market in 2025 will accelerate in 2026, and — together with an anticipated increase in M&A deals — will accelerate a decline in the backlog of unsold companies acquired 10 or more years ago, mitigating the liquidity crunch and facilitating improvements in fundraising. In contrast, the Chair of Global Private Equity Practice at Bain & Co. commented, “We’re talking about a 5+ year problem as the GFC [Great Financial Crisis of 2008] was, in order to process all of this liquidity. This is not going to go away in 2025 or 2026. It’s going to be continued pressure on the institutional LPs for liquidity over the course of the next several years.” If interest rates decline and the US continues to avoid a slowdown, as is likely as long as the AI bubble doesn’t pop, 2026 will be a better year for PE funds than 2025 was. But digging out from under the overhang of aging, overvalued portfolio companies will be a multi-year process. Fundraising is likely to continue to underperform GP expectations, and the need for new sources of capital, especially for PE buyout funds, is likely to remain acute. Finding institutional investors to pour money into aging funds with highly leveraged and overvalued portfolio companies in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment has been difficult. PE firms are looking to your retirement savings — your 401(k) — to bail them out. This first ran on CEPR. The post Private Equity in the Doldrums and Out of Favor With Some Institutional Investors appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eileen Appelbaum.
[M]any have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame More The post The Year in Rebuke appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-1536x1039.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-2048x1385.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-500x338.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-600x406.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396510" class="size-medium wp-image-396510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-680x460.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="460" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-680x460.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-932x630.jpg 932w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-768x519.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-1536x1039.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-2048x1385.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-500x338.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/kHUQ36M2JLvOQBdbJ8m9ytmWRR6-1-scaled-1-600x406.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Poster Art for the movie The Man Who Would Be King. Source: Allied Artists – IMPAwards – Fair Use [M]any have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one. – John Locke I start with a rebuke to Putan, Netanyahoo, and Peachy Carnehan, Michael Caine’s character in the 1975 film, The Man Who Would Be King. Good news is the investors and dividend recipients did well. The more money you had invested the better you did. That’s good news for roughly 20% of the population. The idea of a 1% has led Labor into a false estimate of the Capitalist power they are confronting. Still, just 20% doing enormously well doesn’t make the “good” news so good, speaking from a long-forgotten egalitarian perspective. Some 80% finding it hard to find anything good in 2025, in the macro, means the social contract promising a shared well-being and a common good has broken down. On the micro level, so much that makes you feel good, like the faces of those you love, are beyond this review. But a personal well-being, whether on the living well/financially well-off level, or the penthouse discovering one’s “true self” level, really do not amount to a rat’s ass, speaking Constitution and Christian wise, if nothing you do “promotes the general welfare.” “In the beginning was the Word,” the mystical writer John informs us. Thereafter, a world is born. In the year 2025, words are even more ungraspable than John’s “the Word.” Words signifying what the Scientific Method tells us, for instance, in regard to human agency and global warming, or the efficacy of vaccines now are questioned by every self-authorized DIYscientist. “Truth isn’t truth” Rudy Giuliani tells us, and “we have alternative facts” Kellyanne Conway tells us. If you’re not convinced that a new world has been born out of a collapse of what words mean, how they are to be interpreted and how common understanding is achieved, spend some hours reading the words that have come out of the mouth of a twice-elected President of the United States. Jeffrey St. Clair has gathered them here: “Goodbye to Language: the Year in Trumpspeak,” CounterPunch, December 25, 2025. Who or what conditions should be rebuked for our descent into no longer sharing ways of knowing leading to a common grasp of what words mean and thus to a commonly shared understanding? A clever grifter rising to power oiled this collapse but did not create it. Some may dream that in an After Trump Age when the zone will no longer be flooded, we’ll return to meaning construed rationally. The reign of Humpty Dumpty: “Words means what I want them to mean!” will be over. However, any return to the Western Tradition of Reason and Reality may prove difficult if the zone that has been flooded is the American mind. The American Mass Psyche, neurotically fractured? the American cultural imaginary, plunged a dark abyss of fear, hatred, retaliation and paranoia? If all this is true, or each day close to being true, perhaps it wasn’t a Trump virus that brought us to a low point of our own self-declared “Exceptionalism,” but our own disintegration and degeneration created him? The question then is not what sort of malignant narcissist or sociopath or grifter/extortionist Trump is, but what in us created him? This is very scary because when Trump disappears from the scene, the flooded American mind will remain on stage. On a brighter note, perhaps just being with him has properly vaccinated us from future epidemics creating this sort of creature? In seeking what is in the American mass psyche that brought Trump into existence and further what kept us from cutting short his growth, scant time should be wasted on our mythic Fallen nature. Instead, we need a close look at some conditions on the ground that led us away from a shared well-being and distracted a legislative/executive/judiciary eye on the common good and general welfare. Some would rebuke liberals and progressives for attacking family values, which may be code for Christian morals and virtues, which do not presently seem to be called upon as those who look Latino are netted by ICE. Or, called upon when by accusation alone unidentified people in small boats in the Caribbean are blasted into smithereens. Or, called upon by the suffering and deaths caused by shutting down The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID. Or, called upon for no reasons but those that are evil for crippling agencies such as CDC, FDA, and NIH, or, dismantling the Department of Education, or, undermining all efforts to mitigate global warming and conduct scientific research as done by the EPA, NIH, NSF, and NOAA. A short list. The moral imperative isn’t triggered. Not even a rebuke from the silent Republican legislators elected to serve the common good. This is a year in which no moral rebukes are made. From the Dark Side, of course, our President will rebuke the many nasty low-lives that impede his will. And so, the moral sense displayed in 2025 seems less grounded in the Beatitudes and more in quick fire furies, fears ignited and fueled by slow immiserations blamed on words, ideas, people foreign, threatening and dangerous because unidentifiable. Whether or not how and why we have degenerated as a country, as a people, cannot conclude with an exoneration of Trump. While I wonder what ails a country that brought a grifter like him to wealth and power, and at the same time shafted all those who couldn’t play in the casino game capitalism had become, Trump took his good fortune and ran it forward. Bullshit and lies, combined with a sociopathic disregard for honor, honesty, decency, loyalty, respect make him a man applauded for his business acumen. As he himself asserted, he used the country’s laws to his advantage. He’s played the casino game of capitalism and won, by which we can assume, like the con man who mocks his mark, he does not, as president, honor the principles of free-market conservatism but rather his own instincts, raw unenlightened self-interest. He is John Maynard Keynes’ most wicked of men but not one, who as Keynes believed, do the most wicked things for the good of everyone. As the capitalist game is for Trump just a paper bag he punched through, as president he discovered that this perfect union establishing justice and so on was also no more than a paper bag a man like him could punch through. Maybe at some point he understood how the capitalist casino play, based on nothing more determining than a turn of a roulette wheel, would lead to a distribution of power in government ruled by chance, inequities undermining the foundational beliefs of an egalitarian society and electoral democratic governance. This foulness could be the only way he could see a man like him could ever reach the presidency.Trump exhibits the cynicism of a nihilist who has gazed into the abyss of both our governance and our economics. In his first term he came out like a clever con man making first contact with his mark. He came out defensively, sizing up the Leviathan of this Constitutional electoral democracy. And he found the holes in the fabric, the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of those elected to serve. By combining the grifter’s long game with Don Corleone’s extortion tactics, he brought some 70 million voters into this camp. Trump could not have reached the success he now has if he had not played on the growing immiseration of the majority brought about by a Monopoly game economics corrupting the representation of power in government. He has made no effort to correct either institution, his interests extending no further than himself. This has meant savaging the presidential oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Along with running an Elon Musk like chain saw through government, he stands to walk away with about $1.8 billion in cash and gifts. Rebukes that will go on for years will probably be the only paper punches he will take. On the brighter side, Mayor Mamdani is focused on the casualties of our casino capitalism. In contrast to Trump who has let the bodies fall, Mamdani proposes to take on the power corrupting machinery of capitalism right at the center of Wall St. financialized capitalism. Trump has looked into the abyss and mined it for his own profit. What Mayor Mamdani sees in this abyss and what he is able to do is forthcoming. The hope is that the abyss will not gaze back at him, and so transform the crusader into something of what he is crusading against. It has happened. What we see in the coming year may be in the Congressional elections a wounding blow to Trump’s mad rush to immortalize himself here there and everywhere. Any electoral obstruction to his will to power in 2026 will be met by him as fiercely as his 2020 presidential defeat. Much is now testing the loyalty of his MAGA followers, but the augmenting possibility that the Epstein Files will reveal that it’s their leader Trump who is part of the Deep State, “the clandestine network of conspirators within the leadership of the financial and industrial sectors exercise power alongside or within the elected government.” Those files may expose Trump not as a savior and champion against the forces by which a paranoic MAGA feels oppressed but as a false god, a traitor to their hopes. A cornered Trump may not get the assist from MAGA he has been getting. What percentage are at Kool-aide drinking level would be too small for Trump to use as extortion leverage, a leverage he has used to keep Republican legislators in line. I leave my greatest rebuke last: the blindness in regard to the damage AI will do to Labor’s last gasp struggle with Capital. Growth of profits and the need to eliminate labor costs has for a long time now led to offshoring jobs once held by Americans. AI is rushing to eliminate whatever jobs remain, blue collar and white collar. What AI now asks of labor is to just get out of the way. Who profits from this but the owners of AI and its investor class? What do you do with those who are not in this privileged group? Rescue them into leisure as Larry Page suggested, as if life, liberty and leisure was the summum bonum of a democratic society? Will the billionaire class of tech oligarchs clubbing now with the billionaire class of Wall St financial power entertain or confine/restrain all those no longer needed as capitalism finally succeeds in eliminating labor costs? Whether or not the unchallenged, unregulated advance of AI is rebuked post-Trump depends upon whether getting workers the hell out of the way unsettles an economy that depends some 70% on consumer spending. Also, keeping the same roughly 20% of the Dividend/Investor/Ownership class happy and secure as they are now would most likely change drastically, happy and secure-wise, if those liberated into leisure might not settle down properly but rather unleash a revolutionary fury. One of the things January 6th’showed us is a blind anger seething at surface level. The American Mass Psyche, in short, is on a short fuse. Whether all those whose work has been replaced move on beyond work to a cultivation of virtue and a mental flourishing, achieving Aristotle’s eudaimonia, would, if I understand his ethics here, depend on a development through work enabling a proper use of leisure. That level of life instruction is dubious in the service-oriented industries where the greatest percentage of Americans work. What we have already seen is a replacement of workers by automation,. but the AI level now achieved threatens white collar workers, thus eliminating that level of income to which service-oriented workers could advance. Therefore, what AI does is further erode a middle class income, leaving the U.S. in a two tiered wealth society: low and high, where Brazil and Mexico currently are. These are not low GDP countries but rather rich/poor because of long histories of power inequities. This is not the case in the U.S. whose history displays a strong middle class economic power, along with a sense of equity as well as an egalitarian spirit not yet doused. Right now AI is speeding along with an estimated 50,000 to 55,000 U.S. jobs replaced by AI in 2025. What AI’s effect on education is in play but it seems that a smart phone with AI research would either push instructors aside, or turn them into magnetic performers, needing to do HBO Special level presentations at each class. Absent that, it’s easy to see that the difficult task of narrating in a classroom a thread by which information is turned into a path of knowing how to know is now facing transformation or eradication. The post The Year in Rebuke appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joseph Natoli.
Kidnapping Blues: The Maduro Abduction Precedent
Once done, it remains, by nature and fact, irreversible. The precedent of indicting and abducting a serving head of state and his spouse, dropping them into the jurisdiction of another country to face criminal charges of inventive pedigree (narcoterrorism foremost among them), is the stuff of nightmares in international statecraft. With the now former Venezuelan President Nicolás More The post Kidnapping Blues: The Maduro Abduction Precedent appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396529" class="size-medium wp-image-396529" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-680x500.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="500" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-680x500.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-856x630.jpg 856w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-768x565.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-1536x1130.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-500x368.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498-600x441.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/President_Trumps_Trip_to_Vietnam_33352861498.jpg 1887w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain Once done, it remains, by nature and fact, irreversible. The precedent of indicting and abducting a serving head of state and his spouse, dropping them into the jurisdiction of another country to face criminal charges of inventive pedigree (narcoterrorism foremost among them), is the stuff of nightmares in international statecraft. With the now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores facing such charges in New York, other world leaders are doubtless feeling a prevailing gloom. Is there anything stopping US President Donald Trump from deploying the US military and law enforcement agents from nabbing the next sitting leader in the middle of the night? Even more broadly, is there anything stopping other States from doing the same? This is something that has excited discussion in various political quarters, notably in East and Southeast Asia. Regarding the sullen, fleshy North Korean despot, Kim Jong-Un, the question is a pressing one. Certain lawmakers certainly think so. South Korean Rep. Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform Party, noted the brazen indifference the Trump administration had taken to renaming Maduro as a “leader of a transnational crime ring” instead of accepting him as a legitimate head of state. “The logic applied to President Maduro could also be applied to the North Korean leader,” reasoned Lee on Facebook. The US Justice Department had, after all, indicted North Korean hackers in 2021, using rather hyperbolic language in describing them as the “world’s leading bank robbers”. The former mayor of Daegu, Hong Joon-pyo, was similarly confident that the North Korean leader “must have been startled by this.” Here, we were witnessing “a return to the logic of power and the era of imperialism”. That said, the tendency of brutish US power to apprehend and dispose of sovereign heads of state, was not spanking, new exercise. “There was the invasion of Panama in 1989, the arrest of [Manuel] Noriega in 1990, and the United States has also played the role of world’s police in events such as the case of Chile [the overthrow of the Allende government in 1973] and the execution of [Saddam] Hussein.” A truly sterling record. Kim Dong-yub of the University of North Korean Studies also <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2026/01/why-the-us-operation-in-venezuela-raises-the-risk-of-war-on-the-korean-peninsula/?utm_source=AM+Nukes+Roundup&utm_campaign=9c7a720989-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_25_12_19_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_547ee518ec-9c7a720989-391858565" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thediplomat.com/2026/01/why-the-us-operation-in-venezuela-raises-the-risk-of-war-on-the-korean-peninsula/?utm_source%3DAM%2BNukes%2BRoundup%26utm_campaign%3D9c7a720989-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_25_12_19_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_547ee518ec-9c7a720989-391858565&source=gmail&ust=1767926194980000&usg=AOvVaw3KaCLoazM-44PYDPs1uY-T">considered the Maduro precedent “deeply concerning” for Pyongyang, offering the following, tormented formulation: “When an adversary believes decapitation can arrive without warning, under the guise of policing or asset recovery, the rational response is to automate retaliation and compress decision time.” Leaving aside the torturous prose, the nervousness at the prospect of such a fate inflicted by so fickle a world leader is bound to be palpable. The North Korean leader, for his part, responded to the events in Venezuela with military drills involving the firing of two hypersonic missiles into the Sea of Japan. The activity in question was, according to him, “clearly aimed at gradually putting the nuclear water deterrent on a high-developed basis”. This was “necessary” because of “the recent geopolitical crisis and complicated international events”. Kim also expressed pride in the “important achievements” that had been made in preparing the country’s nuclear forces “for an actual war”. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry was less oblique in a statement on Maduro’s fate. “The incident is another example that clearly confirms once again the rogue and brutal nature of the US, which the international community has so frequently witnessed for a long time”. In Southeast Asia, the abduction precedent particularly troubled the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. “The leader of Venezuela and his wife were seized in a United States military operation of unusual scope and nature,” he brooded in a social media post. “Such actions constitute a clear violation of international law and amount to an unlawful use of force against a sovereign state.” Irrespective of the reasons behind the move, “the forcible removal of a sitting head of government through external action sets a dangerous precedent”, eroding “fundamental restraints on the use of power between states and weakens the legal framework that underpins international order.” Malaysia’s neighbour, Indonesia, was similarly troubled by the Maduro precedent. A January 5 statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “grave concern over any actions involving the use or threat of force, which risk setting a dangerous precedent in international relations and could undermine regional stability, peace, and the principles of sovereignty and diplomacy.” In the Philippines, the official response, given the security ties between Manila and Washington, was less testy. It was left to various lawmakers to state a few troubling truths. Rep. Perci Cendaña of the left-wing Akbayan Party-list sawthe actions of the Trump administration as birds of a feather with the “similar aggressive acts of Russia in Ukraine and China in the West Philippine Sea”. Mamamayang Liberal Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima considered the operation against Venezuela one of disturbing redux, the US having again morphed “into an aggressor state” and sabotaging the rules-based international system. In doing so, its conduct had normalised the actions of Russia in the ongoing Ukraine War, Chinese expansionist aggression in the South and East China Seas, and Israel’s genocidal policy against the Palestinians. It was time, she opined gravely, to consider her country’s reliance on the US “for moral leadership on the world stage and as an ally for regional security and a rules-based international order.” With the thuggish Donroe Doctrine running with strapping vigour, and the Trump administration hungering for additional scalps in its name, de Lima’s sentiments, along with those of her colleagues, are hard to fault. The post Kidnapping Blues: The Maduro Abduction Precedent appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Why White Supremacy Is Never Named in the Venezuela Crisis
Explanations of Venezuela that avoid white supremacy are faithful to the world that made this outcome ordinary. Across the current debate, there is no shortage of analysis. Commentators invoke imperialism, oil, sanctions, international law, authoritarianism, corruption, diaspora exhaustion and the familiar refrain of “complexity”. These explanations often disagree sharply with one another. Yet across ideological More The post Why White Supremacy Is Never Named in the Venezuela Crisis appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396458" class="wp-image-396458 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-680x451.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="451" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-680x451.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-950x630.jpg 950w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-768x509.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-2048x1358.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-500x331.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jon-tyson-tmtPexcCirQ-unsplash-600x398.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Jon Tyson. Explanations of Venezuela that avoid white supremacy are faithful to the world that made this outcome ordinary. Across the current debate, there is no shortage of analysis. Commentators invoke imperialism, oil, sanctions, international law, authoritarianism, corruption, diaspora exhaustion and the familiar refrain of “complexity”. These explanations often disagree sharply with one another. Yet across ideological divides, political loyalties and disciplinary boundaries, one shared omission remains: white supremacy, as a system, is almost never named. Here, white supremacy is the global system that ranks nations, people and sovereignties according to proximity to Western power and allocates legitimacy accordingly. This absence is not accidental. When a concept explains the distribution of legitimacy, violence, and suffering across the global order and yet remains unspeakable, the silence itself becomes diagnostic. What is missing from the Venezuela discourse is not nuance. It is the system that makes the outcomes so predictable. Much of the existing commentary is not wrong. Oil extraction has shaped Venezuela’s fate. Sanctions have deepened suffering. International law has failed repeatedly. Authoritarian repression is real. Diaspora exhaustion is palpable. But these frames function as descriptions of outcomes rather than explanations of why the same pattern recurs across time, leadership and justification. They describe harm without naming the system that renders it routine. This is where the preference for terms like colonialism or imperialism becomes revealing. Colonialism remains a valid and necessary concept for describing historical extraction and domination. But it is also a history that can be placed safely behind us—treated as something that happened then, elsewhere or as an external force. Even when framed as “neo-colonial”, it allows contemporary institutions to appear flawed but fundamentally neutral. Imperialism, similarly, can be discussed as a geopolitical strategy or policy choice without destabilizing the legitimacy of the global system that manages it. It is often narrated as ambition rather than structure, as decision rather than governing order. White supremacy does something different. It does not describe a historical episode or a foreign policy choice. It names an operating system—one that determines whose sovereignty is conditional, whose violence is framed as governance, whose suffering is treated as background and whose crises are allowed to fester until force becomes legible as a “solution”. Colonialism explains what was taken. White supremacy explains who is permitted to take, intervene, sanction, abandon or “rescue”—and still be recognized as lawful, rational or humanitarian. This distinction matters because Venezuela is not the only place where this script appears. What matters is the pattern it reveals: when sanctions and diplomatic pressure stand in for real political solutions, collapse is normalized. People are worn down, conditions deteriorate and suffering becomes background noise. Only then does overt force re-enter the conversation—as military threat, exceptional measures or “all options” rhetoric—not as escalation but as correction. White supremacy explains why this sequence is not treated as scandal. It explains why suffering can last for years without response yet only becomes actionable once it spreads beyond borders and exposes failure—and why intervention is then framed as order rather than aggression. The term is avoided precisely because it collapses the comfort of compartmentalization. Once white supremacy is named, oil can no longer be discussed apart from sacrifice zones. Sanctions can no longer be framed as neutral tools. International law can no longer be treated as evenly applied. Expertise can no longer pretend to stand outside the system it serves. White supremacy is edited out because it turns respectable analysis into participation and converts “neutrality” into complicity. The refusal to name white supremacy is not a failure of analysis. It is a professional survival strategy. This is not about accusing individuals of bad intent. White supremacy does not require villains. It operates through institutions, professions and legal frameworks that many in the professional class that profits from neutrality inhabit and depend upon. Naming it does not ask who is good or bad; it removes the system’s claim to neutrality. It exposes how “neutral” analysis often functions as management—administering harm while insulating those who authorize it. That is why the discourse stops where it does. Not because the evidence is unclear but because naming the system would strip too many institutions of their innocence. It is easier to debate outcomes than to interrogate the order that guarantees their repetition. Easier to argue about leadership failures than to confront a hierarchy that renders some nations perpetually expendable. Easier to invoke “complexity” than to admit that the rules are functioning exactly as designed. When analysis stops at symptoms, repetition is not a mistake—it is inevitable. The refusal to name white supremacy does not make the Venezuela crisis more complicated. It makes it predictable. Until white supremacy is named as the governing logic that decides whose lives can be treated as expendable, whose sovereignty can be overridden and whose destruction can be narrated as stability, this crisis will not end. The silence is not accidental. It is how the system protects itself. The post Why White Supremacy Is Never Named in the Venezuela Crisis appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Anita Naidu.
This is a photo that should not have been. This is an event you should not know. This is a guy who should not have been killed. This is a moment when truth was briefly on the silver screen of 1934. This is a photo of a chain gang, now hung up as a reprint, More The post To Each According to His Bank Account appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396449" class="wp-image-396449 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v-680x866.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="866" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v-680x866.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v-495x630.jpg 495w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v-768x978.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v-500x637.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v-600x764.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/LOC_Chaingang-pnp-det-4a10000-4a10000-4a10700-4a10700v.jpg 804w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Chain gang. Photo: Library of Congress, Public Domain. This is a photo that should not have been. This is an event you should not know. This is a guy who should not have been killed. This is a moment when truth was briefly on the silver screen of 1934. This is a photo of a chain gang, now hung up as a reprint, a decorative icon with authenticity so rare in a world of deep-fakes. History is a weapon. A few years ago, a poll showed more than half of USA citizens attributed Karl Marx’s quote “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” to George Washington or President Obama. People like Howard Zinn and Oliver Stone have repeatedly shown how Americans’ knowledge of their own history is astonishingly limited: Zinn’s People’s History of the USA was banned in many school districts to make sure it stayed that way. Now, over 3,700 books were banned during the 2024-2025 school year, more than double the number from 2021-2022. So when a Serbian friend read Zinn’s People’s History of the United States he was shocked over the brutality with which the USA worker’s movements had been crushed. They were untold crime stories to him, “Why aren’t people more aware of this history?” This turned out to be the start of the concept for a documentary series entitled “CLASS WARS”. The plural in the title, “wars”, was important: the waves of extreme repression encompassed a wide geographical reach over many decades. Tapping into the historical work of Zinn and others like Mike Davis or Kim Kelly (“Fight Like Hell”), we had also lined up an impressive line of commentators and consultants that included such greats like Chris Hedges and Robin Kelley. The teaser for the series can be seen here. The series aimed to show that the forces that criminalized progressive activists before WW2 are the same methods used today. When the USA had Julian Assange persecuted and imprisoned for 10 years they used the same repressive law they used to imprison socialist Eugene Debs for his opposition to USA involvement in WW1. But the method goes deeper that just the “laws” as Oscar Ameringer, another socialist imprisoned under that “Espionage Act” of 1917 put it: “Politics is the art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.” Or in other words: the USA political system is based on class war. A German producer with good connections to USA producers took on the CLASS WARS project, and we were overjoyed when the renown production company, PARTICIPANT, signaled their interest to finance the series. In the last 20 years, Participant had made their mark in the film world with their unique emphasis on socially relevant productions: the climate-change documentary, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, or such films as Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA, which specifically addressed social inequality from the perspective of the underprivileged. Their productions had received over 21 Academy Awards and grossed more than $3.3 billion at the box office. Then, in April 2024, as the budget for CLASS WARS was being discussed and the contracts on their way to being sealed, a bombshell headline appeared in the New York Times: “Participant Calls it Quits.” The company’s lifeline was millions in investment from eBay-billionaire, Jeff Skoll, who announced that he was pulling out. Though Skoll refused to be interviewed in the Times article, he was quoted as blaming the “revolutionary changes” in the media. This was a misuse of the term “revolutionary”. The problem was well known and not new. Netflix and Disney had started selling ads, and advertisers preferred apolitical entertainment. I wonder why (not). When Trump was elected in 2024, Skoll was seen celebrating at Trump’s inauguration with his buddy, Elon Musk. Some commentators presumed that Skoll’s association with the studio behind the climate-change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, had just become “inconvenient” for the billionaire. Times change. It also meant the demise of financing for the CLASS WARS series. Since January last year, Skoll has distanced himself from Trump, publicly condemning Trump’s budget plans. His farewell letter to Participant has also since been made public, in which Skoll proudly praises the achievements of Participant as “one of the most gratifying ventures of my career”. So why pull the plug on this success story of activist filmmaking? Hollywood insiders complained that the studios just did not want to make films for adults any longer. Or as Geeta Gandbhir, one of the documentary directors slated for CLASS WARS stated: “TikTok is now our competition”. Other sources pointed to the real factors for Skoll’s decision to stop funding Participant and take his money elsewhere: the California wildfires had aggravated Skoll’s asthma and he decided he had to move to Florida, which can be costly for those requiring beachfront property. He threw down nearly $90 million for an ocean estate in “Manalapan”, the exclusive tiny Florida town where other billionaires like Oracle boss Larry Ellison have erected homes. Manalapan’s strict low-density zoning laws also require hurricane-proof roofs and windows. Is it really easier to protect yourself from hurricanes than California wildfires? The Florida villa was not the only real estate requiring the funds with which Skoll had formerly financed Participant’s activist films: Skoll also bought a $17 million estate near Washington D.C., seven months after announcing the closing of Participant. The property includes a 1905 residence, a log cabin, and stables, with additional historical significance since it had served as a Civil War encampment and hospital. Was Skoll expecting the outbreak of another civil war, like 40% of the Americans polled in 2022? Not necessarily, if one believes Skoll’s explanation that he purchased the estate to be closer to the Washington Capitals ice-hockey team, which he owns. “To each according to his needs”: part of the equation seems to have been fulfilled, for one class of the population. The post To Each According to His Bank Account appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jan Ralske.
Murder in Minneapolis: Time to Stop Coddling the ICE Gang and Its Enablers
On January 7, gang members — gathered in Minneapolis for the purpose of abducting immigrants and cowing the state’s population — menaced motorist Renee Nicole Good, then murdered her when she attempted to flee. This wasn’t the ICE gang’s first murder, and won’t likely be its last. ICE, its allied gangs — “Homeland Security,” “Customs More The post Murder in Minneapolis: Time to Stop Coddling the ICE Gang and Its Enablers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4608" height="3456" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-scaled.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-scaled.jpg 4608w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4608px) 100vw, 4608px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4608" height="3456" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-scaled.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-scaled.jpg 4608w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396522" class="size-medium wp-image-396522" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3942-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair On January 7, gang members — gathered in Minneapolis for the purpose of abducting immigrants and cowing the state’s population — menaced motorist Renee Nicole Good, then murdered her when she attempted to flee. This wasn’t the ICE gang’s first murder, and won’t likely be its last. ICE, its allied gangs — “Homeland Security,” “Customs and Border Protection,” et al. — and its shot-callers (e.g. Kristi “Ice Barbie” Noem, Greg “Lying Poltroon” Bovino, and Tom “$50k Cash in a Paper Bag Isn’t a Bribe” Homan) are at war. They’re at war with America, and they’re waging that war on Americans. The presence of immigrants on US soil is the excuse, not the point. How should Americans go about defeating this armed and dangerous domestic enemy? The first thing to understand about the conflict is that it’s “asymmetric.” The evildoers are a centrally commanded paramilitary force. Yes, they’re violent wannabes who are too lazy, incompetent, or evil to find real jobs, but their sociopath bosses give them effectively unlimited funding and access to advanced weaponry. The forces of good, on the other hand, are everyday Americans (and immigrants) who’d really rather be left alone to make their livings doing productive work. No central command. No guaranteed paychecks courtesy of the nation’s tax slaves. Few automatic weapons. Believe it or not, that asymmetry can actually work to the benefit of the good guys. As satisfying — and as justified — as it would be to send these hoodlums home in body bags when they get violent, another recent incident in the Minneapolis area shows a more peaceful, and more effective, way forward. “If you are with DHS or immigration, let us know as we will have to cancel your reservation,” read a January 2 email from Lakeville’s Hampton Inn Hilton (the ICE gang redacted the identity of the recipient in its whining post on X). “Please pass on this info to your coworkers that we are not allowing any immigration agents to house on our property.” Unfortunately, the hotel’s owners, Everpeak Hospitality, backed down, and Hilton Hotels apologized, groveled, and canceled its franchise agreement with Everspeak. As Hilton likes to tell us, “It Matters Where You Stay.” I can’t help but wonder if Renee Nicole Good’s murderer spent the night before his crime enjoying Hampton’s “light and warmth of hospitality.” Setting this specific murder aside for a moment, given the high proportion of immigrants who work in the hospitality industry, why would ANY hotelier want to host a violent gang which focuses on targeting its employees? And why would any non-violent, non-gang-affiliated patron want to rent a room there? Ostracism can be more effective than violence. If ICE gang-bangers start finding that they can’t rent hotel rooms, get served at coffee shops, receive communion at churches, or find play dates for their kids with decent people’s kids, they’ll be incentivized modify their behavior, abandon the thug life, and seek real jobs. But getting there will take some peaceful pressure from normal people … perhaps starting with a boycott of Hilton-affiliated hotels. The post Murder in Minneapolis: Time to Stop Coddling the ICE Gang and Its Enablers appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.
“We Create Our Own Reality”: Empire and the illusion of International Law from Rafah to Caracas
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own More The post “We Create Our Own Reality”: Empire and the illusion of International Law from Rafah to Caracas appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="960" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0.jpeg 960w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-680x850.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-504x630.jpeg 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-768x960.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-500x625.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-600x750.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="960" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0.jpeg 960w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-680x850.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-504x630.jpeg 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-768x960.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-500x625.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-600x750.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="504" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-504x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-504x630.jpeg 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-680x850.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-768x960.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-500x625.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-600x750.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0.jpeg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 504px) 100vw, 504px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396508" class="size-medium wp-image-396508" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-680x850.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="850" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-680x850.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-504x630.jpeg 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-768x960.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-500x625.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0-600x750.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/0.jpeg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image Source: Department of State – Public Domain The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will —we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” — A senior Bush administration aide to Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine, 2004; often attributed to Karl Rove (who denies saying it). Suskind has never identified the source. This boast has become the hallmark of U.S. imperialism, tracing a long lineage back to the Monroe Doctrine as an extension of the twisted notion of Manifest Destiny. This ideology, rooted in ethno-religious supremacy, claims that a particular people are divinely ordained to expand their territory and influence, much like Zionism and the greater Israel project, which asserts a chosen status based on religious belief. Such constructs have been used to justify movements of settler colonialism, founded on genocide and slavery, paving the way for U.S. global hegemony. This historical narrative extends through Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Desert Storm, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and currently, Gaza and Venezuela. Across both Democratic and Republican administrations, these actions embody American exceptionalism, arrogance, and unchecked imperial hubris. Say that law should bind the powerful and you are waved off as naïve — one of the “reality‑based.” From Belgrade to Baghdad, from Gaza to Caracas, Washington and its client states have treated the UN Charter and humanitarian law as props: invoked to punish enemies, waived to protect allies. The latest proof is the abduction of Venezuela’s elected president, Nicolás Maduro — seized in a U.S. operation under Donald Trump and flown to New York on laughable narcotrafficking charges — paired with open boasts about taking Venezuela’s oil. The facade of multilateralism has been stripped away; prerogative is now enforced by might. This is not an anomaly. It is the arc of a decades‑long project: act first, justify later, dare the world to catch up. A record written against the UN Charter – Operation Desert Storm (1991, George H. W. Bush): UN‑backed expulsion devolved into the “Highway of Death” and a decade of catastrophic sanctions. – Sanctions on Iraq (1991–2003, George H. W. Bush → Bill Clinton to Bush the second): Comprehensive sanctions devastated civilians; estimates counted hundreds of thousands of excess child deaths. In 1996, SecState Madeleine Albright said the price of half a million iraqi children was “worth it.” – Yugoslavia/Kosovo (1999, Bill Clinton): NATO bombed without Security Council authorization, striking civilian infrastructure and gutting Article 2(4) which prohibits the threat or use of force any state’s territorial integrity of political independence. – Iraq (2003, George W. Bush): Invaded on false WMD claims; the UK’s Chilcot Inquiry and U.S. Senate reviews documented manipulation; war crimes from Abu Ghraib to Fallujah. – Afghanistan (2001–2021, George W. Bush → Barack Obama → Donald Trump → Joe Biden): From self‑defense to occupation, black sites, and globalized drone killings—including U.S. citizens; Biden’s botched Kabul strike (2021). – Libya (2011, Barack Obama; SecState Hillary Clinton): UNSCR 1973 “protection” morphed into regime change, leaving a shattered state, a slave market in its wake, and a legal framework mocked by result. – Syria (2014–, Barack Obama → Donald Trump → Trump 2024–): U.S. forces operate without Damascus’s consent or authorizing mandate; northeast oil effectively cordoned; the Caesar Act throttles recovery. Earlier precedents and the Latin American playbook – Korea (1950–1953, Truman → Eisenhower): Saturation bombing, massive civilian toll, armistice without peace. – Vietnam/Indochina (1955–1975, Eisenhower → Kennedy → Johnson → Nixon → Ford): Escalation, carpet‑bombing, Agent Orange, Phoenix Program; the Pentagon Papers exposed official deceit. – Guatemala (1954, Eisenhower): CIA‑backed coup against Árbenz over land reform; decades of terror followed. – Cuba (1961–1962, Kennedy): Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose covert war. – Dominican Republic (1965, Johnson): Invasion to crush reformist forces. – Brazil (1964, Johnson): Backing for a military coup; later folded into Operation Condor. – Chile (1970–1973, Nixon; Kissinger): Destabilization and the coup against Allende; Pinochet’s terror; declassified information shows US direct involvement. – Operation Condor (mid‑1970s–1980s, Nixon → Ford → Carter → Reagan): Transnational assassination/torture network across South America with U.S. intelligence support or tolerance. – Argentina “Dirty War” (1976–1983, Ford → Carter → Reagan): U.S. backing/tolerance amid disappearances. – Nicaragua (1981–1990, Reagan → George H. W. Bush): Contra war; Iran‑Contra; the ICJ (Nicaragua v. U.S.) ruled against Washington—jurisdiction rejected. – El Salvador (1979–1992, Carter → Reagan → Bush): Arming and financing amid massacres (El Mozote). – Grenada (1983, Reagan): Invasion condemned by the UN General Assembly as illegal. – Panama (1989, George H. W. Bush): Invasion with heavy civilian toll; UN condemnation. – Haiti (1994, Clinton; 2004, George W. Bush): Interventions and political engineering; contested legality and outcomes. – Colombia (late 1990s–, Clinton → George W. Bush → Obama): Plan Colombia militarization; displacement and abuses. – Venezuela (2002, George W. Bush): U.S.‑blessed coup attempt; (2019–2021, Donald Trump): recognition and lawfare; (2020) Operation Gideon fiasco; (2026, Donald Trump): abduction of Maduro. – School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC): Fort Benning program that trained numerous Latin American dictators later implicated in coups, torture, and massacres (Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia). Gaza: the reality that swallows any resemblance of a “rules based order” (Joe Biden and Donald Trump) In January 2024 the International Court of Justice found South Africa’s genocide case against Israel plausible and ordered provisional measures. Under Joe Biden, Washington continuously armed Israel, wielded Security Council vetoes, and provided diplomatic cover. Under Donald Trump, that backing continues—vetoes, weapons, political impunity—repackaged through a farcical “peace plan” touting a “Gaza Riviera” and a “ceasefire” that is not: siege conditions persist, aid is throttled, and reconstruction is subordinated to occupation. Aid convoys are attacked; UN and NGO staff are killed; crossings are choked. As of January 1, 2026, Israeli authorities have banned 37 aid groups from Gaza; Doctors Without Borders — Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) — reports teams blocked and attacked; an Israeli official smeared MSF as “Terrorists Without Borders.” When law threatens an ally, it is reinterpreted until it disappears. Empire in the Americas, redux The Monroe Doctrine never died; it rebrands as “leadership.” When elections comply, sovereignty is sacred. When they don’t: sanctions, coups, covert ops, indictments — and now kidnapping dressed as jurisdiction. Trump’s updated playbook — earning the moniker the “Donroe Doctrine”— runs from abducting Maduro to threats against Colombia and even the fanciful bid to “get” Greenland. The message to the hemisphere is blunt: it’s ours. Venezuela has endured the full spectrum. UN‑condemned sanctions crushed public health; PDVSA (the state-owned oil and natural gas company of Venezuela) was choked; CITGO carved up. In 2020, Trump posted a $15 million bounty on Maduro with sweeping DOJ indictments, Biden raised the bounty to $25 million. Operation Gideon attempted a comic‑opera amphibious incursion. Diplomat Alex Saab was seized and extradited. Now, with Maduro in a US jail — and Trump musing about taking a “huge amount” of Venezuelan oil — Washington asserts empire’s prerogative: abduct a foreign head of state and try him under domestic law. No Security Council referral. No consent. No neutral venue. Normalize this, and head‑of‑state immunity collapses. Follow the resources Read the map: Orinoco heavy crude, Arco Minero gold and critical minerals, offshore gas; Iraqi hydrocarbons; Syria’s northeast oil; eastern Mediterranean Palestinian gas, Greenland’s minerals. Policy follows pipelines, ports, and mining pits. When officials call the hemisphere “ours,” they’re staking claims. The domestic mirror: law as theater, impunity as practice The imperial actions abroad reverberate at home. The Patriot Act normalized mass surveillance; Edward Snowden’s disclosures exposed the data dragnets and FISA rubber stamps. “Terror Tuesday” normalized kill lists under Obama, expanded under Trump and are preserved in core agencies of the security surveillance aparatus. Extra judicial killings of US citizens became accepted practice. Guantánamo endures; ICE runs a carceral archipelago and sends storm troopers onto the streets of US cities, now gunning down and killing upstanding US citizens being dubbed as dometic terrorists at the whim of a lunatic administration. The forms are legal; the substance is gangster style/war lord rule with impunity. Israel’s place in a system of genocidal impunity For decades Israel has defied Security Council resolutions on settlements and annexation; blockaded and bombed Gaza; criminalized humanitarian work; and now faces a plausible ICJ genocide finding. Time after time, Israel and the United States stand nearly alone against global consensus: U.S. vetoes of Gaza ceasefire resolutions; lopsided UNGA votes for humanitarian access; rejection and intimidation of the ICC under the Rome Statute; efforts to sideline duties under the Genocide Convention. Washington sanctioned ICC officials under Trump, expelled and sanctioned UN special Raporteur Francesca Albanese, refuses Rome Statute membership, and insists the court lacks jurisdiction over allies. Israel signed but never ratified the Statute and rejects ICC jurisdiction in Palestine, even as Palestians accepted it. The result is genocidal impunity for clients of empire and the practical impotence of “international law” against U.S./Israeli power. Europe’s vassal states and the war economy Across Western Europe and the UK, governments tow Washington’s line while public sentiment increasingly rejects it. From London to Paris and Berlin to Rome, streets fill with Palestine solidarity and now solidarity for Venezuela and againts US imperialism; unions and students resist a permanent war economy. Elites still farcically sermonize about “rules” as wages stagnate and inflation — especially energy — erodes living standards. The social contract is traded for defense contracts; dissent is policed while profiteers prosper. Reality, manufactured International law has only ever existed in theory; empire decides practice. The Suskind quote reads like an operating manual: manufacture “reality” with devastating sanctions, rigged indictments, drone warfare, military intervention and false narratives; dare the world to catch up. When courts and rapporteurs do, move the goalposts. Hypocrisy is a weapon —exhausting the masses, fogging the record, buying time. A weary public — and the Nobel as cover In the United States, people are weary of endless wars, surveillance creep, ICE, and the rising cost of living — and opposed, on basic moral grounds, to complicity in genocide. The Nobel Peace Prize often functions as elite cover: Kissinger’s award sat atop bombing maps; Obama received it before becoming the drone bomber in chief, the brand now routinely lauds neoliberal respectability. This year Julian Assange filed legal action in Sweden to block payment of the Peace Prize cash award to Venesuela’s María Corina Machado — underscoring how “peace” laureates and money are folded into regime‑change politics. What is to be done Name the hierarchy — friends above law, foes beneath it — and lift civilian‑crushing sanctions. Enforce ICJ orders and the Genocide Convention with real costs, including arms embargoes and sanctions where there is a plausible risk of genocide. Defend the right to dissent at home and recentre political economy. Above all, build an international movement from below that puts people and the planet before profit and war‑making. Its beginnings are visible in the global struggle for Palestinian liberation, which must remain central as the definitive fight against the legacy of genocide and settler colonialism, and be linked to all peoples’ movements for self‑determination and liberation against every form of imperial aggression—from Venezuela to the Congo to Yemen and Sudan and even to Ukraine. Through strikes, boycotts, divestment, sanctuary, debt relief, demilitarization, public goods, and a just energy transition, make solidarity a practical force. The reality‑based community was never naive. It insists that facts and law should bind the powerful. The alternative is rule by spectacle and force — kidnappings as court process, famine as “counterterrorism,” war as policy. Empire has cast itself as history’s actor. The task is to refuse the role of spectator, to make international law more than just a prop and freedom and justice more than empty slogans. Selected sources: – Ron Suskind, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush,” New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004. – The Guardian, “Nicolás Maduro appears in New York court on US narcotrafficking charges,” Jan. 5, 2026. – ICJ, South Africa v. Israel, Provisional Measures (2024–2025). – BBC, “Israel bans dozens of aid groups from operating in Gaza,” Jan. 1, 2026. – NPR, “Israel steps up campaign against aid NGOs in Gaza,” Dec. 30, 2025. – Arab News, Jan. 1, 2026. – Pentagon Papers (Vietnam); National Security Archive (Guatemala 1954; Chile 1973; Condor; Iran‑Contra); Church Committee reports. – ICJ, Nicaragua v. United States (1986). – Human Rights Watch/Amnesty on Panama 1989, El Salvador, Argentina, Condor. – SOA Watch; WHINSEC/DoD documents on School of the Americas. – The Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Report, 2016); U.S. SSCI on Iraq WMD. – Bureau of Investigative Journalism (drones); ACLU/Just Security (targeted killing). – UN reporting on UNSCR 1973 (Libya); Amnesty/HRW post‑intervention. – International Crisis Group/Just Security (Syria, Caesar Act). – Rome Statute (1998); EO 13928 (2020) on ICC; ICC situation files (Palestine/Afghanistan); Genocide Convention analyses. – UN SR Alena Douhan on Venezuela sanctions; CEPR sanctions‑mortality analysis; filings on CITGO; reporting on Operation Gideon and Alex Saab. The post “We Create Our Own Reality”: Empire and the illusion of International Law from Rafah to Caracas appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael Leonardi.
With Congress overseeing the ending of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, enhanced premium tax credit (subsidies) for Americans, hiking premiums for them to buy private health care insurance, consider such economics and politics in the context of $1 trillion in defense spending. Why? Context matters, economically and politically. Against this backdrop, ACA subsidies More The post Obamacare and Defense Spending appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-600x413.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 915px) 100vw, 915px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396524" class="size-medium wp-image-396524" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-680x468.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="468" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-680x468.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-915x630.jpg 915w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-768x529.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-1536x1057.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-2048x1410.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-500x344.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9198-copy-600x413.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair With Congress overseeing the ending of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, enhanced premium tax credit (subsidies) for Americans, hiking premiums for them to buy private health care insurance, consider such economics and politics in the context of $1 trillion in defense spending. Why? Context matters, economically and politically. Against this backdrop, ACA subsidies are 3.0 percent, or three hundredths, of $1 trillion. To be sure, $30 billion is real money to the average U.S. citizen. But $30 billion of federal spending for ACA subsidies is a drop in the bucket of a $1 trillion defense budget. This policy priority reflects a political economy that weakens the health care of an estimated 22 million Americans facing ACA premium hikes of 114 percent, on average, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, and strengthens the profitability of military corporations such as Lockheed Martin, RTX Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. Such federal spending priorities are a kitchen table issue affecting people who vote blue, red or independent, or are non-voters. Here’s the bottom line. Health-care insurance is a necessity, not a luxury. In 2026, with ACA tax credits expiring, Renee Rubin Ross, a mother who lives in California and covers her family of four with Obamacare, is facing a big price hike. How big? Try $2,700 more each month to maintain health care coverage. That’s $32,400 more per year for Ross to buy ACA coverage. Where will she and millions of Americans like her find the money to pay their health care bills? The out−of-pocket costs for mom-and-pop shops are also spiking. Shaundell Newsome is the founder of Sumnu Marketing in Las Vegas and co-chair of Small Business for America’s Future. “Refusing to extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced tax credits has abandoned us and added soaring healthcare costs to the economic crisis crushing Main Street this year,” he said in a statement. “We’re beyond disappointed that 5 million small business owners are now almost certain to see their premiums double.” We return to the $1 trillion annual defense budget. That figure amounts to just over $2.7 billion of spending on defense every day of the year. Thus, about 10 days of annual defense spending equals the $30 billion of expired Obamacare subsidies. Welcome to politics and economics in capitalist America. The U.S. political economy reflects the money power of the top defense contractors to lobby Congress and the White House for a budget policy that drives increased military spending. There’s a bipartisan consensus, a blue and red marriage. You can’t blame only President Donald J. Trump. Visit opensecrets.org to see the proof of the spending parity in military contractors’ lobbying, a revealing Blue and Red party breakdown. For the average U.S. citizen, there is simply no equivalent force of politics and economics in their interests regarding health and warfare spending. Big money sways policy priorities, and the average U.S. citizen is at a distinct disadvantage. That’s not a law of nature, just an indication of a disorganized American working class, politically speaking. Health care spending is a constructive means of improving people’s living conditions. Think of regular check-ups, ranging in age from infants to seniors, who receive care from doctors and nurses. Think of mental health services, a crucial component of health and wellness, for those in need, from traumatized military veterans to sexual assault victims. There are also emergency room visits for accidents and unexpected medical situations such as strokes. There are coalitions at the state level that do great work to improve funding for health care. One example is Health Access California. Its advocacy has in part resulted in lower-cost insulin via CalRX. This means $11 per pen for Californians. Meanwhile, defense spending is a destructive force that worsens people’s lives at home and abroad. I close with a list, a partial one, of the foreign places where U.S. armaments directly and by proxy lead to the loss of lives and limbs. Just ask the relatives of Venezuelans maimed and murdered during the U.S. early morning attack and kidnapping of the nation’s elected president and his wife recently. For that matter, ask the family members of the fishermen who lost their lives due to aerial strikes from U.S. forces in the Caribbean over the past few months. Then there are families and friends of those injured and killed by U.S. drone strikes in Somalia. U.S. defense spending has been and remains despite a “ceasefire” a central part of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile, there is talk in the U.S. Senate about resuming the expired ACA enhanced tax credits. Shifting federal spending from a $1 trillion defense budget to funding Americans’ health care is in all likelihood not a part of this political talk given the corporate-dominant political economy of the country’s military-industrial complex and imperialist foreign policy. A solution to this destructive situation is movement politics, popular mobilization and organization of working people in their interests as a class force for peace and social justice, domestically and globally. A few groups that come to mind are Code Pink, the Poor People’s Campaign, Public Citizen and Repairers of the Breach. The post Obamacare and Defense Spending appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Seth Sandronsky.
‘Teaching Students to Think for Themselves’ Starts with Political Self-Awareness
My nomination for the most predictable platitude invoked by university professors when describing the essence of their job is “teaching students to think for themselves.” During my 26 years at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was sometimes accused of politicizing the classroom, I repeated that phrase many times, not as a dodge but More The post ‘Teaching Students to Think for Themselves’ Starts with Political Self-Awareness appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-scaled.png 2834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-680x510.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-841x630.png 841w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-768x576.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-1536x1151.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-2048x1535.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-500x375.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-600x450.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2834px) 100vw, 2834px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2834" height="2124" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-scaled.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-scaled.png 2834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-680x510.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-841x630.png 841w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-768x576.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-1536x1151.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-2048x1535.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-500x375.png 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-680x510.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-768x576.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-1536x1151.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-2048x1535.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-500x375.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-600x450.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 841px) 100vw, 841px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396534" class="size-medium wp-image-396534" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-680x510.png" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-680x510.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-841x630.png 841w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-768x576.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-1536x1151.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-2048x1535.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-500x375.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-4.51.45-PM-600x450.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair My nomination for the most predictable platitude invoked by university professors when describing the essence of their job is “teaching students to think for themselves.” During my 26 years at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was sometimes accused of politicizing the classroom, I repeated that phrase many times, not as a dodge but because I believed it’s the right goal. As with many platitudes, the problem isn’t that it’s incorrect but inadequate. Teaching “critical-thinking skills” is at the heart of good teaching, but that phrase doesn’t offer much guidance on how to get the job done, especially in the social sciences and humanities. (I taught in a journalism school, which typically are a mix of those two traditions.) I never met a professor—left, right, or center—who thought the job was to propagandize students, to push a particular belief system. But every professor makes decisions about topics covered, readings assigned, and the direction of class discussions in the limited time available—all of which require judgments that inevitability reflect a way of seeing the world. Call it a framework of analysis, a worldview, an ideology—no one understands human affairs in purely objective fashion, without assumptions about how the world works. In short: Teaching is not politics but there’s always an underlying politics to teaching about human affairs, because there’s always a politics to living. By politics, I don’t mean partisan battles but rather competing claims about human nature, how to distribute power, what constitutes a good society. In that sense, there’s a politics to everything people do, whether stated or unacknowledged. The question is whether we can make a good case for the choices we make, which inevitably will be politically inflected. As an example, I want to explain a lesson I used for in my Media Law and Ethics class that illustrates why no teaching is truly apolitical. I started with widely accepted truisms. (1) The primary role of journalism in a democratic society is to provide information and analysis people need to participate in self-governance. (2) One of the most consequential choices a government can make is going to war, a time when citizens need especially fearless reporting. (3) In a society based on the rule of law—the idea that rules apply uniformly to everyone, including the wealthy and powerful—going to war should proceed lawfully. I used the 2003 US invasion of Iraq as a case study. Was that invasion lawful? Did journalists provide citizens with the information needed to understand that question? First, I walked students through the relevant international and domestic law. The UN Charter authorizes a state to go to war under two conditions: A collective security action authorized by the UN Security Council, or self-defense when facing an “armed attack.” When the US military invaded Iraq on March 20, there was no Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force and Iraq had not attacked the United States. US officials claimed that previous Security Council resolutions implicitly granted the right to go to war, a claim that was rejected by most experts and almost everyone outside the United States. The United States’ unsuccessful attempt to pass a new resolution to authorize military action in February suggested that officials knew that existing resolutions weren’t adequate. Next, I pointed out that many war proponents argued that the invasion was legal because in 2002 the US Congress had approved a resolution to authorize the use of military force against Iraq and that the United States should not be constrained by international law. But the United States ratified the UN Charter, which has the force of a treaty, and Article VI of the US Constitution makes all treaties “the supreme Law of the Land.” So, a violation of the charter is not simply a question of international law. Most of the students in the class said that my lecture was the first time they had heard this kind of analysis. That wasn’t surprising, since there was little coverage of these issues in the US news media during the run-up to the war. Should journalists have written more, and more detailed, stories about the legal status of an invasion? Students agreed they should have, although some argued that it was understandable that journalists backed off in the post-9/11 political climate. I agreed, but that’s an explanation not a defense. So, had journalists failed to provide citizens with the information and analysis they needed to participate in a democratic debate about going to war? Was that an ethical failure? I encouraged students to decide for themselves, making it clear I wasn’t going to test them about a “right” answer. After the invasion, it’s not surprising that journalists avoided the question. If the US invasion had been illegal, then it constituted what under the Nuremberg Principles is called a “crime against peace”: “Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.” The crime was described by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, which prosected Nazi officials, as the “supreme international crime.” Those principles don’t constitute a formal treaty, but they inform both international and US law, and are a moral benchmark for contemporary international relations. Is it crazy to label the US invasion illegal? Many experts around the world reached the conclusion that it was unlawful, including then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who reluctantly acknowledged that inan interview with journalists—in the UK. That story forced coverage in US papers, where US journalists treated it as a he-said/she-said controversy, implying that it couldn’t be resolved. Was that good journalism, airing different points of view? Or was it an evasion of responsibility by turning factual questions that journalists could answer into dueling opinions? A necessary digression: Discussing this in a class today would raise questions about the Trump administration’s recent sea and land attacks on Venezuela. I would proceed in much the same way as with the Iraq example. The obvious difference is that Trump does not feign concern about how laws, domestic or international, constrain executive action. Back to our subject, how professors can teach critical thinking without imposing their own views on students. Was this lesson an example of teaching critical thinking or inappropriately politicizing the classroom? I was familiar with this legal analysis because of my work in the antiwar movement, and some might argue that I was forcing my point of view on students under the guise of an exploration of journalistic ethics. But the question isn’t how I learned of the critique but whether it was a helpful illustration of the pressure on journalists to <a href="https://robertwjensen.org/articles/dan-rather-and-the-problem-with-patriotism-steps-toward-the-redemption-of-american-journalism-and-democracy/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://robertwjensen.org/articles/dan-rather-and-the-problem-with-patriotism-steps-toward-the-redemption-of-american-journalism-and-democracy/&source=gmail&ust=1767926196723000&usg=AOvVaw3_hiXsszl0EKu7TpYw-kDR">“rally around the flag” in times of war. Were the facts I presented accurate? Were the legal principles and precedents I presented applicable? Did the case study raise an important question? I believe the answer to all three questions is yes. But a deeper point is important. What of the many professors teaching similar classes who didn’t raise these issues? Were they inappropriately politicizing the classroom by avoiding such questions? If my antiwar activities led me to include this lesson, and that’s political, then weren’t professors who ignored such a lesson also political in the same sense? Teaching isn’t politics, but there is always a politics to teaching. I believe that the deployment of the US military should conform to international and domestic law. Others disagree. How professors present the legality of the US invasion of Iraq is no doubt influenced by their assessment. But labeling one side political because it emerges from critique while pretending that the other side is neutral because it embraces the conventional wisdom is itself a political act. There’s no escape from making judgments that are, in some sense, political. My lesson did a good job of teaching students to think critically. The conventional wisdom isn’t always wrong, of course, but it’s wrong often enough that reflexively adopting it is dangerous. Challenging the assumptions of the dominant culture is crucial, especially in a journalism class. Outside of the classroom, I was politically active for most of my time at UT-Ausin and sometimes ended up in the news because of that activity, especially after 9/11 when I was the subject of intense criticism for my antiwar writing. But I do not think my political activities outside the classroom made me a bad teacher. I was aware of the scrutiny I was under and reminded students that they didn’t have to agree with me, always trying to anticipate objections to points I made and discuss them in class. My argument: Being self-aware of how my framework for understanding the world could influence my teaching made me a better teacher. Hiding my politics, from students or myself, would have been a mistake. I know my position isn’t universally embraced. I was reminded of that one night at a dinner for professors who had won the University of Texas System’s Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. (Yes, that’s a not-so-subtle way of pointing out that I won teaching awards, hoping skeptical readers might take me seriously.) The group at my table was discussing politics in the classroom, back in 2014 when the subject wasn’t quite as contentious as today. A political science professor said that he worked hard to hide his views, bragging that “my students don’t know how I vote.” That’s a common claim, almost always made with pride, and others at the table nodded in support. I said that I understood his point but that I didn’t always try to hide my views. “How can students evaluate our choices about how to present material if we hide our approach to politics?” I asked. Wouldn’t it be better if we were up front about our own framework of analysis, worldview, ideology? When we do that, it’s likely students could make a good guess at how we voted, but there’s no harm in that. We expect researchers to disclose the sources of funding so we can assess whether money might have influenced a study. Shouldn’t the same principle apply in the classroom regarding ideology? I respect that political scientist’s point of view; reasonable people can disagree. We didn’t reach a consensus around the table that night, but I worry that the charge that a professor inappropriately politicizes the classroom is too often a weapon designed to impose conformity. That demand for conformity can come from any ideological camp, and it should be resisted whenever it shuts down critical thinking. Yes, of course, I agree we shouldn’t tell students what to think. But if we really want them to think for themselves, we should be honest with students about not only what we believe but how we came to believe it. The post ‘Teaching Students to Think for Themselves’ Starts with Political Self-Awareness appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Jensen.
Trump’s J6 Pardons Increased Risks to Public Safety
One year ago this January, in one of the first acts of his second term, President Donald Trump issued blanket pardons, clemency, or commutations to those charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. These included unconditional pardons for the majority of defendants and commutations for high-profile leaders of the More The post Trump’s J6 Pardons Increased Risks to Public Safety appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396536" class="size-medium wp-image-396536" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-680x482.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="482" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-890x630.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-768x544.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-1536x1088.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-2048x1450.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-500x354.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09265-2_50821579347-600x425.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Tyler Merbler from USA – DSC09265-2 – CC BY 2.0 One year ago this January, in one of the first acts of his second term, President Donald Trump issued blanket pardons, clemency, or commutations to those charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. These included unconditional pardons for the majority of defendants and commutations for high-profile leaders of the insurrection. While presidential clemency is constitutionally legitimate, the U.S. Justice Department’s pardon process is ordinarily designed to protect the public by identifying and excluding high-risk individuals through individualized review. That process evaluates criminal history, likelihood of rehabilitation, and patterns of violence. It also often includes victim input. In Trump’s January 6 pardons, none of those safeguards applied. None. As scholars who maintain a database tracking post-pardon criminal conduct for this group, we find that roughly a year later, these mass pardons — issued without screening or review — have produced concrete, measurable risks to public safety by removing legal constraints from individuals with documented histories of violence, extremism, or recidivism. Some had unrelated criminal cases pending when receiving pardons. Others have faced new, unrelated criminal charges since January. 6. In some instances, Trump has issued pardons for these subsequent offenses as well. To date, at least 17 individuals who received pardons have been rearrested, newly charged, or convicted of unrelated criminal conduct, including violent offenses and threats to public officials — a figure that almost certainly understates the true scope due to incomplete public reporting. For example, Zachary Alam of Centreville, Virginia, described by prosecutors as one of the most violent offenders on January 6, was convicted of eight felonies for his actions that day, including assaulting police officers. Less than five months after being pardoned, Alam was arrested for a home invasion, adding to a criminal history that includes DUI and auto theft. Matthew Huttle, a Hobart, Indiana man who had a lengthy criminal record including battery and DUI offenses even before January 6, was fatally shot by law enforcement less than a week after receiving a Trump pardon. Huttle, a convicted felon, was illegally in possession of a firearm at the time of the encounter. When David Daniel of Mint Hill, North Carolina was arrested for his January 6 crimes, police uncovered evidence leading to charges of possessing child sexual abuse material and sexual exploitation of a minor. Despite these pending charges, Daniel was pardoned — and now argues the pardon extends to these offenses because the evidence was discovered because of his January 6 arrest. In October 2025, Christopher Moynihan, a pardoned January 6 defendant from Clinton, New York, was arrested for making death threats against House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He is currently out on bail. These cases represent only a small sample of post-pardon criminal activity among January 6 defendants. President Trump has repeatedly described these individuals as “patriots” and “great people,” yet their actions — before, during, and after January 6, 2021 — raise serious questions about those characterizations. These cases demonstrate how the mass, unscreened use of presidential clemency can generate tangible risks to public safety. By bypassing the Justice Department’s individualized review process, the January 6 pardons removed accountability from individuals who, in multiple documented instances, quickly reengaged in violent, threatening, or otherwise dangerous behavior. When clemency is applied indiscriminately to offenders with demonstrated patterns of violence or extremism, it undermines the very accountability mechanisms intended to protect the public — shifting the real-world costs of that decision from the justice system onto law enforcement officers, public officials, and ordinary citizens. The post Trump’s J6 Pardons Increased Risks to Public Safety appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Paul Becker - Dr. Art Jipson.
Public Health Reduces Drug Deaths, Not Wars
Republicans have defended Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela as necessary to solve the drug overdose crisis. For instance, Vice President J.D. Vance posted on Twitter/X, “cocaine, which is the main drug trafficked out of Venezuela, is a profit center for all of the Latin America cartels. If you cut out the money from cocaine (or even reduce it) you substantially More The post Public Health Reduces Drug Deaths, Not Wars appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396531" class="size-medium wp-image-396531" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-680x513.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="513" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-680x513.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-835x630.jpg 835w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-768x580.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-1536x1159.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-2048x1546.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-500x377.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_5822-600x453.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Republicans have defended Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela as necessary to solve the drug overdose crisis. For instance, Vice President J.D. Vance posted on Twitter/X, “cocaine, which is the main drug trafficked out of Venezuela, is a profit center for all of the Latin America cartels. If you cut out the money from cocaine (or even reduce it) you substantially weaken the cartels overall. Also, cocaine is bad too!” Representative Brian Mast (R-FL), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, similarly argued, “Drug lords and terrorists will no longer operate freely in our hemisphere and drugs and illegals will not flow into our country.” Yet there are three key problems with this anti-drug narrative: first, President Trump has explicitly and repeatedly said this invasion was about seizing control of Venezuela’s oil reserves. Second, Trump has been quite lenient on drug traffickers. For instance, in December 2025, Trump pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández. Hernández had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in a more than 18-year long drug-trafficking scheme that funneled over 400 tons of cocaine to the United States. If kidnapping Maduro was really about punishing drug profiteers and stopping the illegal drug trade, then why pardon Hernández? This is not the action of a “tough-on-crime” president. Third, and most importantly, foreign invasions fail to address the true underlying cause of the crisis: public suffering. While drug abuse is a complex problem, poverty, homelessness, over-criminalization, social stigmas, and a lack of adequate health care are among the leading factors. People turn to drugs when their governments and communities turn their back on them. Drug cartels, like any other capitalist enterprise, exploit these people’s hopes and desires for their own gain. Even if all the existing cartels were eliminated, new drug traffickers would emerge to meet that demand. This does not mean that we shouldn’t go after drug dealers. The point is that the drug crisis is not a problem that we can solve through force alone. It requires social reform. But instead of strengthening the social safety net, Trump has been actively undoing it. Since January 2025, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has faced layoffs and severe funding cuts. This has forced the agency to terminate $1.7 billion in block grants for state health departments, as well as eliminate $350 million in addiction and overdose prevention funding. The Trump administration has also deeply slashed Medicaid and <a role="link" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-says-it-will-withhold-snap-from-states-led-by-democrats-if-they-dont-provide-recipient-data" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-says-it-will-withhold-snap-from-states-led-by-democrats-if-they-dont-provide-recipient-data&source=gmail&ust=1767926194971000&usg=AOvVaw1_aG8UqfLwBALMASGhTypX">SNAP benefits and frozen funds for child care programs – all programs that greatly help people living in poverty. And health premiums are doubling for millions of Americans since Congress refused to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans. If Trump really cared about the drug crisis, he wouldn’t be kidnapping foreign leaders in the dead of night. Invading Latin American countries is not a solution — it simply exploits the drug crisis as a masquerade to justify American colonialism. Instead, his focus would be on improving access to mental health and drug abuse programs in the United States, especially low-income neighborhoods. He would be funding services to help people living in poverty, instead of spending billions on battleships. He would be taking meaningful measures to solve the affordability crisis, instead of denying its existence. The drug crisis is a real problem that demands immediate action. Creating an international crisis, however, will only lead to more suffering. The post Public Health Reduces Drug Deaths, Not Wars appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jordan Liz.
Congress Must Stop This War and Help Working Americans Instead
At a time when nearly half of Americans say they’re struggling to afford basic necessities, President Trump has turned his attention to invading and ruling Venezuela. One in two Americans are having trouble affording groceries, utilities, health care, housing, and transportation, according to a recent poll. Health care costs are rising — and in many cases doubling — for millions More The post Congress Must Stop This War and Help Working Americans Instead appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396173" class="size-medium wp-image-396173" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair At a time when nearly half of Americans say they’re <a role="link" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/10/poll-affordability-cost-of-living-00678076?experience_id=EXYF89KVT5UQ&is_login_link=true&template_id=OTJIR2CRKUD6&variant_id=OTV7T8G93R30L" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/10/poll-affordability-cost-of-living-00678076?experience_id%3DEXYF89KVT5UQ%26is_login_link%3Dtrue%26template_id%3DOTJIR2CRKUD6%26variant_id%3DOTV7T8G93R30L&source=gmail&ust=1767926195002000&usg=AOvVaw2TCbsmLehqDAiG_ml97OM5">struggling to afford basic necessities, President Trump has turned his attention to invading and ruling Venezuela. <a role="link" href="https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/nx-s1-5661666/affordable-care-act-subsidies-have-expired-what-that-means-for-millions-of-americans" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/nx-s1-5661666/affordable-care-act-subsidies-have-expired-what-that-means-for-millions-of-americans&source=gmail&ust=1767926195002000&usg=AOvVaw18VFxLAAkHf1EjUhcoahZS">One in two Americans are having trouble affording groceries, utilities, health care, housing, and transportation, according to a recent poll. Health care costs are rising — and in many cases doubling — for <a role="link" href="https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/nx-s1-5661666/affordable-care-act-subsidies-have-expired-what-that-means-for-millions-of-americans" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/nx-s1-5661666/affordable-care-act-subsidies-have-expired-what-that-means-for-millions-of-americans&source=gmail&ust=1767926195002000&usg=AOvVaw18VFxLAAkHf1EjUhcoahZS">millions of Americans because Republicans in Congress refuse to help. And while grocery prices remain high, those same GOP lawmakers chose to cut food stamps for millions of struggling people. Our government should be helping working people and families. Instead, the president chose to use our tax dollars to invade a foreign country. And while Trump said plenty about how the U.S. will now rule over the people of Venezuela, he hasn’t explained why the same tax dollars that paid for this invasion can’t be used to make health care, food, or housing more affordable for people here. The president added he’s “not afraid of boots on the ground” in Venezuela. But the last times the U.S. attempted to take over other countries — in Iraq and Afghanistan — it cost trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and potentially millions of lives in the Middle East. It’s way too soon to make this mistake again — and Trump had previously promised he wouldn’t, calling those wars <a role="link" href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-06-21/in-his-own-words-trumps-iran-strike-tests-his-rhetoric-on-ending-wars" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-06-21/in-his-own-words-trumps-iran-strike-tests-his-rhetoric-on-ending-wars&source=gmail&ust=1767926195002000&usg=AOvVaw3OVBIHUDDKJDnHAjO5Zxd2">“foolish” and “stupid.” To be sure, someone will benefit from this invasion — just not ordinary Americans. The president has offered oil companies taxpayer dollars to take Venezuela’s oil. They hardly need the help, though they did contribute handsomely to his campaign. Despite previous claims by the administration, this move is far more about oil than drugs, since Venezuela isn’t a supplier of the fentanyl that still causes so many deaths — and even the cocaine trafficked through Venezuela tends to head to Europe, not the United States. Either way, the U.S. shouldn’t be in the business of deposing every questionable leader in the world by military force. Congress is to blame here, too. It’s their job to declare war, not the president’s — and they didn’t do their job to stop this. The president sent plenty of signs that this invasion might be coming. But in recent weeks, despite bipartisan efforts in both the House and Senate, narrow majorities in Congress refused to pass measures that would have halted it. Both measures failed by just a handful of votes. And in December, members of both parties passed a $1 trillion war budget with zero safeguards to stop something like the Venezuela invasion — which, again, was easy to see coming. Members of Congress passed the $1 trillion war budget at the same time that Congressional Republicans voted to refuse help for millions of Americans struggling to afford health insurance. So the invasion went forward even while millions of Americans did the math on just surviving until the next paycheck. But it’s not too late to improve this situation. Members of Congress can stop another unjustifiable war — and help Americans pay their bills instead. Congress can refuse to allow the president to send troops back into Venezuela with a simple vote. And while they’re at it, Congress should extend some real help to Americans struggling to get by. The post Congress Must Stop This War and Help Working Americans Instead appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Lindsay Koshgarian.
Fifteen people were killed, with more critically injured, at the massacre at Sydney’s iconic, decidedly secular, Bondi beach on 14 December. Members of the local Jewish community were gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. The killers were father and son Indian-born Sajid Akram (killed) and Australian-born Naveed Akram. The inferred motivation, until the injured Naveed can be More The post Blowback at Bondi appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, 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768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1920" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3.jpg 2560w, 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396512" class="size-medium wp-image-396512" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Flower_Memorial_at_Bondi_Pavilion_2025-12-18_3-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: DaHuzyBru – CC BY-SA 4.0 Fifteen people were killed, with more critically injured, at the massacre at Sydney’s iconic, decidedly secular, Bondi beach on 14 December. Members of the local Jewish community were gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. The killers were father and son Indian-born Sajid Akram (killed) and Australian-born Naveed Akram. The inferred motivation, until the injured Naveed can be interrogated, is that of Islamic extremism. The Australian Federal Police, to date, believe that the couple acted alone. Rabbi Eli Schlanger, of the Chabad Lubavitch congregation, who had previously initiated the annual public celebration at the beach, was among the dead. The city, the country mourns. But the dominant reaction is narrowly oriented, misplaced. It is claimed that this is purely a manifestation of unprecedented antisemitism. It needs to be stamped out by all means, which will inevitably entail the curtailing of previously enjoyed civil liberties. Israel is to be made immune from criticism. Don’t look for the logic in the implied causation. +++ The conservative US political scientist and historian Chalmers Johnson became somewhat pinko in his later years. As the first of numerous books on the American Empire he published Blowback in 2000. Johnson claimed that ‘blowback’ was a term coined by the CIA itself in a report following the 1953 UK-US overthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran. And what a mega blowback ultimately followed that ‘successful’ operation. Successive US administrations have consistently failed to document, evaluate and learn from their arrogant and impetuous foreign interventions and the aftermath. Since their cause is righteous, the concept of blowback is inconceivable. Evil is always external. So also with Israel. Early Zionist leaders were explicit that the indigenous (non-Jewish) population of Palestine had to be removed to make possible a Jewish state. Yosef Weitz’s 1940s Transfer Committee embodied the imperative. The 1947-49 expulsion (the Nakba) was wildly successful but incomplete. Since then, Israel’s racist intransigence has faced blowback from expelled Palestinians (the fedayeen) and from those remaining in Israel and the Occupied Territories (witness the first and second Intifadas). Israeli leaders, with very rare exceptions (Moshe Dayan, 1956), consistently fail to join the dots. Rather, resistance to repression and ethnic cleansing is conveniently labelled ‘terrorism’. Benjamin Netanyahu is past master at the ruse. Ditto with spokespeople for ‘diaspora’ Zionist organizations, not least in Australia. In the tidal wave of commentary on the Bondi killings there is a clanging dissonance. Israel is both omnipresent and omni-absent. Israel per se, its character and modus operandi, is nowhere to be found in the post-massacre commentary. American Patrick Lawrence captures my sentiments: “But I cannot enter into the responses officials and the media serving them have urged incessantly since last weekend. Out of the question for any number of reasons, chief among them the dishonesty at the core of what I may as well call ‘official grief’. “Read in the larger context of these awful events, the obsessive humanization of the Bondi Beach victims is an upside-down exercise in dehumanization. This is first, straight off the top. Jewish lives count, white lives count, names, faces, generous smiles – all this counts. “But the names, faces and lives of those the Zionist regime has terrorized and brutalized for the past two years or eight decades, depending on how you reckon history: No, no need for any of this because they do not count. Quite. Neither the Zionist community nor anybody in authority cares about dead Palestinians. Rather, it’s all about Palestinian terrorists against Israel and historic antisemitism globally and myriad national states’ failure to stamp it out. Long-time Member of Parliament (2010-22), and sometime federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg claimed that Australian Jews face security concerns in their daily lives. He was vituperative about the Labor government’s seeming indifference. Frydenberg was glowingly reported thus: “We, as a Jewish community, have been abandoned, and left alone by our government. Our governments have failed every Australian when it comes to fighting hate and antisemitism … Our prime minister, our government, has allowed Australia to be radicalised on his watch. “[Frydenberg] did not speak delicately. He accused governments of moral failure – of hiding behind euphemisms, of refusing to name Islamist extremism, of indulging antisemitism under the cover of balance and process.” In July 2024, the Labor government appointed prominent businesswoman Jillian Segal as ‘Special envoy to combat Antisemitism’. Segal, known as an ultra-Zionist, delivered a report on July 2025. The report, as I have written elsewhere (here and here), is an embarrassment because of its vacuity, and dangerous because of its demands for repression. Peculiarly, Israel gains only an oblique reference. Similarly, in December 2025, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) issued an annual report titled ‘Anti-Jewish Incidents’. Again, Israel is mentioned only obliquely. After Bondi, a representative letter in the Sydney Morning Herald (16 December) claims: “I went to a Jewish school and, as the child of Holocaust survivors, believed antisemitism was something Australia had left behind – lessons learnt, never to be repeated. That illusion was shattered by the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, and profoundly changed how many Jewish Australians view their safety. But it was the pro-Palestine rallies afterwards that revealed where the danger truly lay. It exposed how public discourse in Australia has shifted, and whose voices now dominate. Last night’s horrific attack in Bondi has forced Australians to confront an uncomfortable truth: antisemitic violence is not theoretical or distant. It is here, and it is carried out with a confidence that grows when hostility towards Israel and Jewish people is tolerated.” The danger of pro-Palestine rallies (at which Jews spoke on the rostrum and were present in the marches)? An abstract Israel is mentioned but actually-existing Israel is absent. I see no genocide. Yet actually-existing Israel intrudes. Here is the Israeli flag draped over memorial flowers and mourners at Bondi. Nobody highlights the glaring anomaly. The good Rabbi Schlanger was so affronted by Australian Prime Minister Albanese’s recognition of a Palestinian state in September 2025 that he publicly responded (reports John Helmer) thus: “In the month before the Bondi incident, Schlanger released to the press a letter he had sent to Prime Minister Albanese attacking the government’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine as a crime against God, an apostasy, an act of heresy, and a betrayal of the Jews. “As a rabbi in Sydney,” Schlanger wrote, “I beg you not to betray the Jewish people and not God Himself. This land was given by God to Abraham, then to his son Isaac, and then to Jacob, to be the eternal homeland of the Jewish people. Throughout history, Jews have been torn from their land again and again by leaders who are now remembered with contempt in the pages of history… Today, you have an opportunity to stand on the side of truth and justice. By reversing this act of betrayal, you will not only honor the Jewish people and our heritage, but also stand with the word of God. If you choose this path, you will be welcomed home with open arms and even a warm Shabbat meal. I bless you in advance for having the courage to do what is right and to stand firm against this act of apostasy.”” Presumably, God also gave Bondi Beach to the Jews, courtesy of Schlanger’s intercession (Rabbi Ulman: ‘the sacred space’). Self-described ‘Sydney-based Jewish Australian writer’ Michael Cohen offers a personal perspective on the local Chabad sect. He writes: “Over the past 40 to 50 years, Chabad-Lubavitch has steadily expanded its influence within Sydney’s Jewish institutions. This did not happen suddenly. It happened gradually – synagogue by synagogue, committee by committee – until much of communal life became centralised around a single ideological framework. This expansion was not merely organic. It was strategic. … “Community spaces were monopolised. Alternative voices were marginalised. Funding, legitimacy and access increasingly flowed through a single gate. Those who dissented were quietly frozen out. What emerged resembled, metaphorically, mafia-like politics — not criminal in the literal sense, but in its methods: pressure, intimidation, monopolisation and the systematic elimination of rivals. Creativity and free thought were not debated; they were suffocated. Independent Jewish expression was treated as disorder.” The mainstream media has provided no background to this Bondi Hannukah gathering, turned deadly. +++ The lobby and the hasbara. All self-appointed ‘official’ representatives of Australian Jews (particularly the nation-wide ECAJ and the Zionist Federation of Australia) support Israel unconditionally. The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC, Australia’s equivalent to AIPAC) is a pro-Israel propaganda front pure and simple. AIJAC has perennially been given privileged access to defend Israel against any criticism. AIJAC representative Joel Burnie was invited on to the public broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) on 15 December where he bitterly criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for doing insufficient to support the Jewish community, citing protestors’ ‘hate speech’ as fueling antisemitism. Burnie unapologetically defended his (and his young children as ‘Zionist-identifying Jews’) and the community’s Zionism: “Zionism is simply the recognition of Jewish self-determination in its ancestral and biblical homeland. Not at the expense of anyone else …”. Whence the Nakba, ongoing, and the current genocide? The bulk of Australian Jewish ‘faith’ schools have ‘a love of Israel’ in their ‘mission statements’, eager to ferry their brainwashed charges to visits to Israel. I call it child abuse. When I published an article on this phenomenon, a senior member of Melbourne’s Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation complained to the outlet’s editor (23 September 2024): “I’m writing to request that you remove two online articles that appeared in June this year from your website. I write as … a leading Australian expert in Jewish history … Both articles attacked Australia’s Jewish day schools for their Zionist ethos. Quite apart from Jones’s oversimplification of Jewish political thought and the Australian Jewish community, the article’s vitriolic targeting of Jewish schools endangers Jewish children, including my own. … “I appreciate the moment we live in and the strong feelings around the crisis in Gaza, but I’d hope we’re sensible enough to not hold Jewish children responsible for the actions of another state.” ‘The actions of another state’? Ergo, nothing to do with the Australian Jewish community, in spite of that ‘another state’ appearing prominently in the schools’ ‘Who we are’ screeds. On the contrary. As for ‘hold[ing] Jewish children responsible …’ – ludicrous and outrageous. It is transparent that I hold the children’s parents and the schools’ administrators responsible, with them being more concerned about Israel than their own children’s physical security and mental well-being. This orientation was glaringly evident with the life and death of a young Australian Jew, Ben Zygier, early socialized into ‘a love of Israel’. Zygier became an Israeli spy and died in a high security Israeli prison at 34. Years later, the details of Zygier’s experience, treatment and death remain murky. Zygier, martyr for Zionism’s cause, has been consigned to history and no lesson have been learnt by the Australian Jewish community regarding its steadfast commitment to a foreign state. The Australian pro-Israel fraternity (as elsewhere) has thrown huge resources into buying friends and keeping accurate descriptions of Israel out of the media. The lobby is unrepentant in its unflagging support of Israel. It opposes a substantive Palestinian state. Not a single Zionist organization representative (or Australian Jewish media) has expressed any mea culpa over Israel’s ongoing barbarism. Hamas and a weak Palestinian Authority, both products of Israel’s dominance over Palestinian lives, are supposedly to blame. The media. The Australian mainstream media are complicit in their coverage of Israel. The Murdoch media (the national ‘flagship’, The Australian, crass tabloids in almost every Australian capital city, and Sky News) is ‘more Catholic than the Pope’, essentially hysterical, with respect to Israel. The Nine stable (previously Fairfax Media) publishes the ‘quality’ papers (Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Age, the Australian Financial Review and the depleted Canberra Times). It has been more pluralist in reproducing News Agencies’ accounts of the carnage in Gaza, but its opinion pages are tightly controlled. Murdoch-lite? We are no longer regularly harassed with bilious op-eds from Zionist organization heavies, although their message is now conveyed more covertly via Nine’s regular journalists. The letters pages regularly reward the pro-Israel foot soldiers who display a staggering ignorance of the object of their devotion, which only encourages the hold of their ignorance. What is seemingly not possible is getting an article, a letter, even a comment, in a Nine paper that outlines the essential character of Israel. Israel was created by terrorism, built on apartheid and ethnic cleansing, now turned to genocide. Gaza being destroyed, East Jerusalem swallowed, the West Bank is the front line for the mopping up operation. At best, one gets a letter blaming Netanyahu and his fellow nasties, presumably as aberrations to ‘a light among the nations’. Pointing out Israel’s strategically structured inhumanity is verboten. The lobby constantly harasses the Australian mainstream media regarding any critical comment on Israel. A friend, ex-Fairfax journalist of many years, recounts how the Israel lobby floods the media’s management/editorial and feedback mechanisms to cancel or redress any criticism, no matter how mild. Management and editorial teams get worn down. Australian media correspondents based in Israel have been constantly attacked as biased, mis-informed. One such correspondent, John Lyons (and his wife Sylvie Le Clezio) wrote an important book about this experience, the 2017 Balcony Over Jerusalem. The lobby pushes to have potentially influential figures (journalists, academics) marginalized or sacked. It successfully pursued ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf (even though a fill-in) in 2023, except to have the court condemn her treatment while also forcefully condemning the ‘pro-Israel lobbyists’ behind the sacking. A rare lecturing on propriety from the Australian bench! Undeterred, The Zionist Federation of Australia is suing long-time SBS broadcaster and activist Mary Kostakidis for breaching Australia’s 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. The University. Sydney University is perennially in the news. The ‘lawfare’ firm Shurat Hadin sued Sydney University’s Jake Lynch in 2013. Lynch, then Director of the University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), was pressing the University to break its links with Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Thankfully, Shurat Hadin later abandoned its case (because fanciful). Yet the University has since dismantled CPACS (its support for worthy causes like Palestine too embarrassing) while its links with Technion and Hebrew University remain. A cabal of the Zionist lobby, university management and the media led to my sometime Sydney University colleague, Tim Anderson, being sacked in 2019 (ultimately confirmed in a Federal Court Appeal in May 2024 on a technicality). The University closed down the pro-Palestine encampment in late June 2024 under Jewish community pressure, with the Vice-Chancellor offering a grovelling apology for not closing it down sooner. Several Sydney University research staff and an ex-student (the latter now a National Campaigns Coordinator of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS)) are currently suing academics and Israel critics Nick Riemer and John Keane for supposedly also violating the Racial Discrimination Act in criticising a certain foreign racist state and its cheer squad. The ex-longtime head of the University’s Discipline of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies, Suzanne Rutland, has joined the suit. One would think that the ultra-Zionist Rutland would keep her head down, to ensure that her ‘academic discipline’ is not being politicized for Israel’s cause. But no. Remarkably and uncharacteristically, Sydney University management has joined the suit in support of Riemer and Keane. One can only assume that management’s action is driven by self-interest rather than principle. In October 2025 a telling incident occurred on Sydney University’s campus. A University staffer of self-described Palestinian origin walked past a stall manned by Jewish students who were publicizing the celebration of Sukkoth. The woman (unnamed in any report) reputedly asked “Are you a Zionist?”, before adding “In your name, they’re shredding children bit to bit … you should be making it stop.” The woman further added “You’re disgusting … you are depraved baby-killers.” The university condemned the statements, labelling them antisemitic and hate speech and suspended the woman. The woman was subsequently sacked (strangely, on 15 December, one day after the Bondi massacre). Interviewed at the stall was Dror Liraz, then President of AUJS, which had set up the stall. Turning to AUJS’ website we read, under Who we are: ‘AUJS’ constitution lists its four pillars as Judaism, Activism, Zionism, and Pluralism’. Under ‘Zionism’ we read: “We seek to promote a positive image of Israel on campus; to encourage truth in student political dialogue, and to educate the wider student population about Judaism and Israel.” Good luck with that. Under ‘Pluralism’ we read: “AUJS is committed to providing a voice and platform for every Jewish and Zionist student … regardless of political affiliation or religious identity. We reflect the complete spectrum of Jewish student opinion …”. This is a peculiar concept of pluralism. It turns that (disclosures courtesy of Sydney University’s student newspaper Honi Soit, March 2024) that Zionism and Israel is of more than of marginal interest to AUJS. We read: “Leaked documents, screenshots and email communication chains reveal that the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) lobbies on behalf of the Israeli government and its Zionist policies across Australian university campuses. … These leaked documents show AUJS’ significant preoccupation with Israeli advocacy. Their refusal to engage with anti-Zionist Jewish voices makes their claim to be a representative body for Jewish students tenuous.” A very peculiar concept of pluralism. So here we have Sydney University Jewish students, under the AUJS mantle, in September 2024 demanding the resignation of the University’s Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott. At that event we discover: “Jewish student Dror Liraz, who was born in Israel, said the last 11 months had seen “dangerous, hateful individuals crossing the limits of free speech on this campus with their calls for intifada, their continued use of offensive and sometimes illegal graffiti, and their labelling of my country of birth as a terrorist state”.” Yet if the shoe fits … Said spokesperson Liraz made a submission to a proposed Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024 (the Commission was not established). There we read: “My name is Dror Liraz and I am an Israeli-born Australian Jew with great pride for both of my nations …”. Israel’s genocide apparently passed under AUJS’ student members’ radar while other students’ protests against that genocide causes them great distress. Meanwhile, the Palestinian woman staffer, beside herself with genuine distress, is sacked for ‘serious misconduct’. The University claimed that ‘free and confidential wellbeing support is available to those who need it’ – evidently to self-designated Zionist students and not to the sacked staffer. The Academy’s formal commitment to truth, based on reason and evidence (hopefully complemented by an ethics-based humanity) is apparently yesterday’s model, not fit for current purposes. The junkets. There are perennial sponsored trips (by AIJAC and others) of opinion-makers and policy-makers to Israel. The Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce (not least with the aforementioned Jillian Segal’s involvement) has also played an active role in pushing Israel’s commercial ‘virtues’ via conferences and Israel visits – an arm of soft power. The political class. The political class itself is naturally under constant pressure and attempted ‘sweetening’. Then Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd (previously an undiluted supporter of Israel), belatedly expelled a token Israeli ‘diplomat’ in May 2010, after Israel had used four Australian passports as means to assassinate Hamas leader Mahmoud al Mabhou in Dubai in January 2010. The lobby was displeased. Then Labor Deputy Leader, Julia Gillard, overthrew Rudd, in a ‘bloodless coup’, a month later in June 2010. Coincidence? It is not groundless to infer that the lobby was behind the coup. Gillard was ardently pro-Israel, and had to be rolled in November 2012, by a bevy of senior Labor Ministers, led by then Foreign Minister Bob Carr (himself a previous ‘Friend of Israel’ politician), in pushing for Palestine to be granted a seat at the UN. Current Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese started life as a radical student (I was there) – an activist against apartheid South Africa and subsequently against apartheid Israel. At some stage during his long Labor Party and Parliamentary career his activism was effectively subdued. None of his fellow Parliamentarians are spilling the beans as to when and how it happened. Albanese is now caught in a bind. Crucified by the lobby (donning the obligatory kippah at gatherings), he is being blamed for the Bondi massacre (not least by mass murderer Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and blamed for reluctance (entirely reasonable) to establish a Royal Commission into the affair. Preposterous. He is being pressured to adopt all the recommendations of the ridiculous Segal report which involves comprehensive repression of any critique of Israel and shutting down of errant educational institutions. Apparently contrite under the delirium (media constant pressure), Albanese agrees to host the Israel President Isaac Herzog in a visit to Australia, presumably to lecture Australians on their rampant antisemitism. Grotesque. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government has recently authorized 19 new settlements in the West Bank. More of the same. Anti-Zionist Jews. Most tellingly, the lobby savages anti-Zionist Australian Jews and their small-scale against-the-grain organizations. Thus did long-time heavyweight AIJAC Mark Leibler tweet on 8 February 2025: “Nothing, but nothing, is worse than those Jews who level totally unfounded allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the State of Israel. They are repulsive and revolting human beings. Their relatives who were murdered by the Nazis – the role models for Hamas – will undoubtedly be turning in their graves. Their avowed anti Zionism is clearly no more than a cover for the reality that they are vicious antisemites.” This heinous tweet has since been taken down, but it has been reproduced here. Similarly, the National Council of Jewish Women Australia’s Linda Ben-Menashe eviscerates, indeed excommunicates from the sisterhood, human rights lawyer and courageous anti-Zionist activist Sarah Schwartz. In short, the centre of gravity of the Australian Jewish community is Israel-occupied territory. +++ The situation is as follows and is set to continue, because embedded, for the indefinite future. Apartheid Israel is suffering no reprisals for its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population. On the contrary, it is being funded and armed in the operation. Israel, aided by the worshipful ‘diaspora’ (who decline to make Aliyah), has perhaps the densest lobbying and propaganda machine in history – a key factor in Israel’s impunity. Apartheid South Africa eat your heart out. Resistance – blowback – will inevitably be ongoing – in forms yet unknown. This resistance predictably will be labelled ‘hate’ and placed in the ever-expanding ‘antisemitism’ category. The absurd IHRA definition of antisemitism will be universally adopted and its proponents will neither know nor care to hone in on genuine antisemitism, which is the point. Repression of any manifestation of opposition to Israel (‘globalise the intifada!’) will further escalate, with educational institutions rendered dysfunctional and the media self-subordinated to abject obeisance to the interests of Israel. Apartheid Israel will continue to murder and expel Palestinians and to permanently colonize neighboring territories wherever possible. The motif is lebensraum – from the river to the sea, and beyond. In October 1899 (soon after the establishment of the World Zionist Congress), Theodore Herzl’s advisor Davis Trietsch wrote to Herzl noting: “I would suggest to you to come around in time to the ‘Greater Palestine’ programme before it is too late. The Basel programme must contain the words ‘Greater Palestine’ or ‘Palestine and its neighboring Lands’ – otherwise it’s nonsense. You do not get the ten million Jews into a land of 25,000 km.” Don’t wait up for the resolution. It’s a psychopathology. The tragic deaths at Bondi are merely its latest victims. The post Blowback at Bondi appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Evan Jones.
We trophy hunt and trap the phenomenally evocative subject that we call canis lupus. Throughout history, the grey wolf – like the wilderness itself – has stirred diverse human imaginings, from a figure of terror, nightmare, and disdain, to one of great awe and respect. Organized collectives of “wolf advocates,” both academics and activists, typically More The post The Insufficiency of Wolf “Management” appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3888px) 100vw, 3888px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3888" height="2592" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-scaled.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-scaled.jpg 3888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3888px) 100vw, 3888px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-945x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/graywolf1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-246754" class="wp-image-246754 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/graywolf1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Gray wolf. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. We trophy hunt and trap the phenomenally evocative subject that we call canis lupus. Throughout history, the grey wolf – like the wilderness itself – has stirred diverse human imaginings, from a figure of terror, nightmare, and disdain, to one of great awe and respect. Organized collectives of “wolf advocates,” both academics and activists, typically argue for more ecologically defensible policies than those grossly insensitive and often sadistic and even genocidal practices that have recently resurged in governmental sanctioning and hunter-trapper values and practice. But practitioners of “ecologically defensible policies,” advocating within the Establishment as they do, still use the discourse of the haters and exploiters. That is, they argue for better numbers of “take,” of “harvest,” and of improved “resource management” – THRoM. They seek to make peace with the insensitive contingent, the insensate political wing. They want to convince them of the intelligence of better “management.” Yes, their advocacy and their research are valuable and help to hold the line for survival of canis lupus. We cannot responsibly undervalue it. And yet, crucially missing is a concomitant calling out of the immorality of all “sport” hunting and trapping of the wolf, of any calling it what it is: ignorance of desubjectifying the wolf, anthropocentric ignorance of THRoM. Like those philanthropic foundation-dependent wildlands advocates who defend as “practical and realistic” their collaborating and compromising about wildlands-destructive legislative designations, the wolf advocates I’m critiquing here paradoxically and ironically give credence to societal resistance to creating a profound respect for the wolf. It is an oddity, although not surprising in contemporary culture, that both “wolf and wilderness advocates” – yes, both uncompromising wilderness advocates and their compromising contingent – do not openly and politically contextualize their work in terms of the human’s unprecedented point of inevitable and inherently continuous transformation. That is, we are at a point of far-reaching collective destruction or collective advancement hitherto impossible. We will transform one way or the other. Our increased ability to improve life concomitantly contains potential, technical destruction of the earth and of ourselves. We positively transform our individual and civilizational worldviews and values – who we are and what we are, or we die. The act of leadership often does, actually, require calling things by their real names. True human evolution, collective and individual, does not happen by passively going along with the immorality of the human subject and of civilization. For activists to work solely within the Establishment while eschewing an unrelenting call for the kind of transformation I am enunciating here, is – in brief – philosophically short-sighted and both ethically and aesthetically irresponsible. The post The Insufficiency of Wolf “Management” appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joseph Scalia III.
Conservation Victory Saves Greater Yellowstone’s Old-Growth Forests and Critical Habitat for Western Birds
The recent halting of the Forest Service’s massive deforestation and road-building project bordering Yellowstone National Park benefitted far more than grizzly bears and lynx. In fact, the area’s old-growth forests provide critical habitat for 67 species of western forest birds, many of which have been classified as “species of conservation concern.’ The population of birds More The post Conservation Victory Saves Greater Yellowstone’s Old-Growth Forests and Critical Habitat for Western Birds appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-200x200.webp" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-200x200.webp 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-100x100.webp 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1300" height="867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396350" class="wp-image-396350 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp" alt="" width="680" height="454" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-680x454.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-945x630.webp 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-768x512.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-500x333.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg-600x400.webp 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GGO_spread-wings_Mel-Clements.jpg.webp 1300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Great Gray Owl. Photo: Mel Clements, National Park Service. The recent halting of the Forest Service’s massive deforestation and road-building project bordering Yellowstone National Park benefitted far more than grizzly bears and lynx. In fact, the area’s old-growth forests provide critical habitat for 67 species of western forest birds, many of which have been classified as “species of conservation concern.’ The population of birds in North America has dropped by 30%, with 64% of 67 forest species found in the area slated for logging in decline. The Forest Service’s own South Plateau wildlife report acknowledged there are a number of declining “species of conservation concern” in the area. These include the Brown Creeper, Clark’s Nutcracker, Evening Grosbeak, Cassin’s Finch, Williamson’s Sapsucker, Great Gray Owl, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Northern Goshawk, and Black-backed Woodpecker. Yet, in spite of the Forest Service’s requirement that conservation measures be developed for at-risk species there are no such measures within the Custer Gallatin National Forest Plan or the Forest Service’s South Plateau Environmental Assessment. An important component of old growth forests are “snags” which are standing dead trees. Far from being useless, some 42 species of birds and 10 mammal species use snags for nesting, roosting, and feeding. When the snag fall, they continue to provide valuable benefits including water retention on the forest floor. Logging would have removed all of these snags. Had we failed to stop the Forest Service clearcutting and road bulldozing plan there would have been a 52 square mile black hole of lodgepole pine old growth on the western border of Yellowstone National Park. The science clearly shows that all of these at-risk species are highly sensitive to logging due to the loss of hiding cover for nesting and fledged young, thermal cover to ameliorate the effects of severe weather, and production of the conifer seeds that provide significant forage for birds. Likewise, when the logs fall, the insects that aid decomposition provide a critical food source for these at-risk species. Conservation strategies for these at-risk species include forested snag habitat for the Williamson’s Sapsucker, Black-backed Woodpecker, and old growth habitat for the Northern Goshawk, Great Gray Owl, Black-backed Woodpecker, and Brown Creeper. Yet, there are no requirements in the Custer Gallatin Forest Plan to provide well-distributed old growth and forested snag habitat for any of these at-risk birds, in violation of the Forest Service’s 2012 planning rule. Even though the huge logging and burning project would kill an undetermined number of migratory birds, this impact was completely ignored in the project’s Environmental Assessment. Failing to address the mortality levels is a clear violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which requires that beneficial practices must be implemented to avoid killing migratory birds, either by nest destruction or killing of flightless fledged birds. Yet, there were no estimates as to how many migratory birds would be killed per acre or an estimate of the annual mortality of birds, a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act. These are all valid concerns, backed by legal mandates, that the Forest Service failed to consider. That’s exactly why Native Ecosystems Council, Council on Wildlife and Fish, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Center for Biological Diversity, Gallatin Wildlife Association, and Western Environmental Law Center took this action to court – and won. It’s a continuous struggle to stop the Forest Service from clearcutting the last of our old growth forests. We appreciate any help you can give us to force the government to follow the law and not continue to drive many of these birds to extinction. The post Conservation Victory Saves Greater Yellowstone’s Old-Growth Forests and Critical Habitat for Western Birds appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sara Johnson.
Cover-Up: How One Reporter Spent 50 Years Exposing America’s Murder Inc.
Laura Poitras opens her documentary Cover Up with an interrogation of the interrogator. She presses Seymour Hersh on the one subject that has become his greatest vulnerability and his most sacred shield: his sources. Hersh, both irascible and steadfast, continues to maintain his fortress-like demeanor. Despite presenting the filmmaker with tangible documents containing the names More The post Cover-Up: How One Reporter Spent 50 Years Exposing America’s Murder Inc. appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396495" class="wp-image-396495 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill-680x383.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="383" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill-600x338.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hershstill.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Seymour Hersh, still from Cover-Up (Netflix). Laura Poitras opens her documentary Cover Up with an interrogation of the interrogator. She presses Seymour Hersh on the one subject that has become his greatest vulnerability and his most sacred shield: his sources. Hersh, both irascible and steadfast, continues to maintain his fortress-like demeanor. Despite presenting the filmmaker with tangible documents containing the names of high-ranking “ghosts” inscribed on them, he remains silent for the sake of documentation. “No,” he barks, “I’m not going to talk about my sources.” It is a masterful opening, mirroring the anecdotal beginning of Hersh’s memoir, Reporter. It immediately plunges the viewer into the fundamental tension of modern journalism: the distinction between adversarial sourcing and stenographic access. For the “steno-journalists” who populate the White House press corps, a source is a transactional partner—someone who provides a curated “truth” in exchange for the journalist acting as a megaphone for the state. For Hersh, the source is a weapon of sabotage. This refusal to name names is not just professional ethics; it is an act of war against an administrative state that relies on anonymity to commit its crimes and transparency to punish its whistleblowers. The Mouse Turd and the Pentagon The film’s narrative arc begins at the Pentagon, the site of Hersh’s “Socratic awakening.” Poitras captures the youthful, gadfly energy of this era, punctuated by the kind of gallows humor that defines the trade. Hersh recalls a lunch with a young Ralph Nader during those early days, when Nader was also challenging the military-industrial behemoth from a consumer safety angle. Nader looked down at Hersh’s plate and pointed out that his salad contained a mouse turd—a tiny piece of filth hidden among the greens. The anecdote is simultaneously absurd and profound. While the rest of the press corps consumed the entire “salad” of military briefings, Hersh was the only one searching for the hidden filth among the greens. He eventually broke the My Lai story because he was willing to look where the stenographers were trained to look away. He realized early on that the relationship between a journalist and power should be, as H.L. Mencken observed, like that between a dog and a lamppost. But the mouse turd story also reveals something else about Hersh: a capacity for camaraderie and self-deprecating humor that balances his well-earned reputation for being difficult. The image of two young muckrakers—Hersh and Nader—sharing a laugh over contaminated food while plotting to expose far greater contaminations in the body politic is a reminder that adversarial journalism need not be joyless. Together, as Hersh puts it in the film, they were forming “a tag-team tandem up against the Goliath forces of the public government mask of the Deep State.” The anecdote humanizes Hersh precisely because it shows him in a moment of vulnerability and connection, not as the lone wolf crusader but as someone who understood the value of friendship in the fight against institutional rot. The Trade Value of Secrets and Why Sources Talk One of the most revealing moments in Cover Up comes when Poitras presses Hersh on why his sources talk to him. Hersh’s answer is characteristically blunt: “I don’t know if you work in the Secret World, but there are people out there who are actively gathering information. You know, why not talk to me? I don’t know. I don’t psychoanalyze those who talk to me.” This deflection is itself instructive. To understand Hersh’s career is to understand the “trade value” of secrets. In the ecosystem of Washington, D.C., a secret is a high-stakes currency. For the adversarial journalist, a secret is used to bankrupt the state’s credibility. However, the government’s “secret sharers” often use secrets as bait. This is the dark legacy of Project Mockingbird, the CIA’s mid-century initiative to recruit journalists as assets to facilitate the spread of propaganda. When the state “shares” a secret with a stenographer, it is often a managed leak designed to manipulate public perception or neutralize a coming scandal. The trade value for the journalist is “access”—the prestige of being “in the know”—but the cost is their independence. Hersh’s brilliance lies in his ability to navigate this minefield. He takes the secret but refuses the leash. Unlike Judith Miller, whose “exclusive” secrets about WMDs facilitated the Iraq War, Hersh views the secret as a Socratic opportunity to reveal the truth, not as a reward for compliance. Hersh articulates his philosophy clearly in the film: My job as a newspaper reporter is to find out secrets and facts. You publish these secrets, fully aware that we are violating rules and laws and compromising national security. It’s top secret information above top secret, because we think there’s an outstanding reason. We think there’s a story here of officials with responsibility not conducting their affairs correctly. Reporting such secrets is akin to the Necessity Defense. (The CIA’s secret wars in Latin America became so egregious that activists eventually found a legal weapon to expose them: the necessity defense, a legal doctrine that allows defendants to argue they broke the law to prevent a greater harm. In the 1980s, Abbie Hoffman successfully used this defense in his trial as an anti-CIA activist on the campus of UMass-Amherst, transforming the courtroom into a forum where evidence of CIA atrocities in Latin America was presented to the jury, effectively putting the Agency itself on trial for its crimes against democracy.) This formulation is crucial. The point of a classification violation is accountability. Hersh operates according to a higher law than the state’s obsession with secrecy. He identifies what he calls “self-censorship by the press” the greater threat: “I think what you have in America is not so much censorship but self-censorship by the press.” It is the internalization of the state’s priorities by journalists themselves that makes stenography so effective. Realpolitik and the 40 Committee The meat of the film concerns the “Kissinger Doctrine.” Poitras uses archival snippets to bring us into the heart of the 40 Committee, the secret body that oversaw the subversion of foreign democracies. Here, we discover the soul of American Realpolitik: Kissinger’s infamous 1970 proclamation regarding the election of Salvador Allende (and its wider implication about democracy, in general): “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” This doctrine remains the definitive modus operandi of modern foreign policy. (One can see how it functions today in the destabilization of the Venezuelan government and the subsequent kidnapping of its leadership). It is the “Abyss” that Senator Frank Church warned of in 1975—a surveillance apparatus so powerful that it creates a tyranny from which there is “nowhere to hide.” Frank Church on Meet the Press Caption: The Abyss Foretold: Senator Frank Church warns of a domestic tyranny that would render traditional journalism—and democratic dissent—obsolete. The Empire and the “Turd Blossom” The film eventually leads to the era of “reality-making.” As Ron Suskind reported, a senior advisor (believed to be Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove) mocked the press as the “reality-based community,” asserting that the Empire creates its own reality while journalists are left to “judiciously study” the debris. In this environment, Hersh’s adversarialism becomes institutional apostasy. When Hersh challenged the Obama-controlled narrative of the bin Laden raid in Abbottabad, or when he voiced skepticism regarding the sarin gas attacks in Syria, he was blaspheming against the Empire’s manufactured reality. In the film, when pushed on the sarin error, Hersh simply shrugs. He admits that errors are part of the game of secrets revealed. He would rather be wrong while hunting the truth than be “right” by transcribing a state-sponsored fiction. This moment captures something essential about Hersh’s methodology. Late in the film, when discussing his reporting on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage—which implicated the Biden administration—Hersh addresses the criticism that he relies on single sources. His response is unrepentant: “What am I going to do? I can’t write about who else I know was brought in I cannot disclose the names of the sources from the Army or the Air Force because doing so would expose them. Even if there’s nine sources, sometimes it’s much better just to make it one.” Critics will pounce on this admission as evidence of sloppy journalism. But Hersh’s point is more sophisticated: the protection of sources is not merely ethical window dressing but the precondition for all adversarial reporting. When he says, “I’ve got 20 years of working with the guy that I’ve been wrong on. Time after time, I’m told things that turn out to be right,” he is articulating a form of journalistic trust that exists outside the official methodologies taught in J-schools. It is a trust built on results, not credentials. The Missing Chronicles: Gaza and Nord Stream While Poitras spends time on the “Dark Side of Camelot,” Cover Up notably sidelines Hersh’s most recent stings. There is no mention of his Substack reporting on the Nord Stream pipeline—where his sources point to the Biden administration—nor his skepticism regarding the Israeli intelligence failures of October 7th. He remains a “heretic” in the eyes of the media pack that has consolidated around the official narratives of the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Yet the film does gesture toward Hersh’s ongoing work on Gaza through a brief but powerful scene late in the documentary. Hersh speaks with a researcher recently returned from Gaza who describes the systematic targeting of children with quadcopter-mounted weapons. The researcher shares X-rays showing bullets lodged in the necks and heads of young victims. Hersh’s response is succinct: “A fucking nightmare. And we’re only in the first stage of it.” The scene is brief, but it connects the My Lai massacre to the present moment. Just as Hersh documented the murder of Vietnamese civilians, he is now documenting the murder of Palestinian children. The continuity is not merely thematic—it is methodological. In both cases, Hersh relies on sources who are horrified by what they have witnessed and who believe the public has a right to know. Poitras’s Lens: The Trilogy of Exile and Dissidence Cover Up is the spiritual prequel to Poitras’s Citizenfour (Snowden) and Risk (Assange), but it also represents a departure in her filmmaking approach. With Snowden, Poitras was present at the moment of revelation—she filmed him in that Hong Kong hotel room as he prepared to become the world’s most famous whistleblower. With Assange, Poitras captured the gradual breakdown of a man under constant pressure, stemming from both external factors and his paranoia. With Hersh, Poitras faces a different challenge: how do you document the work of a journalist whose entire career has been built on protecting sources and operating in the shadows? Her solution is to make the documentary about the process of investigative journalism rather than a singular revelation. She lets Hersh’s notebooks speak for They filmed him leafing through decades of handwritten notes that are filled with the names of CIA operatives, military officers, and Pentagon insiders. The documentary’s aesthetic is deliberately rough-hewn. Poitras doesn’t glamorize Hersh. We see him in his cluttered apartment, arguing with his editors on the phone, expressing frustration and despair. At one point, he threatens to quit the documentary itself: “You guys know too much about what I’m doing. You have too many people. There’s people there. You don’t even realize who they are.” The moment is electrifying as it unveils a paranoia that is not pathological but rather logical for an individual who has dedicated 50 years to the illicit trade of state secrets. But where Citizenfour ends with Snowden in exile in Russia and Risk ends with Assange’s eventual extradition and imprisonment, Cover Up ends with Hersh still standing. He is 87 years old, still reporting, still writing for Substack, and still taking on the intelligence agencies. The irony is heavy: Assange has been returned to Australia a ghost of his former self, and Snowden has been absorbed by the draconian silence of wartime Russia. They are the victims of the “Abyss” Frank Church prophesied. Hersh, however, remains. His parents fled the massacres in Lithuania, and that ancestral memory of state-sponsored slaughter informs his moral core. He knows that the “Empire” only creates “new realities” to hide old bodies. In one of the film’s most poignant moments, Hersh recalls his father’s death from lung cancer and his inability to say goodbye in a family that “couldn’t say goodbye” and “was an unthinking family.” The trauma of silence—the refusal to speak of the Holocaust, the refusal to acknowledge suffering—becomes the psychological origin of Hersh’s compulsion to expose every buried secret. Poitras’s genius is to connect Hersh’s personal biography to his professional mission. Unlike Snowden and Assange, who were young men when they became whistleblowers, Hersh has been doing this work for over half a century. He is not a martyr; he is a survivor. And Cover Up is not a hagiography—it is a portrait of what it costs to survive as an adversarial journalist in an empire built on lies. Coda: The Rat Cage and the Present Even when he is sidelined, even when he is “wrong,” Seymour Hersh remains the only one willing to point out the mouse turd in the state’s salad. As I wrote in my review of Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5, “The rat cage tied to the face has gone from metaphor to reality.” The present’s surveillance and assassination programs have literalized Orwell’s vision of totalitarian torture. Hersh has spent his career documenting this process, from My Lai to Abu Ghraib to the drone assassination programs to Gaza, which features soul-leeching facial recognition technology.. In Cover Up, Poitras presents us with a portrait of a man who refuses to stop looking. Even at 87, Hersh is still chasing secrets, protecting sources, and willing to be wrong in pursuit of the truth. His mantra, articulated near the end of the film, is simple: You can’t have a country that does that. That’s why I’ve been sort of on the warpath ever since. You can’t just have a country that does it and looks the other way. If there’s any mantra to what I do, that’s it. It is a modest statement of purpose, but it contains within it the entire architecture of adversarial journalism. The work is not about heroism or martyrdom—it is about the refusal to look away. Poitras understands this. Her trilogy of dissidence—Snowden, Assange, Hersh—is ultimately about the cost of seeing clearly in an empire that demands blindness. The post Cover-Up: How One Reporter Spent 50 Years Exposing America’s Murder Inc. appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Kendall Hawkins.
Iraq and Venezuela: One as Tragedy, Another as Farce
The invasion of Venezuela we’ve just witnessed brings to mind the two invasions of Iraq—under George H. W. Bush in 1990 and George W. Bush in 2003. The first was flagrantly about oil. The second was more insidious. In a reactionary response to 9/11, the United States invaded Iraq nearly two years later, allegedly to More The post Iraq and Venezuela: One as Tragedy, Another as Farce appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396465" class="wp-image-396465 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/levi-meir-clancy-kj-QJkZMcv8-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Levi Meir Clancy. The invasion of Venezuela we’ve just witnessed brings to mind the two invasions of Iraq—under George H. W. Bush in 1990 and George W. Bush in 2003. The first was flagrantly about oil. The second was more insidious. In a reactionary response to 9/11, the United States invaded Iraq nearly two years later, allegedly to combat terrorism through regime change despite evidence that the perps of the atrocity were elsewhere. The rationale for the operation was also belied by the fact that our forces had invaded Afghanistan in the weeks following 9/11. The invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public through the Bush administration’s hyped-up claim that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell, a credible foreign policy figure, was put forward to present the evidence used to justify the intervention, later admitting that he was pressured. We still live with the effects of this feckless blunder, which led to the massacre of 1.4 million civilians and the over-elevation of the Shia population at the expense of the Sunnis, which subsequently led to the creation of ISIS. Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense and arguably the major force in pushing this policy. was driven by oiI concerns. In the 1970s, he was the Nixon administration’s emissary tasked with pressuring the Iraqis to reverse their recent nationalization of the oil industry. His maneuvers were not successful; the decade was rife with anti-colonial ruptures, extensions of the post-WWII backlash from the Third World against imperial repression. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 fulfilled Nixon’s, Rumsfeld’s, and Bush’s designs for this reversal. Despite the earlier failure, the 1970s did witness severe crackdowns against these successful ruptures. As director of the CIA, George H. W. Bush sanctioned the military coup against Chile’s president Salvador Allende for nationalizing the copper, iron, banking, and steel industries. The anti-colonial rupture in Venezuela occurred in 1976 when the government created an organization, PDVSA, which through the years seized the oil assets of Exxon, Gulf, Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips (Chevron still operates in Venezuela). Attempts by the U.S. to reverse the process were unsuccessful—the firms were only able to continue limited operations in Venezuela through joint ventures under the umbrella of state ownership. In the early 2000s, this control and expropriation was increased under Hugo Chavez, the architect of the Bolivarian Revolution, forcing the companies to seek remedies for their investment losses through international arbitration. (They were adequately compensated eventually.) But in 2017, the U.S. imposed financial sanctions on Venezuela that restricted bond trading and access to capital markets here, explicitly targeting the oil sector at the core of the Maduro government’s revenue. In 2019, the U.S. sanctioned PDVSA, froze 7 billion dollars in U.S.-based assets, and blocked payments for Venezuelan oil exports to this country, aiming to cripple state oil revenues and pressure regime change by cutting off Maduro’s access to revenues. And more recently, Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on exports to the U.S. from any country buying Venezuelan oil. The Venezuelan economy had already taken a dip before the 2017 sanctions were imposed, resulting in significant migration to the U.S. and other countries. But post-2017 has witnessed a compounding of these numbers, with the bulk of the migrants to this country over the past several years coming from Venezuela, Cuba, and Guatemala. The United States caused this critical migration crisis from Venezuela and now penalizes its victims by deporting them back to their deprived origins. History is certainly repeating itself. The U.S. is out to reclaim its oil once again, oil that somehow ended up in another country. Trump could not mince his words. This is not the only issue. The U.S. is committed to out-maneuver Russia and China in the country based on a paranoia rooted in refusal to accept the emerging multi-polar world. And of course there’s the mandate to combat drug trafficking, always laudable as a public relations initiative though its incidence is credibly far greater in other countries. Could this issue be the “lite” equivalent of the WMD claims that preceded the invasion of Iraq? True, it’s not easy to ignore the issues with Maduro’s governance, especially the fact that he retained his grip on power when he wasn’t re-elected. But how can the U.S., which has severe governance problems of its own, police a sovereign country? This is indeed a farce. There was no invasion like in Iraq, only the kidnapping of a sitting president that appears destined to be mostly symbolic since the Trump administration has stated its intention to work with the survivors in Maduro’s government. This suggests no regime change, which would require substantial personnel on the ground. The likelihood of this outcome is further supported by the presence of a diverse and educated populace steeped in traditions of resistance. The post Iraq and Venezuela: One as Tragedy, Another as Farce appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John O'Kane.
Amid Federal Cuts, Momentum for Direct Cash is Growing for Good Reason: the Washington Example
Over a quarter of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have less than $1,000 in emergency savings. This means there’s no buffer when the car breaks down or an unexpected hospital bill hits. Congress’ cuts to SNAP and Medicaid will worsen this crisis for working families, as millions of people lose money to buy groceries More The post Amid Federal Cuts, Momentum for Direct Cash is Growing for Good Reason: the Washington Example appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Over a quarter of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have less than $1,000 in emergency savings. This means there’s no buffer when the car breaks down or an unexpected hospital bill hits. Congress’ cuts to SNAP and Medicaid will worsen this crisis for working families, as millions of people lose money to buy groceries and face higher health-care premiums and less coverage. In Washington state, advocates and community leaders have stepped up in recent years to enact direct cash programs to support people struggling to make ends meet. When states and cities invest in direct cash support, whether through tax credits or Guaranteed Income programs, people get the autonomy to decide how to cover basic needs like utilities, rent, or school supplies. We’re proud of the way our state is helping people get the cash they need to pay for essentials, and the work to grow these efforts continues. There is momentum nationally around direct cash — now is the time for states to build on it. Our organization was part of a coalition of organizations and individuals that helped pass the Washington state Working Families Tax Credit in 2021. This annual cash boost to people with low incomes passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support during the pandemic because lawmakers on both sides of the aisle knew people needed cash back in their pockets. In 2025, over $200 million went to around 300,000 low- and moderate-income households, with an average payment of $723. This includes over 400,000 children, or almost one in four Washington kids, whose families are more financially secure because of this tax credit. Thirty one states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have enacted a state tax credit or a child tax credit. This investment in people has ripple effects for the economy: for every $1 paid out in tax credits like these, $2 is returned to local economies. Refundable state tax credits can act like GBI, especially if they are large enough to be distributed monthly, and are an easy way to extend no strings attached cash quickly to low and moderate income families. Direct cash allows people to solve their own problems and avoid financial crises, which makes all of us safer and helps our communities thrive. And it’s simply good policy. In fact, hundreds of mayors, legislators, and elected officials have signed on in support of Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) in recent years. Federally, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan recently introduced the “Economic Dignity for All” agenda: a policy platform that includes a universal child benefit, a boost for families who just welcomed a new baby, and a monthly cash payment for adults, to tackle the affordability crisis. Results from over 200 GBI pilots across the U.S. are showing improved health, employment, and education outcomes. These impacts far exceed the cost of investment. Notable GBI programs include the landmark RxKids program in Flint, Michigan, which provides a monthly payment to all expecting moms and babies in the city, with the goal of improving child and maternal health (this program has now extended to multiple cities across Michigan). Stanford’s Basic Income Lab tracks GBI programs across the U.S. In Washington state, several local GBI pilots have had great results, including Growing Resilience In Tacoma (GRIT), run by United Way of Pierce County. GRIT provided $500 a month to 110 single parents in the city’s highest-need zip codes. The pilot showed families became more financially resilient. The nonprofit Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services runs a program in King and Pierce Counties and the Tulalip Reservation called the Nest, which provides $1,250 a month until a child’s third birthday, to address disparities in maternal and birth outcomes for Indigenous communities. These programs are built with a core tenet of respect and support, and the knowledge that cash support allows people to meet their own needs. Further, our Department of Social and Health Services recently began a study on the feasibility of a larger statewide direct cash program for pregnant parents and babies. As we enter the Trump administration’s second year, state and local governments must take the reins to protect people’s well-being. Direct cash is a promising policy solution that can help boost local economies and ensure families can better survive financial crises. The post Amid Federal Cuts, Momentum for Direct Cash is Growing for Good Reason: the Washington Example appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tracy Yeung – Leila Reynolds.
The Gestapo Murder of Renee Good and Stephen Miller’s Nazi Rant
A hugely loved 37-year-old mother named Renee Nicole Good, of Colorado and Minneapolis, has been murdered in her residential neighborhood by armed agents of the Trump regime. Videos of the brutal execution by an ICE battalion have gone viral on the internet. The killing is being widely compared to executions of unarmed civilians perpetrated by More The post The Gestapo Murder of Renee Good and Stephen Miller’s Nazi Rant appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396559" class="wp-image-396559 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-7.01.41-PM-680x415.png" alt="" width="680" height="415" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-7.01.41-PM-680x415.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-7.01.41-PM-500x305.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-7.01.41-PM-600x366.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-7.01.41-PM.png 708w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Stephen Miller, Youtube screenshot. A hugely loved 37-year-old mother named Renee Nicole Good, of Colorado and Minneapolis, has been murdered in her residential neighborhood by armed agents of the Trump regime. Videos of the brutal execution by an ICE battalion have gone viral on the internet. The killing is being widely compared to executions of unarmed civilians perpetrated by Hitler’s Gestapo. Good was known as a “kind, caring neighbor” widely revered and treasured throughout her community. She was the married mother of a six-year-old. Renee died immediately from gunshots to the head pumped into her car at point blank range by an ICE agent with a handgun. She was unarmed. The viral images of the shooting show a cruel, gratuitous killing which has horrified citizens worldwide. Representatives of the Trump regime have blamed the killing on Good herself. On an icy residential street, Good was attempting to drive away from a scene of police confusion when a masked officer walked up to her driver’s-side door, pulled out handgun and pumped several bullets through Good’s open window. At least one bullet went directly into her face from a distance of a yard or less. As she died the car sped down the street. After it crashed, an opened passenger door showed that the air bag and interior were spattered with blood. The killing took place about a mile from the infamous official May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd that helped ignite the MeToo movement. Hundreds of Minnesotans held a candlelight vigil to honor Renee’s memory and express horror at the killing. A furious Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey angrily dismissed ICE’s version of the killing as “bullshit” and demanded ICE “get the fu-k out of Minneapolis.” The killing of Renee Good comes one day after a fascist rant by Stephen Miller, a top official in the Trump administration—deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, the central figure behind its zealous anti-immigrant stance and actions led by ICE. The rant recalled for a global audience the Nazi rantings of Hitler cronies like Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels. As Miller explained to CNN’s Jake Tapper, “we live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Miller went on the justify Trump’s attack on Venezuela and to warn that it would be fine, in his eyes, for the U.S. to seize control of Greenland and other independently governed nations. In rhetoric recalling Hitler’s wars of conquest in the 1930s, Miller essentially asserted that U.S. military might would make it right for the U.S. to likewise conquer any country it might choose. In combination with the Trump regime’s unprovoked attack on Venezuela, the slaughter of Renee Good, and the fascistic rantings of Stephen Miller have hugely raised the global fear that a new world war is a top agenda item for the MAGA movement now ruling the U.S. government. “If…” was the title of a piece Thursday by Andy Borowitz on his “The Borowitz Report” on Substack (usually devoted to humor; this was not). “If Donald Trump’s government can murder a woman in broad daylight for exercising her First Amendment rights, they can murder any of us. If congressional Republicans had a shred of decency, they would impeach Kristi Noem. If those Republicans cherished the U.S.A. more than jobs, they would impeach and remove Donald Trump. If they don’t, it’s up to us to remove them. If you’ve had enough, let’s get to work.” The post The Gestapo Murder of Renee Good and Stephen Miller’s Nazi Rant appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Karl Grossman - Harvey Wasserman.
Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty XVI
Truthful Fiction There is a woman who gestures towards me every night: The city stands alone- -I see: The woman leans like a 1940s starlet in dressed in ready: She the poseur slightly wisps in the lights: Every night silhouetted across, against and over the many metropolises’ sky line- -she awaits- -her poses- – remain the More The post Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty XVI appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img decoding="async" class="loaded" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 100vw" srcset="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=100w 100w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=300w 300w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=500w 500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=750w 750w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=1000w 1000w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=1500w 1500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg?format=2500w 2500w" alt="" width="1412" height="1882" data-stretch="false" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/177d00e2-eaad-4bea-92d9-ae9e20e95a7e/0.jpeg" data-image-dimensions="1412x1882" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" data-load="false" data-loader="sqs" /> Architect: Renzo Piano: Building: KPN Tower: Rotterdam. Truthful Fiction There is a woman who gestures towards me every night: The city stands alone- -I see: The woman leans like a 1940s starlet in dressed in ready: She the poseur slightly wisps in the lights: Every night silhouetted across, against and over the many metropolises’ sky line- -she awaits- -her poses- – remain the same; Her shadowy frame only heard in shadowy reverberations – -she is there: Again and again the night brings her into my camera my camera to her: I have a friend in the darkness of the night- – the light before the morning. Every night; The shadow as it will, moves: The words remain the same- -“walk with me” I imagine. “Take a look at my city if you trust- -you must” I imagine. “I extend a promise to see”. I imagine every night. What happens when no one is around to hear what you see- -to see what you hear? What happens when you realize what you are imagining is not an imagination. <img decoding="async" class="loaded" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 100vw" srcset="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=100w 100w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=300w 300w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=500w 500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=750w 750w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=1000w 1000w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=1500w 1500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg?format=2500w 2500w" alt="" width="2196" height="2928" data-stretch="false" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/7110811f-6820-4181-ad96-52712b59b7cf/unnamed-1.jpg" data-image-dimensions="2196x2928" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" data-load="false" data-loader="sqs" /> New York City: Grand Central. I often ask my camera to remember Joan Didion- – often I do: I am in this moment reminded of her sitting atop the hood of her grandfathers pick-up truck: When she shared the story in the midst of our portrait session- – I realized maybe thirty years set our lives apart- -more than thirty years apart: We watched as she recounted: The rattlesnake was killed instantly: The jolt of the idea of a blast from the past made me wince: Joan didn’t flinch- -she always remembered- -as well…Joan gestured to my mind. I wanted to see what she wanted me to see. There are things in the lights of days then and now: They remain with you in mind and sight of mind. I have had one dream and some more: My camera waits for the new unidentified wildernesses to arise alive. The wilderness where and when my camera captures something new to share- – within my future’s past: Discovering a voice to make captures is easy: Discovering my own voice is when the science of imagination begins- -like the great Satchmo singing Mack the Knife– -The unimaginable appears in mind and sight, sight of mind. The communion of imaginary thoughts will one day locate into memory- -then possibly near the end, a slow fade from the mind. I camera begins anew and again anew: The days and years pass- -not a second redacted: The goal was never to invent a new way or manner of photography: The historical emotional daily narrative stands before me today and beyond: Thee of time and light need to be explored with every aperture idea: Time and again the “…Space Odyssey…” that is Kubrick’s beckons my eyes as Didion’s rattlesnake beckons my desires: New to be born babies flying through space- -takes its course- -The iconic ape wielding and tossing a giant femur into time travel: Floating before an orchestra of stars the bone as baton conducts our eyes: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="loaded" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 100vw" srcset="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=100w 100w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=300w 300w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=500w 500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=750w 750w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=1000w 1000w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=1500w 1500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg?format=2500w 2500w" alt="" width="3264" height="2448" data-stretch="false" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/98f2f5d5-a994-4cda-9640-4638876a06ce/unnamed-4.jpg" data-image-dimensions="3264x2448" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" data-load="false" data-loader="sqs" /> Rotterdam. The litany matters: Footprints afoot: Rare and exotic theories about the origins of camera sightings remind- -Hannibals Carthaginians’ crossing the Alps atop elephants: The elephants on tippy toes espy the descent from the highest peaks- -Their eyes nearly two inches wide frightened to the core bellowing “Not I”: Naturalists’ William Henry Hudson writes with truthful imaginations about the voices he may have heard- -His assiduous study’s of plants or animals seemingly conversing in real time: May they only speak to him- -though it is us who captures in sight the voluminous possibilities. My white elephants (Hemingways’ but so close to my heart) shed their fears on hills with shadows: Plain light exposed is never enough: So it is with that I stand in front of erected metropolises sharing what the cameras’ eyes say upon discovery, discoveries of what needs to be seen and seen again. Can it be the exquisite burning skin aroused in the burning barren desert that the adventurer, discoverer Stanislaw d’Escayrac de Lauture’s awakened in his travels alone in the Sudan desert. Can it be the cameras’ magical incantations that we might share with d’Escayrac de Lauture as the heat swelters the mind descends and equally ascends into imaginaries. Let’s take one more glimpse of Victor Hugos’ castles- -Waimeas’ thunderous waves- -Albrecht Dürer’ search for the unfathomable whale and we might catch a glimpse of the camera’s life. Think of this past within all the known written and visual context. My camera allows only for a single frame and what may follow- -A minor afterburn. Maybe the camera looks back in the moment: Maybe the camera remembers: Maybe things we have seen remain alive in our thoughts. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="loaded" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 100vw" srcset="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=100w 100w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=300w 300w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=500w 500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=750w 750w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=1000w 1000w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=1500w 1500w, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg?format=2500w 2500w" alt="" width="2448" height="3264" data-stretch="false" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5877d74f725e2540a2f2c4d7/63b33cf2-8597-407c-8f40-19760dd7cf11/unnamed-7.jpg" data-image-dimensions="2448x3264" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" data-load="false" data-loader="sqs" /> Rotterdam Central Train Station. The post Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty XVI appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Schulman.
While many people are struggling to get by, the ten wealthiest U.S. citizens have been experiencing great enhancements to their wealth as seen in the table below based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They managed an obscene accumulation of additional wealth in 2025 of $563.3 billion over the vulgar quantities they held at the beginning More The post 2025: An Obscene Accumulation of Wealth appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396555" class="wp-image-396555 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-680x433.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="433" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-680x433.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-990x630.jpg 990w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-768x489.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-1536x977.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-2048x1303.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-500x318.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/morgan-housel-PcDGGex9-jA-unsplash-600x382.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Morgan Housel. While many people are struggling to get by, the ten wealthiest U.S. citizens have been experiencing great enhancements to their wealth as seen in the table below based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They managed an obscene accumulation of additional wealth in 2025 of $563.3 billion over the vulgar quantities they held at the beginning of the year, an increase of 29.2% which, during the last three years, more than doubled, increasing 211%. Most, if not all of their wealth and the increases, are unlikely to be subject to income taxes except if the assets are sold at a gain. If the assets sold have been held for more than a year, they are taxed at the long-term capital gains rate which is lower than the rate imposed had these people earned the money from working. Obviously, a wealth tax on their financial assets should be imposed to better finance needed programs and services. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396553" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM-680x569.png" alt="" width="680" height="569" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM-680x569.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM-753x630.png 753w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM-768x642.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM-500x418.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM-600x502.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.30-PM.png 1028w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Leading the pack of ten is Musk. Recently, according to Bloomberg figures, he has experienced great ups and downs in the quantity of his wealth though the down periods may have made little difference in the power he exercises in the U.S. plutocracy with a democratic façade. His $288 million “contribution” to the Republican campaigns (mostly for Trump) as of mid-December of 2024 amounted to less than .06%, six one-hundredths of a percent, of his wealth. To match Musk’s $288 million would require 288,000 people to contribute $1,000 each or for 2,880,000 people to contribute $100 each. In recent years, if a change in one’s fortune of over $100 billion is significant, then Musk has undergone a few significant changes in the quantity of his holdings. Back in the “dark” days of Biden, as of the beginning of 2023, based on the Bloomberg Index, the size of his fortune came to $137 billion having declined $133 billion from where it stood at the start of the year There would soon be a turnaround from those dark days. As of the end of 2023, much of his lost wealth had been restored when it reached $229 billion. During the first part of 2024, it began to decline again, falling to a “mere” $183 billion as of May 11, 2024, before moving upward to $269 billion as of October 1. With Trump’s election, it dramatically increased reaching $486 billion as of December 17, 2024, a gain of more than $300 billion in just over 7 months, showing the wonders of the U.S. capitalist system that allows a single individual to accumulate a massive quantity of wealth at a time in which many people have pressing needs for food, housing, medical care, etc. With Trump in power and Musk heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), making him what some saw as an unelected co-president, Musk may have seen himself as making a “colossal sacrifice” given what happened to his wealth during his “service” to the country. It again dramatically declined by over $100 billion reaching $323 billion on April Fool’s Day. Soon after reducing his role in Doge and eventually leaving his position, his wealth took off again, growing to $470 billion as of October 1, 2025, then increasing another $172 billion to $642 billion as of December 19, 2025. That $642 billion is over $125 billion more than the combined wealth held on that same day by the second wealthiest Page ($264 billion) and third wealthiest Bezos ($250 billion). This is happening despite the likely decline in the sale of Tesla cars in 2025 and the hostility shown towards electric cars by the Trump regime as reflected in a provision of the big, beautiful bill that eliminated the tax credits for electric cars. Yet, the price of Tesla stock, of which Musk owns some 500 million shares and whose price has a big impact on the size of his wealth, has, since April 1, 2025 as of December 19, gone up more than 182% while his wealth increased 198%. Below is a table showing the size of Musk’s wealth and the price of Tesla stock. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-396552" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.33-PM.png" alt="" width="626" height="750" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.33-PM.png 626w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.33-PM-526x630.png 526w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.33-PM-500x599.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-08-at-6.32.33-PM-600x719.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 626px) 100vw, 626px" /> Despite what may have been his on again, off again, stormy relationship with the “stable genius” Trump, at the end of 2025, Musk’s wealth was up 43.2% for the year. By comparison, the wealth of the remaining wealthiest ten was up “only” 20.1% despite the efforts of many of them to have spent time flattering Trump. The post 2025: An Obscene Accumulation of Wealth appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Rick Baum.
Revolution as Therapy in Apocalyptic Times
“Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society that you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!” -Paul Goodman It feels like I’ve been bringing in the New Year every year for More The post Revolution as Therapy in Apocalyptic Times appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
“Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society that you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!” -Paul Goodman It feels like I’ve been bringing in the New Year every year for several years running now with the shocked observation that somehow, by some sort of Satanic miracle, this last year has been even more bombastically fucked up than the last and I’m more than a little tempted to repeat the refrain again as I look back at the wreckage of 2025 from the brink of 2026. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can actually see all the way back to 2023 from here and I still can’t believe I survived it all. That was right around the time I became a woman and the whole fucking world seemed to lose its proverbial shit simultaneously. Don’t get me wrong, I have been losing my mind for about as long as America has been losing its soul, but that was the year when it all finally boiled over into one big hot mess of overlapping personal and political trauma. At a time when an unexpectantly ascendant GOP was pushing transphobic legislation to new heights of downright genocidal malice and Israel’s Christian Zionist facilitated atrocities in the Holy Land provoked the blood drenched blowback of October 7th, I began to remember way too much, way too soon as my long-awaited gender transition reached its hormonal peak. I began to remember all the atrocities that the Christian Zionists at my rural Catholic diocese committed against my young body while I first arrived at the baffling realization that somehow God had gotten my gender wrong. I remembered receiving a graphic lesson on how a “man conducts himself” in the boys’ room from a traveling priest with my preschool teacher’s complete approval. I remembered coming to the horrifying conclusion that all the devout adults around me were in on it. And I remembered literally blacking out in that preschool bathroom after realizing that I could no longer recognize my own face in the mirror. Emotional flashbacks became visual flashbacks, and visual flashbacks became painfully physical while every YouTube video that played in between was scarred by footage of the butchered infants Israel decided should suffer for its post-colonial sins. By 2024, I had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, Donald Trump had been re-elected president and somehow it all just kept getting worse. Being five really pissed off lesbians in one skull actually made a hell of a lot of sense to me considering all the repressed trauma I had just tripped over on my way to Armageddon. What didn’t make sense was the level of bigotry I faced from my own damn community because of my unexpected multiplicity. When Donald Trump took the GOP jihad on “gender ideology” to the Executive Office, suddenly all the white suburban trans moms and their Karen-cum-allies couldn’t afford to risk losing their precious corporate sponsorships for the Pride parade by being associated with someone as terminally Queer as me. They very politely told me in fifty shades of microaggression to keep my diagnosis in the closet and just like that, all my woke “friends” turned Catholic while my country got fascist. Somewhat needless to say, 2025 was another year on fire. Donald Trump declared the holocaust in Gaza to be peace once Hamas stopped shooting back and then declared “transgenderism” to be a violent terrorist ideology in a failed attempt to throw his own base off of the mounting stench of his Vatican-grade sex crimes. On top of all that carnage, I got gaslit out of the last LGBTQ non-profit I had been volunteering at for the apparently mortal sin of demanding to be heard while neurodivergent and found myself forced to rebuild all my supports from scratch. So, for the third year in a row I got burned pretty fucking bad. Shit, I got scorched. But I’m not writing this screed from the burn ward looking for sympathy. Quite the contrary, I wrote this post because the most shocking thing about this year is that the ashes of despair were not the strongest thing I tasted on my lips this New Year’s Eve. This gutter fucked carcass of an imperial dystopia definitely requires a goddamn revolution in this the year of our lord Charlie Kirk, twenty-hundred-and-twenty-six, yet looking back on the last twelve months, I actually feel a strange twinge of what I can only describe as hope for the next twelve months ahead. That’s because, on the advice of my four alters and our tireless trauma therapist, I have finally stopped begging for revolution and begun living it. After years of lusting after some distant mythic critical mass uniting the world in one colossal struggle against tyranny, I finally began to truly embrace the lessons I’ve been learning from more libertarian modes of resistance like agorism and panarchy, and shifted my focus towards building community resources focused on making my people less dependent on toxic institutions of power in the present. I started small. I started a support group for rural Queer youth at a local non-profit bookstore just around the corner from the rectory where I was raped. As small as this step was, it actually felt like way too much until it didn’t. After all, I am literally the most batshit Queer person I know, in fact I’m about five of them. How the hell could I run a goddamn youth group? But I did it and it made my existence worth clinging to this year. I provided a small space where neurodivergent Queer kids in a backwoods hick town could feel safe enough to shoot the shit and trash their parents and now, they’re organizing and building resources of their own while I’m organizing a second support group, and I’m learning how to shoot, and I’m helping my found family build a homestead, and just like the trauma, it is all fucking connected. I would still love nothing better than to overthrow the American government in a blazing ball of genderfuck fury but that isn’t the only way to fight a revolution, and it probably isn’t even the most effective way to do so in this day and age either. That’s where free market guerrilla warfare kicks in. Agorism is a political philosophy developed by a little-known libertarian burnout named Samuel Edward Konkin III that advocates destroying the government by engaging in modes of counter-economics that essentially make every market a black market by replacing state-facilitated capitalism with an unregulated ecosystem of barter, subsistence production, and mutual aid which simultaneously make communities like mine more autonomous and virtually untaxable. Panarchy is a system of governance proposing an infinite constellation of diverse, co-existing, and largely non-territorial governments that individuals can choose to join or leave at will, the same way they would a church or a cellphone provider, creating a network of overlapping tribal nations not unlike those once indigenous to the pre-Christian world. With those philosophies in mind, I have developed a loose long-term goal to liberate my people, the rural Queer subaltern betrayed by Pride inc., that builds on the baby steps I have begun taking this year. It all starts by simply gathering my community and creating a level of local tribal consciousness. From there we build a tapestry of interconnected communities that foster increasing levels of self-sufficiency. Through my local organizing, I have recently discovered that my found family isn’t the only brood of Queers homesteading in the rust-covered foothills of Appalachia. We are part of a growing community of Queer farmers who have no interest in being herded into gay ghettos. Individually, we are islands isolated in the storm of late capitalist collapse, but collectively we could become an archipelago of communal stability, pooling resources and sharing knowledge. Prepping ourselves the way right-wing survivalists do while organizing ourselves the way the Queer community always has in times of crisis, as a kind of extended underground family. From here we drop out and withdraw our consent to be governed by outsiders. As the American Nightmare continues to implode beneath the weight of empire, we further delegitimize their waning grip on power by simply refusing to engage with their system at all. We stop voting in their elections and we stop paying their taxes and we organize armed civilians into democratically operated militias capable of replacing law enforcement and making it painful for the feds if they insist on taking our resources by force. We don’t fire the first shot, but we stand our ground and hope that our defiant existence inspires others to do the same. The ideal would be a sort of Queer Amish Hezbollah. A loose confederation of autonomous agrarian communes sustaining a network of small business’, schools, farms, clinics and markets along with a stateless, parallel, horizontally organized government capable of providing welfare and security amidst economic upheaval. A counterculture with an army, co-existing with thousands of others. Maybe it sounds crazy and maybe it is, but I prefer to think of it as neurodivergent, and I’ve seen other nuts make it work too. There are Amish farms in my county that literally go back centuries. Those people maintain a lifestyle straight out of Little House on the goddamn Prairie, but they continue to thrive both socially and economically because they have found a way to coexist with the “English World” while maintaining their own culture of autonomy and their own totally voluntary institutions. Now, my tribe is probably a bit too ethnically diverse to be able to get away with that like pacifists but if we organize ourselves around a well-armed civilian paramilitary force, we will have the means to defend what’s ours by simply making the cost of taking it too high. While their recent collapse makes it clear that they are far from a perfect model, Hezbollah began much like the Panthers did, as an organization devoted to defending Lebanon’s marginalized Shia community, and ended up building grassroots financial institutions that remain more stable than Beirut’s, even after years of bombardment and international sanctions. Hezbollah has been affectively decapitated but Israel continues to bomb their banks because a strong militia built an even stronger community. Maybe this is a bit of a leap, especially for a small-town youth group, but it’s also a goal I can work on right here and right now. A kind of revolutionary therapy that builds a sense of aspirational community amid what continue to appear increasingly unstable times. More importantly, it is something that I would quite literally die old doing, even if it was dammed to fail, because it is something I do for love, not just for my people but for the person I become when I fight for them, and that is something far more sustainable than any kind of dogmatic ism or complex guerrilla praxis. That’s the struggle, and that’s how 2025 ended up being the best fucked up year of my life. So, bring on your goddamn apocalypse and I’ll face it with my youth group. I’ve got a lot of work to do but I’m just getting started. The post Revolution as Therapy in Apocalyptic Times appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nicky Reid.
"ICE out of everywhere!": Baltimore joins nationwide protests
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.
Prologue The forced Christianization of Hellas / Greece in the fourth century and after wounded ancient Hellenic / Greek culture but did not completely destroy. In medieval Greece (wrongly dubbed Byzantium), elements of Hellenic culture – for instance, in medicine, agriculture, food and rural life, dancing, theater and fishing – survived for centuries without many More The post The Light of History appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396080" class="wp-image-396080" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may.jpeg" alt="A painting of two people AI-generated content may be incorrect." width="903" height="909" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may.jpeg 903w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-680x685.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-626x630.jpeg 626w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-768x773.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-500x503.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-600x604.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/a-painting-of-two-people-ai-generated-content-may-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 903px) 100vw, 903px" /> History by Nikolaos Gyzis, 1892. Wikipedia. Public Domain Prologue The forced Christianization of Hellas / Greece in the fourth century and after wounded ancient Hellenic / Greek culture but did not completely destroy. In medieval Greece (wrongly dubbed Byzantium), elements of Hellenic culture – for instance, in medicine, agriculture, food and rural life, dancing, theater and fishing – survived for centuries without many destructive changes. In fact, the agrarian culture of the Hellenes (without Dionysos after the twelfth century) filled every corner of the countryside of Greece down to mid-twentieth century. In areas of thought, which is to say, philosophy, science, literature, theater, and law and justice, the weight of Christianity was crushing. Whatever Hellenic tradition was not extinguished outright, found its way in severely mutilated form into the educational system of the state. Hellenic traditions in medieval Christian Greece Christianization did not prevent the learned men of medieval Greece from reading Homer, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle and showing off their command of Attic Greek – particularly that. But those who had made Plato and Aristotle Christian for their convenience never had any doubt that their Judeo-Christian prophets and saints were superior to Plato and Aristotle. For example, Michael Psellos, 1018-1096, one of the most distinguished students of Hellenic culture in Christian medieval Greece, admitted that he was a Christian above all. This was a senior bureaucrat who served several emperors with distinction. But when it came to identity and culture, he was torn to pieces between the Hellenic legacy of the Greeks, his Christian theology, and the Christian policy of the state he served. He spoke with anguish that Christianity choked the golden steams of the past (Chronographia 6.43). He defended the Greek legacy of Christian Greece. Anathemas However, the substance of the civilization of the educated people of Christian Greece was not Hellenic but Christian. Most of them adhered to the command of church fathers like Clement of Alexandria and Ioannes Chrysostom that Greek literature, eloquence, and philosophy – indeed all of Hellenic culture – were to be avoided at all costs. This is because the Christians set their eyes on cutting the lifeline Greeks had with their culture, studying Homer, the tragic poets, and the philosophers. The Orthodox Church of Christian Greece made it a policy to curse those who sought wisdom and inspiration from the ancient Greeks. Its policy spelled out the prohibition clearly: “Anathema to those who devote themselves to Greek studies not simply for the sake of education, but who also adopt the foolish doctrines of the ancients and accept them for the truth; anathema to those who so firmly believe such doctrines that they unhesitatingly teach them and commend them to others, both secretly and openly” (J. M. Hussey, Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire (867-1185) (Oxford, 1937), 94). With such a hostile and barbarous attitude and measures, the Christians tried to abolish the Greeks’ way of life, self-government, and the study and practice of science, philosophy, literature, education, sports like the naked Olympics, and eusebeia, piety for the gods. The Greeks were forced, on the pain of death, to denounce their ancestors – and stay away from Hellenic literature. However, enough Greeks stayed with their traditions that they passed on to us a critical fraction of their legacy through the Arabic, 8th-10th centuries, and Western Renaissance, 15th-16th centuries. Nevertheless, if one of the converted Greeks had to use any Greek text, for the practice of grammar or rhetoric, for example, the thing to remember was that such work, at best, could be considered no more than a propaideia (introduction) to Christianity’s sacred and revealed wisdom. Plethon George Gemistos Plethon, 1355-1452, was a real exception to that rule. He was a Platonic philosopher who lived in the diminished and threatened medieval Greece during the last 100 years of its existence, before it was conquered by the Mongol Turks in 1453. Plethon was an outright Hellene. He taught Plato to Greek students at Mistras, the heart of Peloponnesos right next to ancient Sparta and Mane, during the first 40 years of the fifteenth century. He also introduced Plato to Western Europe through Florence, the center for Greek studies during the fifteenth century. Plethon urged the Greek emperor to be bold and revolutionary as no one else had been in more than a millennium. At issue, Plethon said to him, was the survival of the Greek people. He pleaded with him to initiate the reconstruction of Hellas by abolishing the crushing rural plantation system in the Peloponnesus and replacing it with an agrarian republic in which there would be no large landowners, tenants, or landless peasants. Those who want to farm, Plethon said, had rights to land for as long as they worked the land themselves and pay taxes. No one owns land. When rural people stop working their land, it reverts to the public domain. Plethon would abolish large plantations, absentee landowners, and the practice of farm workers working the land for the benefit of large farmers. His agrarian reform is probably the most original and radical land reform proposal in the Greek and Western tradition. Plethon advocated the disbanding of mercenary troops and their replacement with a national Greek army. The polis Plethon had in mind, and, which, he elaborated in his memoranda to the emperor, was to be built on the Platonic model of the philosopher king, a national army to protect it, and small farmers for the producers of food, craftsmen, architects, sculptors, scientists and engineers. He believed that the Greeks of the Peloponnesus were autochthonous. Peloponnesos was always Greek. It was the ideal defensive Greek territory for the revival of Hellas. He advised the king to discard Christianity and return to the Hellenic gods and culture. The king ignored Plethon’s wise advice. The result? Greece was under Turkish rule for about 400 years. Christianization The moment that the Eastern Roman empire, which included Greece, became Christian, the fate of the Greek people became that of the state itself. They had to remake themselves through a violent metamorphosis. They dropped from the heights of Hellenic culture to the crude, childish fiction of Christianity. Their born-again identity had to absorb that fiction, making them alien to their very being. They had to worship a foreign dead man for a god, and through their behavior, they had to show to the state and to the church that they believed Christianity’s irrational doctrines. Above all, they had to renounce and forget their history and culture. In fact they had to convince themselves they were not Greeks but Romans. This story is not a fairy tale. It happened. The Christianization of Hellas dates to approximately 1,600 years ago. The land of Homer – the land of philosophers, scientists, medical healers, poets, historians – Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritos, Aeschylos, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Aristarchos, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Hipparchos and the astronomical Antikythera computer of genius — still suffers from its alien spiritual conquest. Underneath the modern scientific garb of educated Greeks lurks the old fear of imposed doctrines. Christian names replaced most Greek names. Or they were mixed up. That schizophrenia or invisible psychological schism of who they really are, Hellenes or Christians, prevents them from expressing their being with virtue and courage. The doubt of embracing their ancient culture tends to push them towards foreign ideas and even ideals. They hesitate to immerse themselves, like some foreign philhellenes have been doing, into the ideas of Homer and Thucydides, for example. So, most writing, historical research on ancient Greece and archaeological excavation in modern Greece is credited to foreigners. The worst enemies of modern Greeks, the Germans, are doing most archaeological excavations in Olympia. The French at Delphi. Americans around the Acropolis. Many foreign universities teach ancient Greek, whereas Greek high schools have abandoned it in favor of translated ancient Greek texts. Personal crisis In my high school years, we studied Homer in the original, but the study was superficial. We learned nothing about Homer, save from translation of passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Meanwhile, our theology teacher spied on some of us going to the movies to admire female beauties like Brigit Bardot. I don’t mean by this that my high school education was useless. No. When I started at the University of Illinois, I received enough transfer credits for my high school courses that I was a college junior upon my admission to the university. The problem was that my high school teachers did not inspire me to study further the literature, history or science of my ancient Greek ancestors or to be proud of my heritage. This ambivalence kept me away from classical studies and opportunities I had at the universities of Illinois, Wisconsin and Harvard. But once I discovered in the decade of the 1980s the timeliness and virtues of ancient Hellenic culture, I did on my own what I should have done at the university. And the fascinating discovery I made on the inestimable value of Greek wisdom coincided with my real life experience at the US Environmental Protection Agency. The more corruption I came across at EPA, the faster I stepped into the philosophy, science and civilization of the ancient Greeks – and Greeks like Plethon who desperately tried to guide the king of the threatened Greek state to reform his government and bring back to life the Hellenic polis in Peloponnesos in order to save the Greek people. The relevance of Plethon Plethon had Plato in mind, especially Plato’s Republic, the passionate search for justice, moderation, truth and the supreme virtue of the idea of the beautiful and the good. Plethon was right in the 15th century, and he is right in the 21st century. His agrarian reform proposal to eliminate feudal plantation farming is essential for the survival of healthy land and liberty in America as well. His proposition did away with land ownership, landlords and farmworker slaves. Give small acres of land to those willing and able to farm without toxins and farm workers and you boost democracy, wholesome food and healthy land and, simultaneously, fight the giant in the room: climate chaos. Once the farmer stops raising food, according to Plethon, the land automatically returns to the state. Of course, conventional economists, politicians and agribusiness will denounce this reform and will use the vocabulary they used against Rachel Carson: communism. The other proposal of Promethean Plethon, national army rather than mercenary, is more appropriate to a democratic society. The other suggestion on religion, is not relevant to the American treatment of religions, save for a strict separation of church and state. However, Plethon is right about the return of the living Greeks to the eusebeia or piety to the gods of their ancestors. Ditching Christianity in modern Greece would be difficult but not impossible. The state can initiate that political transition by ceasing payments to the clergy and ending subsidies to churches and monasteries. Revive ancient Greek temples. Teach classical studies in all schools, so that children come in touch with the poetry of Homer, and Homer, once again, becomes the teacher of the Greeks. No force should be used in such a transition. However, the state should prohibit Christian, Islamic and Hebrew missionary work by local or foreign missionaries. Epilogue History matters. It illuminates the past and the present. The Greeks wrote history but did not learn much from its central conclusion: never fight civil wars. Ignore history, and the future will punish you severely as much it punished the Greeks. In the Unites States, time has come to teach history as it really happened, not continue teaching the fairy tales of the founders. These fairy tales cover-up the land-grabbing from indigenous Americans and the genocidal policies against them, including the slavery of Africans for working the plantations in America. This mindset guided US foreign policy, overthrowing democracies in Latin America and Iran, and started the Cold War and the dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis. Perhaps, “for our 250th, instead of gifting ourselves parades, ballrooms and fairy tales, we should focus on telling the next generation the truth.” Allow the unregulated accumulation of wealth or industrial corporate power and you create mountains of toxic pollution, grave inequalities and billionaires that behave like autocrats/tyrants – hardly any different than the feudal lords of the dark ages. Ignore the history of climate change/chaos and the price may be catastrophic for the life and future of our children. Just because petroleum companies and petrostates and their paid propagandists deny the anthropogenic effects on the furies of the weather and climate it does not mean we should accept those dangerous delusions. The post The Light of History appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Evaggelos Vallianatos.
Watching the celebrations for the inauguration of the New York City mayor, my mind suddenly turned back to my intellectual career early in this century. I remembered some writings I had almost forgotten, which I developed twenty-some years ago. Here, then, briefly looking back I return to consider how my early concerns with a world More The post World Art History— Then and Now appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396091" class="wp-image-396091 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/zero-take-HJaYIZ5ewUM-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Zero Take. Watching the celebrations for the inauguration of the New York City mayor, my mind suddenly turned back to my intellectual career early in this century. I remembered some writings I had almost forgotten, which I developed twenty-some years ago. Here, then, briefly looking back I return to consider how my early concerns with a world art history now have new relevance. How can people from diverse ethnic or religious backgrounds co-exist justly in a unified society? How can artworks from diverse visual cultures coexist in our artworld? There is an obvious analogy between the two questions. Art is an important form of cultural expression; when we understand someone’s artworks, we know something significant about them. Like contemporary political life, the unity of the art world requires empathetic mutual understanding. Trained as a philosopher in the 1960s and 70s, I transitioned into art history in the late twentieth century. And so I traveled to many sites of European old master painting. I went to London, Paris and many cities in Italy. And so then when I took an interest in a world art history, I continued to travel. I visited Istanbul and Morocco, taught in China and lectured in India, Japan and Taiwan. Naive as I was, I sought in these journeys to get some sense of these varied cultures whose art interested me. Having previously learned about the sites of European visual art, I extended my concerns in a natural way. For a long time, many Western art museums have collected art from all cultures. And art historians have often interpreted this art. My concern, then, with the philosophical implications of that discussion, was to gain some sense of how to compare these varied cultures. To the best of my recollection, my concerns were purely intellectual. I thought that a world art history raised fascinating intellectual challenges. My teachers in aesthetics, Arthur Danto and Richard Wollheim. were well traveled and widely read. But although they offered universal aesthetic theories their examples almost all came from Western European and North American art. They assumed that their general account would be sufficient for all art from everywhere. (Danto published a short book about non-Western ethics, but he didn’t extend analysis to visual art.) I questioned that way of thinking. Is aesthetics general?— Does it describe all art made everywhere? Religious customs are culturally relative. And political institutions are varied. And so art, too, may, I thought, be diverse in different cultures. My account was staged within the framework of analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophers are familiar with questions about how to understand people whose beliefs are different from ours. And thanks to Isaiah Berlin, the visionary pioneering account of cultural relativism by Giambattista Vico has been discussed. But when I began my research, to the best of my knowledge, these materials had not yet been applied to art history. At this time, however, some other Western scholars, including James Elkins, David Summers, and John Onians, were also exploring this issue. Chinese art was my first case study. Like Europe, China has a long, relatively self-sufficient tradition which develops naturalism. Chinese religious beliefs and the political developments are strikingly distinct from those of Europe. And so, it’s unsurprising that their artworks look different from those of Europe. Still, it seems that there are real parallels in these two traditions. I was led to this way of thinking because I had written extensively about Ernst Gombrich, whose account of European naturalism can be extended to China. (Gombrich himself didn’t do that, in part, perhaps, because he never got to China. But James Cahill, whose writing influenced mine, did.) In China, as in Europe, naturalism, it might be argued, is the natural, inevitable product of an illusionistic picture tradition. In that way, the development of visual art is like scientific progress. Having read portions of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China, it was natural for me to question cultural relativism, at least when applied to art and technology. However exotic are Chinese institutions, their machines obey the same laws of physics as those in Europe. Here I should thank my oldest Chinese friend, Professor Ding Ning, a professor in Beijing who hosted me in China, provided many fruitful discussions and translated my book on the art museum. I was also fascinated by Islamic art, as discussed by Oleg Grabar, a leading Western scholar who focused intensively on methodological questions. The early Muslims inherited but largely rejected the European naturalist tradition, for reasons he sought to understand. More was at stake, he showed, then just iconoclasm. Here, then, we have an elaborate Islamic tradition which develops in part in opposition to European naturalism. Earlier Western scholars, including Alois Riegl and Gombrich, had discussed decoration, and in theorizing, Grabar critiqued and extended. I asked a very simple question: If what defines the art writing about Western art is a narrative, a story in which what’s earlier leads to what’s later, to what extent can that same structure be found in non-Western art history? The book I produced, A World Art History And Its Objects (2008) was a very tentative attempt to map Western art historical thinking onto art from China and the Islamic world. (I had very little to say about art from Africa, from Oceania or from the Old Americas, which were places I knew little about.) When I worked out my intellectual analysis I never imagined that these academic questions would become of broader interest. I did, however, discover that political concerns were basic to understanding multicultural art history. My own interest in a world art history was primarily promoted by intellectual curiosity. I sought to understand how artworks from these diverse cultures might be interpreted. But the idea that you cannot study another culture without trying, to some degree at least, to control it was always in the background. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979) was an inescapable reference, though his own immediate concerns with art history were, I believe, very limited. In 1972, before he became famous, he was on my doctoral committee. But so far as I can remember, we didn’t discuss politics. The basic idea of trying to understand another culture distant from mine was exciting for me. I had, I remember vividly, once in Beijing the moment where I truly felt as if I had gone through the looking glass and come out to the other side, no doubt an illusion. In the seventeenth-century the voyage from Europe to China took many months and was very dangerous. How extraordinary that you now can travel from North America to Beijing in half a day! Mine was an apolitical multiculturalism. Interested in understanding the art of other cultures, I didn’t moralize about that prospect. Of course, concerns with multiculturalism often involve expressions of pride in one’s heritage. I remember walking through the Metropolitan when it had just rehung the Islamic galleries, immensely pleased to see that many Muslims were visiting. You cannot talk about the art museum and multiculturalism without dealing with politics. How quickly the intellectual world changes! Were I redoing a world art history now, I would phrase my concerns somewhat differently, with more focus on political issues. That said, I am unconvinced that the basic claims I have outlined here are not still of interest. This period of scholarly work now belongs to the past, for I didn’t see how to develop further my basic philosophical analysis. But in my current writing as an art critic, I have been fascinated by the challenges of understanding visual works from other cultures, which pose fundamental issues at present. That’s why the recent election in New York City is obviously linked to my bookish theorizing. And every time I review an exhibition with art from non-European cultures, I think again about these basic concerns of a world art history. The post World Art History— Then and Now appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Carrier.
End US Intervention against Venezuela and the Americas
THE UKRAINE SOLIDARITY NETWORK (U.S.) condemns Trump’s imperialist attack on Venezuela and extralegal kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro Moros and Cilia Flores. As the Ukrainian democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) quite rightly states: “The morning of 3 January marks the beginning a widespread attack on democracy and the relative peace of the peoples of More The post End US Intervention against Venezuela and the Americas appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
THE UKRAINE SOLIDARITY NETWORK (U.S.) condemns Trump’s imperialist attack on Venezuela and extralegal kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro Moros and Cilia Flores. As the Ukrainian democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) quite rightly states: “The morning of 3 January marks the beginning a widespread attack on democracy and the relative peace of the peoples of Latin America – and far beyond. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396548" class="wp-image-396548" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-1.png" alt="" width="695" height="731" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-1.png 695w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-1-680x715.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-1-599x630.png 599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-1-500x526.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-1-600x631.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px" /> Ukrainians demonstrating in solidarity with Venezuela The arrogant pronouncements of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio that “we will run Venezuela” make it clear that drug trafficking allegations against Maduro and unidentified boat crews were always a smokescreen. The motives for US military actions in and near Venezuela are oil, minerals, and dominance of Latin America – exactly as the Trump regime’s new “National Security Strategy” proclaims Washington’s intent to establish uncontested U.S. control of the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” for the Americas enables and justifies the annexationist invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia. It invites other imperialist powers to enforce spheres of influence, one for Russia in line with Putin’s claim that Russia is the “natural” and inevitable overlord of eastern Europe, the Caucasus and parts of central Asia, and another for China’s ambitions to annex Taiwan. Trump’s doctrine fully supports the ongoing Israeli-US genocide in Gaza, violent settler-military ethnic cleansing in the Palestinian West Bank, and drive for mass expulsion of the Palestinian population. With Putin, Trump seeks to return to might-makes-right, a politics of carving the globe into zones in which powerful countries dominate their neighbors in the absence of international law. This is a politics of, by, and for rule of corporations and oligarchs. Trump’s attack may have removed Maduro, but it has left the hated Maduro regime intact. Trump and Rubio make no pretense that they favor any sort of democracy in Venezuela or anywhere else. They have made clear that their only interests are oil, money, and power, and that they are willing to make a bargain with the rump PSUV government, now led by Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. All Trump and Rubio want is to move the authoritarian, repressive and deeply corrupt regime into the column of those that support the United States. Trump has already signaled that his successful kidnapping of Maduro and Flores will be followed by a U.S. offensives against Greenland, Cuba, Colombia, Canada and other Western Hemisphere targets. We agree with Sotsialnyi Rukh’s statement when it says: “The struggle against Maduro’s dictatorship and the struggle against American imperialism are not mutually exclusive. They are two sides of the same conflict, in which people become pawns in political games. This is why today we must speak out in solidarity with the people of Venezuela, the same solidarity that Venezuelans showed towards Ukraine in its resistance to Russian aggression.” <img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396549" class="wp-image-396549" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2.png" alt="" width="1080" height="1350" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2.png 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2-680x850.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2-504x630.png 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2-768x960.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2-500x625.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/word-image-396547-2-600x750.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> Venezuelans demonstrating in solidarity with Ukraine Just as we support Ukraine’s war for survival and Ukrainian workers’ internal struggles for their rights, it is essential for progressive and antiwar forces to stand against Trump’s invasion and to uphold the right of the Venezuelan people to fight for their own independent and democratic future. Right now, the leading popular mobilizations in the United States are the community-based movements to defend immigrant communities from ICE raids and the Trump regime’s reign of terror. Linking up with this magnificent resistance at home will be key to developing the broad, mass anti-imperialist struggles that this dangerous moment so desperately requires. Venezulan demonstrator with sign reading “Ukraine, we also resist!” We urge everyone to read the Sotsialnyi Rukh statement in full. A machine-aided English translation is online at https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/news-and-analyses/social-movement-whats-wrong-with-us-aggression-against-venezuela. For the original Ukrainian language text: https://rev.org.ua/shho-ne-tak-z-napadom-na-venesuelu/ The latter link includes photos of Ukrainians and Venezuelans demonstrating in solidarity with each other. The post End US Intervention against Venezuela and the Americas appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ukraine Solidarity Network.
Former NZ mayoral hopeful arrested at Venezuela solidarity protest
RNZ News Three people, including former Wellington mayoral hopeful Graham Bloxham, have been arrested at a Venezuela solidarity protest in New Zealand’s capital. Around 100 people were rallying against the US military action earlier this week outside New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) on Lambton Quay. During the event Bloxham, who was
RNZ News Three people, including former Wellington mayoral hopeful Graham Bloxham, have been arrested at a Venezuela solidarity protest in New Zealand’s capital. Around 100 people were rallying against the US military action earlier this week outside New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) on Lambton Quay. During the event Bloxham, who was attempting to film the protest, was seen scuffling with two protesters. READ MORE: Trump says he doesn’t need international law amid aggressive US policies They were taken by officers into a police van and were driven away. Police break up the protest scuffle in Wellington. Video: RNZ Bloxham runs the Facebook page WellingtonLive and has faced controversy in the past after being arrested for failing to stop for police, and being told by the Employment Relations Authority to pay a former employee $30,000. His charges for failing to stop for police were dismissed. Last year, he also posted on social media that he was the victim of an unprovoked assault in Oriental Bay. A police spokesperson said three people were arrested for disorder and charges are being considered. Right to protest The spokesperson said police recognised the lawful right to protest and maintained a presence to ensure the safety of all involved. RNZ has contacted Bloxham for comment. The group was protesting outside MFAT against the US military intervention in Venezuela, and calling for the New Zealand government to take a stronger stance. Since the attack on Vanezuela and capture of president Nicolás Maduro, there has been one statement from Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, in which he expressed concern at developments and called on all parties to act in accordance with international law. The protest against the US military action in Venezuela outside New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) on Lambton Quay. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii The prime minister Christopher Luxon is yet to comment. Valerie Morse from Peace Action Wellington said the United States’ involvement in Venezuela was contrary to international law, and the New Zealand government’s response had been “pathetic”. “I think they’re obviously very concerned about their relationship with Washington. They do not want to antagonise Donald Trump,” she said. Eduardo Salazar Moreira from Peru said the the US intervention was about oil, not democracy. Oil, not democracy “There’s always been imperialism by the US, especially in Latin America, but they’re going back to this older, more blatant, more explicit version of imperialism that’s way more active.” He said New Zealand had a voice on the global stage, and should be using it. “New Zealand does have a voice, and they should use it, because if we’ll let this happen in Latin America, and then it’ll happen everywhere, not just by Trump. “It’ll happen by other superpowers in this new multipolar world that we have now, and that’s when we’ll be a really small country that can’t do much when we let that happen.” “Hands off Cuba” and “Hands off Venezuela” placards at the solidarity rally for Venezuela this week. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii A small number of counter-protesters were also present. Nathalie Wierdak, who is from Venezuela, said she disagreed with the protesters, particularly those who had signs calling for Maduro’s release. She said the protesters should have talked to people from Venezuela first before deciding to rally. Protest not pro-Maduro “Maduro is a criminal. He has committed several crimes against many Venezuelans. He has more than 8000 registered cases of human rights violations in our country. “So I don’t think that it’s right that people who are not Venezuelan are protesting for us and speaking for us, and they’re claiming to Free Maduro who is a criminal and Cilia Flores who is also a criminal.” Morse said the protest was not pro-Maduro. “We are not in favour of a violent dictatorship, and that’s what Maduro’s regime was. There’s nobody here supporting Maduro. “We want freedom and democracy for the people of Venezuela, we just don’t think that the United States’ involvement is likely to deliver that for the people of Venezuela. What it’s likely to deliver is a lot more hardship.” Protesters and counter-protesters were seen speaking civilly to each other following the rally’s dissolution. New Zealand solidarity protesters for Venezuela. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
ICE Agent Who Shot Renee Nicole Good Identified as Jonathan Ross
This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by The Intercept.
Billionaire’s Mouthpiece Searches for Reasons to Avoid Taxing Billionaires
The Washington Post, which serves the interests of its mega-billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, unsurprisingly thinks taxing billionaire wealth is a bad idea.
The Washington Post (1/1/26) illustrates an article on why states should worry about taxing billionaires’ wealth with a photo of Peter Thiel, a billionaire who has figured out a way to avoid ever paying most income taxes. The Washington Post, which exists mainly to serve the interests of its mega-billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, unsurprisingly thinks taxing the wealth of billionaires is a bad idea (FAIR.org, 12/11/19). Its recent editorial (1/1/26) warning California not to institute a tax on extreme wealth—headlined “California Will Miss Billionaires When They’re Gone”—illustrates that when you’re telling the boss exactly what he wants to hear, you don’t have to think very hard. California is considering a referendum on whether to impose a one-time wealth tax on the state’s billionaires. The paper’s hot take: “Many progressives think of taxation the way teenage boys think about cologne: If some is good, more must be great.” The paper offers PayPal’s Peter Thiel and Google‘s Larry Page, both of whom have threatened to leave California, as poster children for why you shouldn’t subject billionaires to a wealth tax—both highly dubious examples. Thiel is well-known for his use of an absurd tax loophole (ProPublica, 6/24/21): He put 1.7 million shares of PayPal stock—which he valued at 0.1 cents apiece, so $1,700—into a Roth IRA, and by 2021 that had grown through reinvestment into a $5 billion nest egg. (In 2026, it’s likely the bulk of his $25 billion fortune.) A Roth IRA means that if he waits until 2027, when he turns 59, he won’t have to pay any taxes at all on that. This is precisely why people want a wealth tax, because the tax code makes it easy for oligarchs like Thiel to pay little or nothing in income tax. Page is also known for tax shenanigans, parking much of his wealth in a “charity” that distributes almost none of its wealth to disclosed recipients (Vox, 12/18/19). When ProPublica (4/13/22) analyzed tax filings from the super-rich, Page had one of the lowest effective federal income tax rates among prominent billionaires. ‘Blew a hole in the budget’ Contrary to WHYY‘s speculation (4/11/16), billionaire David Tepper moving to Florida did not “blow a hole” in New Jersey’s state budget, nor did his moving back in 2020 give the state a bonanza. To illustrate the fiscal danger California would be putting itself in with a wealth tax, the Post cited the example of New Jersey billionaire David Tepper, who “blew a hole in the state budget by moving to Florida.” That’s according to an article from Philadelphia public TV station WHYY (4/11/16), which said in 2016 that “while the amount Tepper paid in taxes last year is unknown to the public…a resident that rich [$11.4 billion] could pay tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in income taxes if they paid New Jersey’s highest rate, 8.97%.” The only way Tepper would have paid “hundreds of millions” in Jersey state income tax would be if he were declaring several billion in income a year. But Tepper reportedly made $750 million in 2016, which would be $67 million at the top tax rate—which he wouldn’t pay anyway, since he’s a hedge fund manager and benefits from a special tax loophole designed just for them. In any case, Tepper moved back to New Jersey in 2020 (Politico, 9/24/20)—so it’s not clear what kind of object lesson he should serve for California. Was his 2016 move representative of a broader problem of the flight of the wealthy from New Jersey? It’s hard to see how, as the state has the highest concentration of millionaires in the country (Kiplinger, 5/27/20)—up from third-highest in 2014 (New Jersey Policy Perspective, 4/13/16). Imaginary exodus The LA Times‘ Michael Hiltzik (10/24/19) debunked most of the Washington Post‘s arguments more than six years ago, when they were deployed by the Wall Street Journal (10/21/19). This is a perennial problem with the oligarchy’s don’t-touch-our-money arguments: They want to claim that they’ll run away from high taxes, but they like living in high-tax states. The LA Times‘ Michael Hiltzik (10/24/19) pointed this out years ago, responding to a similar editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“California’s Tax-the-Rich Boomerang,” 10/21/19). The Journal leaned heavily on a study by two economists at the right-wing Hoover Institution, Joshua Rauh and Ryan Shyu, who the paper said found that “the likelihood of a wealthy resident moving out of California increased by about 40%” following an income tax hike on the ultra-wealthy. Hiltzik noted that the actual percentage of rich people moving out was quite small—increasing from 1.5% to 2.125%—and, more importantly, that Rauh and Shyu only looked at outgoing multi-millionaires, ignoring the fact that more affluent people were moving to the state than moving away. More than six years later, the Post is still citing Rauh and Shyu, still talking about that same 2013 California tax hike and the imaginary exodus of plutocrats it caused. I don’t know why they should be any more convincing than they were a decade ago—but then, the editorialists only have to convince one reader that they’re doing their best to protect his fortune. This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Jim Naureckas.
Internal Dissent, High-Profile Resignations, and Donor Anxiety Have Shaken the Heritage Foundation
Resignations, Rebellion, and a Right-Wing Rift: Heritage Implodes Over Carlson–Fuentes Affair Folks—let me have your attention for a moment. Because I’ve been hearing some rumbling, some grumbling, a downright thundering from deep inside one of Washington’s most conservative policy halls. Yes sir, trouble. Trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with C, that stands […] The post Internal Dissent, High-Profile Resignations, and Donor Anxiety Have Shaken the Heritage Foundation first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" title="HeritageFoundationscarnage.png" src="https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1320189/story_image/HeritageFoundationscarnage.png?1720627641" srcset="https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1320189/story_image/HeritageFoundationscarnage.png?1720627641 1024w, https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1320189/lightbox/HeritageFoundationscarnage.png?1720627641 768w, https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1320189/large/HeritageFoundationscarnage.png?1720627641 600w" alt="HeritageFoundationscarnage.png" width="505" height="505" /> Resignations, Rebellion, and a Right-Wing Rift: Heritage Implodes Over Carlson–Fuentes Affair Folks—let me have your attention for a moment. Because I’ve been hearing some rumbling, some grumbling, a downright thundering from deep inside one of Washington’s most conservative policy halls. Yes sir, trouble. Trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with C, that stands for Carlson, and that stands for controversy. (With apologies to Meredith Wilson) Yes, sir, there’s trouble at the Heritage Foundation—real trouble. How deep the rift runs is still an open question, but one thing’s clear: Heritage, the powerful and heavily funded right-wing think tank that brought America Project 2025, is grappling with a very public, very internal crack-up. It’s a foundational kerfuffle, a battle that’s anything but civil. Since its founding in 1973, Heritage has served as the one of the most important intellectual command centers of the conservative movement. It helped shape Ronald Reagan’s governing blueprint and, decades later, supplied Donald Trump with the ideological scaffolding he used to reshape the federal government. Now the same institution that has spent half a century defining the right is being shaken from within—over Tucker Carlson’s decision to hand a megaphone to white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. The current troubles was kicked off when Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ defended Tucker Carlson’s super-softball interview with Fuentes. In a video statement, Roberts called Carlson “a close friend of the Heritage Foundation,” and denounced what he described as a “venomous coalition” and the “globalist class” attacking Carlson. Roberts’ defense delighted Fuentes, but caused several Heritage staff members to resign. Senior Heritage fellows — including Stephen Moore, Christopher DeMuth, and Adam Mossoff — resigned. Mark Goldfeder stepped down from the foundation’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, saying he “cannot serve under someone who thinks Nazis are worth debating.” Newsmax reported that, the think tank’s antisemitism task force, Project Esther, left Heritage after more than a dozen additional members or advisers quit. Although Roberts later walked back parts of his statement, he has refused to criticize or distance himself — or Heritage — from Carlson’s repeated amplification of antisemitic narratives. Princeton University professor Robert P. George, a prominent legal scholar, philosopher, and longtime conservative intellectual, resigned from Heritage’s board. “I have resigned from the board of the Heritage Foundation,” George wrote. “I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on October 30th. Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse.” George said he hoped Heritage would remain faithful to “the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition” and to the conviction that every human being is “created equal” and endowed with “unalienable rights.” The Heritage Foundation was “the brain of the conservative movement”, Fuentes recently told his viewers, whose work is “sort of like gospel for [Republicans] in the US Congress. It’s a big deal.” Groyperism, Fuentes argued, was now “inside the institutions.” According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, “The Groyper movement is a loose network of white nationalist activists and internet trolls who gravitate around several key online influencers. Their goal is to push and normalize white nationalist ideas within mainstream conservatism. “Self-named after the ‘Groyper’ toad image, which became popular as an explicitly racist coded variation of the Pepe the Frog meme often affiliated with the ‘alt-right’, the Groypers emerged offline as a movement in 2019 and followed the decline of the alt-right. Initially followers of the ‘America First’ podcast host Nick Fuentes, they describe themselves as ‘American nationalists‘ and hold similar beliefs to the alt-right. “Groypers represent a new momentum within American white nationalism. They have a particular focus on capturing members of Generation Z, and in portraying themselves as American Christian nationalists, hope to attract disaffected conservatives by exploiting schisms and grievances within mainstream conservatism.” On a recent episode of C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire” with Politico’s Dasha Burns, Robert P. George put it this way: “Sometimes one finds one’s self in a situation where it’s impossible to go along with something that one’s friends and colleagues and comrades are proposing, or promoting, or going along with.” Internal dissent, high-profile resignations, and reports of donor anxiety have undeniably shaken the Heritage Foundation, raising the prospect that one of the right’s most influential think tanks could emerge fractured or weakened. Its public credibility—especially on issues of antisemitism and extremism—has taken a hit. Yet, as of this writing, there is no evidence that Heritage has lost real influence inside the White House or among Republican lawmakers. My bet? Heritage will weather this storm. It will regroup, refill its coffers, and continue serving as the intellectual engine of the conservative movement, just as it has since 1973. The post Internal Dissent, High-Profile Resignations, and Donor Anxiety Have Shaken the Heritage Foundation first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.
Former French Foreign Legion soldier key suspect in Vanuatu VT49m heist
By Doddy Morris in Port Vila The Vanuatu Police Force (VPF) has confirmed that the prime suspect in a Port Vila armed robbery is a former member of the French Foreign Legion, who served around 2019. Allegations had circulated on social media for the past four days, but yesterday it was officially confirmed that the
By Doddy Morris in Port Vila The Vanuatu Police Force (VPF) has confirmed that the prime suspect in a Port Vila armed robbery is a former member of the French Foreign Legion, who served around 2019. Allegations had circulated on social media for the past four days, but yesterday it was officially confirmed that the mastermind of the robbery on December 29 is an ex-Legionnaire with operational experience. The French Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère) is an elite, volunteer military corps within the French Army, known for accepting foreign nationals from around the world to serve in challenging overseas missions. READ MORE: Armed heist at airport believed to be Vanuatu’s first organised robbery Other Vanuatu crime reports The Legion, established in 1831, is famous for its rigorous selection, demanding training, and unique traditions, including name changes and an emphasis on “honour and fidelity.” Legionnaires serve in roles such as infantry, engineers, and airborne troops, undergoing intense physical and mental tests to build cohesion and serve France’s global interests. Social media posts suggest the suspect was deployed in conflict zones, highlighting the level of military training and experience he may have gained. The robbery, described as a “well-coordinated and professionally executed armed robbery,” took place at Bauerfield International Airport, a critical infrastructure site. Western Union vehicle Three suspects in a minivan with an unauthorised number plate closely followed a Western Union vehicle carrying cash to the airport. The suspects blocked the vehicle at the Vanuatu Terminal Services Limited (VTSL) building, assaulted the driver, and stole NZ$700,000 (about VT49 million). They then escaped swiftly in the minivan. The police launched an official investigation on December 30 at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Within three days, they started arresting suspects, thanks to strong collaboration with the community of Port Vila and support from the Government of Vanuatu through the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A total of eight suspects have been arrested so far. Seven have been remanded at the Correctional Centre, including a female suspect, while the prime suspect remains in police custody. Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran confirmed that the .22-calibre firearm used in the robbery, the getaway vehicle, and 99 percent of the stolen cash had been recovered. He also expressed gratitude to the public, the Vanuatu government and other stakeholders for their support in the investigation. While the investigation continues, Commissioner Bongran urged the public not to take the law into their own hands and assured citizens, residents, and visitors that Vanuatu remained safe. Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-122165" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Police-Chief-Kalshem-Bongran-VDP-680wide.png" alt="Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran" width="680" height="508" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Police-Chief-Kalshem-Bongran-VDP-680wide.png 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Police-Chief-Kalshem-Bongran-VDP-680wide-300x224.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Police-Chief-Kalshem-Bongran-VDP-680wide-80x60.png 80w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Police-Chief-Kalshem-Bongran-VDP-680wide-265x198.png 265w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Police-Chief-Kalshem-Bongran-VDP-680wide-562x420.png 562w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran . . . eight suspects have been arrested so far, seven – including a woman – have been remanded at the Correctional Centre. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Minneapolis demands independent investigation into ICE killing of Renee Good
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
PNG’s lethal Tsak Valley raid and deeper crisis over guns, policing, trust in Enga
SPECIAL REPORT: By Scott Waide, RNZ Pacific PNG correspondent A Papua New Guinea police operation in Tsak Valley, Enga Province, in the early hours of Friday, 2 January 2026 — which resulted in five deaths — has prompted calls for an independent investigation following sharply differing accounts of events from police and community sources, as
SPECIAL REPORT: By Scott Waide, RNZ Pacific PNG correspondent A Papua New Guinea police operation in Tsak Valley, Enga Province, in the early hours of Friday, 2 January 2026 — which resulted in five deaths — has prompted calls for an independent investigation following sharply differing accounts of events from police and community sources, as well as a growing rift in public opinion. The operation, conducted by members of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary under an anti-terror policing framework, has been described as a success by police leadership, but has drawn strong criticism from some local leaders and clansmen. Acting Police Commissioner Samson Kua said in a statement that security forces commenced operations shortly after 3am, “executing coordinated raids on two locations” in Tsak Valley. READ MORE: Other PNG police reports The objective, he said, was to locate and apprehend suspects believed to be in possession of factory-made firearms linked to tribal fighting and criminal activity. Various sources have indicated that Winis Kaki, one of the primary suspects and a prominent member of the Yambaran Warenge tribe, was armed during the raid when police shot him. His wife, Margaret, a primary school teacher, was also killed. The other victims have been identified as Nancy Kipongi, 60, a former ward councillor; Glendale Taso, 30; and Isaac Ipu, 27, who was reportedly shot near his food garden. In its statement, police said officers attempting entry at the first location, identified as Winis Kaki’s residence, were met with gunfire from inside the dwelling. One officer was wounded. “Police returned fire, killing the armed suspect,” the statement said. An M16 rifle and a loaded magazine were recovered. Police also confirmed the arrest of Joseph Tati, a pastor and community leader. Police further said another armed individual was shot dead during the operation. Officers recovered a second M16 rifle, a modified .38-calibre revolver, and ammunition for 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons. Three additional suspects were arrested. “This engagement, which lasted over an hour, demonstrates our resolve to disarm these groups despite the high risks involved,” Kua said, adding that intelligence indicated the seized rifles were being used as “hired guns” in tribal conflicts. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--d7XQHrRn--/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050/v1767827402/4JV4KZC_IMG_20260106_WA0053_1_jpg?_a=BACCd2AD" alt="Enga Province Papua New Guinea - Bullet holes seen in a corrugated iron wall after a raid in Tsak Valley. Five people were shot dead during the operation and their families are accusing police of excessive lethal force and calling for an independent investigation. January 2026" width="1050" height="787" /> Bullet holes seen in a corrugated iron wall after the raid in Tsak Valley . . . five people were shot dead during the operation. Image: David Ericho/RNZ Community accounts Community accounts allege the use of excessive lethal force during the operation, particularly in relation to the deaths of the two women. Videos recorded after the raid show multiple spent bullet casings near a hut where several of the victims were shot. A Tsak Valley clansman, who did not want to be identified, said his cousin was among those killed and claimed that at least one of the young men who died was not armed at the time. He acknowledged that firearms are widespread in the valley, often kept for what residents describe as protection. “It’s no secret that there are a lot of guns in the hands of individuals in the valley,” he said. “Many arm themselves for protection against their tribal enemies. It is also no secret that prominent members of the community are often expected to contribute resources, including weapons, to support their tribesmen.” Police have not confirmed these claims. Government reaction Over the last five years, the Papua New Guinea government has moved to strengthen its legal framework and policing response to escalating violence involving illegal firearms and large-scale tribal fighting. Amendments to firearms legislation have significantly increased penalties for the unlawful possession, use and trafficking of guns, with some offences now carrying life imprisonment. At the same time, new laws addressing what the government has described as domestic terrorism have expanded police powers to act against organised armed groups that pose a broader threat to public safety. These changes have been accompanied by structural shifts within law enforcement, including the establishment of an anti-terror policing capability. Prime Minister James Marape has publicly backed the Tsak Valley operation, warning against the continued use and possession of illegal firearms. “The operation at Tsak Valley, Wapenamenda, was a targeted operation,” Marape said. “Police were acting on intelligence relating to known hired gunmen operating within the province”. He reaffirmed the government’s zero-tolerance policy on illegal firearms and warned communities against harbouring gunmen. Marape also said that where innocent people are affected during operations, the state — not individual police officers — would take responsibility, subject to proper investigation. Local people collect bullet casings after the police raid. Video: RNZ correspondent Public reaction The operation has triggered mixed and sharply divided reactions across Enga Province. Family members of those killed are preparing petitions to the national government, calling for an independent investigation into the conduct of the raid and accountability for what they describe as the deaths of innocent people. At the same time, a considerable number of residents have expressed support for the police action, arguing it was necessary to curb the spread of illegal firearms and restore a sense of security. The contrasting responses reflect a broader tension in Enga — deep grief and anger among affected families alongside growing public frustration with prolonged tribal violence and the increasing lethality of conflicts exacerbated by high-powered weapons. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
A statement from Gaslit Nation listener Annie in Minneapolis, Minnesota: Real Resistance I live in Minneapolis, 6 minutes from where Renee Good was shot and killed today by an ICE agent. I am 39, a white woman, with a 6 year old like Renee. I am on my neighborhood rapid response thread and on another morning it could easily have been me who was shot and killed. I feel grief, I feel rage, but I am also hopeful that her death will crack open something that needs to see the light of day. On Tuesday, dozens of people were brutally kidnapped and taken from their families, but there were no press conferences and no headlines. Today, all eyes are on ICE. Schools are canceled for the rest of the week. My manager wrote to say she understands if we need to take time off. It finally feels like the whole city is grieving in the way I have been for the past five weeks since ICE first began occupying Minneapolis, and the past five months since ICE first descended on Chicago. It feels like I can finally grieve openly. Politicians are taking the occupation more seriously. Governor Walz is talking about the national guard, Mayor Frey is talking about Minneapolis police officers protecting first amendment rights. There is so much the state and the city could be doing to assist and protect people at risk right now, but their opposition has been limited to press conferences, social media posts, and an ordinance that limits the use of city property by ICE. This is really different than playing an active role in protecting and supporting people. Actual resistance could look like tracking ICE apprehensions and accounting for all victims, running a support hotline for impacted families, providing legal aid to immigrants, tracking ICE locations and sharing this information with immigrants at risk, maintaining a list of ICE license plates, serving as constitutional observers during ICE stops, or even just lifting up the work of rapid response networks and encouraging residents to participate. None of this has been happening, and that probably won't change, but I now have a tiny bit of hope that it might. There's a recent video put out by Tad Stoermer, a historian of resistance movements, about the "loyal opposition" that puts words to how I have been feeling. He says, "When the opposition party treats an authoritarian regime as a normal political opponent, […] it doesn't just fail to resist, it just becomes a loyal opposition, [loyal to the system it is operating in.] […] It actively teaches people the wrong lessons about what resistance looks like. It […] tells everyone watching 'this is the only appropriate response. This is how serious people handle this situation.' And when 'this' is press releases, and podium speeches, and fundraising emails, and strongly worded social media posts endlessly about, I don't know, cost of living issues, while the regime is invading sovereign nations, announcing it will run them, threatening NATO and world stability in addition to our domestic stability, what people learn is that the situation might not in fact be that serious." He goes on to contrast this with real resistance, which includes developing organizing infrastructure, building parallel institutions, and building resistance networks. He uses the Underground Railroad as an example of real resistance, and talks about how the "loyal opposition" absorbs energy that could otherwise be used for building the resistance infrastructure that we need. Today, Jacob Frey told ICE to "get the f*ck out of Minneapolis," but he didn't say what he will do if they don't. We need to be thinking about resistance dynamics. When ICE does not get out of Minneapolis, what action will the City take? What actions are we taking to back up our demands? The phrase that keeps repeating in my head today is "Make repression backfire." Collectively, let's channel our grief and rage into making state repression backfire and building a real resistance movement that will allow us to protect people, take back power, and build the world we need. Show Notes: Video: Tad Stoermer on the "loyal opposition" https://www.threads.com/@tad.stoermer/post/DTKc0iDjjdn/media Opening clip: AOC https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3mbuool3blc2k Opening clip: Protesters https://bsky.app/profile/chaddavis.photography/post/3mbumcqka2c2v Opening clip: Philip Bump on MS Now https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mbwiolzxln25 American Gestapo: Gregory Bovino's Border Patrol https://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/american-gestapo-gregory-bovinos-border-patrol Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit
A statement from Gaslit Nation listener Annie in Minneapolis, Minnesota: Real Resistance I live in Minneapolis, 6 minutes from where Renee Good was shot and killed today by an ICE agent. I am 39, a white woman, with a 6 year old like Renee. I am on my neighborhood rapid response thread and on another morning it could easily have been me who was shot and killed. I feel grief, I feel rage, but I am also hopeful that her death will crack open something that needs to see the light of day. On Tuesday, dozens of people were brutally kidnapped and taken from their families, but there were no press conferences and no headlines. Today, all eyes are on ICE. Schools are canceled for the rest of the week. My manager wrote to say she understands if we need to take time off. It finally feels like the whole city is grieving in the way I have been for the past five weeks since ICE first began occupying Minneapolis, and the past five months since ICE first descended on Chicago. It feels like I can finally grieve openly. Politicians are taking the occupation more seriously. Governor Walz is talking about the national guard, Mayor Frey is talking about Minneapolis police officers protecting first amendment rights. There is so much the state and the city could be doing to assist and protect people at risk right now, but their opposition has been limited to press conferences, social media posts, and an ordinance that limits the use of city property by ICE. This is really different than playing an active role in protecting and supporting people. Actual resistance could look like tracking ICE apprehensions and accounting for all victims, running a support hotline for impacted families, providing legal aid to immigrants, tracking ICE locations and sharing this information with immigrants at risk, maintaining a list of ICE license plates, serving as constitutional observers during ICE stops, or even just lifting up the work of rapid response networks and encouraging residents to participate. None of this has been happening, and that probably won't change, but I now have a tiny bit of hope that it might. There's a recent video put out by Tad Stoermer, a historian of resistance movements, about the "loyal opposition" that puts words to how I have been feeling. He says, "When the opposition party treats an authoritarian regime as a normal political opponent, […] it doesn't just fail to resist, it just becomes a loyal opposition, [loyal to the system it is operating in.] […] It actively teaches people the wrong lessons about what resistance looks like. It […] tells everyone watching 'this is the only appropriate response. This is how serious people handle this situation.' And when 'this' is press releases, and podium speeches, and fundraising emails, and strongly worded social media posts endlessly about, I don't know, cost of living issues, while the regime is invading sovereign nations, announcing it will run them, threatening NATO and world stability in addition to our domestic stability, what people learn is that the situation might not in fact be that serious." He goes on to contrast this with real resistance, which includes developing organizing infrastructure, building parallel institutions, and building resistance networks. He uses the Underground Railroad as an example of real resistance, and talks about how the "loyal opposition" absorbs energy that could otherwise be used for building the resistance infrastructure that we need. Today, Jacob Frey told ICE to "get the f*ck out of Minneapolis," but he didn't say what he will do if they don't. We need to be thinking about resistance dynamics. When ICE does not get out of Minneapolis, what action will the City take? What actions are we taking to back up our demands? The phrase that keeps repeating in my head today is "Make repression backfire." Collectively, let's channel our grief and rage into making state repression backfire and building a real resistance movement that will allow us to protect people, take back power, and build the world we need. Show Notes: Video: Tad Stoermer on the "loyal opposition" https://www.threads.com/@tad.stoermer/post/DTKc0iDjjdn/media Opening clip: AOC https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3mbuool3blc2k Opening clip: Protesters https://bsky.app/profile/chaddavis.photography/post/3mbumcqka2c2v Opening clip: Philip Bump on MS Now https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mbwiolzxln25 American Gestapo: Gregory Bovino's Border Patrol https://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/american-gestapo-gregory-bovinos-border-patrol Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
‘These Two Powerful Corporations Have a Shared Interest in Trying to Bust This Union’: CounterSpin interview with Derek Seidman on Starbucks and Walmart
"We need to be able to...look at corporate power, and look at their narratives and say, 'What does this look like from the other side?'"
Janine Jackson interviewed historian Derek Seidman about the Starbucks strike for the December 19, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219Seidman.mp3 EPI (9/3/25) Janine Jackson: News media talk about the strength and influence of corporations, and we certainly hear about consumers pressed by high prices. You might even find dry, data-based acknowledgement that workers’ wages haven’t kept up with productivity. Maybe there’s even a graph. Where elite media reliably fail is in, No. 1, incorporating the reality that the consumers they evince so much care about are the same people as the workers whose interests are, shall we say, less honored. And then, bigger picture, showing no sustained interest in asking what forces could be brought to bear against corporate power, and its whims and prejudices. Where power is, who has it, how it’s used: That’s the emptiness at the center of much of corporate news media’s storytelling, and it’s where independent reporters start. We’re joined now by writer, researcher and historian Derek Seidman. He’s a regular contributor to Little Sis and to Truthout, where I saw his recent piece, “Why Walmart Wants to See the Starbucks Barista Strike Fail.” He joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Derek Seidman. Derek Seidman: Thank you. Thanks for having me. YouTube (10/12/22) JJ: I have to start with the phrase that’s been in my head from Billy Bragg, but obviously not him alone: “There is power in a union.” I wonder if you could start by bringing us up to date. I think listeners will know that Starbucks workers have been on strike, but that it’s still happening and growing might be news to people, because it’s not really front page anymore. DS: The union drive at Starbucks has been one of the most energizing things in the labor movement over the past few years. Now I’m lucky enough to be based in Buffalo, where the union drive started, and I’ve seen it from the very beginning, and it’s been really exciting. Yeah, it just started with a couple shops in Buffalo unionizing about four years ago, and it’s snowballed now into…. I forget, I don’t know the exact number at the moment, because it’s always growing, but it’s close to 700 shops that have unionized at this point. But they haven’t been able to successfully get a contract from Starbucks. And so the strike that’s been happening for about a month now is an unfair labor practice strike that is aiming to, I think, bring Starbucks to the table to negotiate a fair contract. It’s a critical union drive, because Starbucks is one of the major private employers in the US, and it’s one of the flagship companies around for food service, coffee, beverage service. So to unionize a massive corporation, a mega-chain like Starbucks, would be a significant victory for the labor movement. Truthout (12/8/25) JJ: Corporate owners see it as key, too. And that’s why your story is about Walmart et al., and their stake in the barista strike, but a lot of that is not visible to us. So talk about what’s going on behind the scenes here. DS: I took a look at the heights of governance at Starbucks, which is its board of directors. And one thing I found out that hasn’t been really talked about much is that there are really tight interlocks between Starbucks and Walmart at their heights of power. The new CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol, who Starbucks paid $96 million to come in as CEO last year, he’s actually on the board of directors of Walmart, while he’s also serving as the CEO of Starbucks. But that’s not all. There’s another Starbucks board director named Marissa Mayer, who recently came onto Starbucks as director, who also sits on Walmart’s board. She’s been on Starbucks board since 2012, so for a long time. So in a way, you have a lot of the same people running Starbucks that are also running Walmart. And we could go deeper into this. So the person who’s basically anchoring Starbucks’ board of directors for the last 20 years, her name’s Mellody Hobson. She just recently left Starbucks’ board. She’s also part of the ownership group with the Walton family that owns the NFL’s Denver Broncos. So there’s all types of interlocks between Walmart and Starbucks. And the thing that’s striking to me about that is, not just that you have these really two powerful corporations that are so closely tied together, but they really do have a shared interest, I think, in trying to bust this union. Because they’re both retail powerhouses, and they both have well deserved reputations for being anti-union and for trying to destroy any inkling of a union. And so I think it’s really interesting to see how, at the highest heights, they’re really interlocked. JJ: I think many people think, “Well, why does that matter? I always assume that corporate power, that they all go to dinner together….” How is it meaningful, that these folks are so interconnected with one another? And I just want to add: I feel as though people have kind of accepted, “Oh, you know what, Walmart, they pay their workers so little that a lot of their workers are on public assistance.” And people have bought a scheme that, yeah, corporations are all connected, and, yeah, they all are trying to take blood from a stone in terms of workers. And you have to say, “That’s wrong, and we can change that. ” What are we hoping to do new here? YouTube (3/14/19) DS: I think you’re right that a lot of people have the sort of common sense, or the intuition, that these corporate powers interlocked, and these corporations, in different ways, are all part of the same big club that we’re not part of, to paraphrase George Carlin, right? But I think it’s important, for a couple reasons, to make these connections. One is that I don’t think we should be so jaded that we don’t put in the work and the effort to try to find the relationships, and find the specific people and names and connections. That stuff is important to not only know, but it also can help in terms of movement strategy. So, for example, it’s not just abstract, right? There’s a lot of concrete basis, for example, Starbucks workers and Walmart workers, to make common cause, right? They quite literally have common opponents. ESG Dive (3/4/24) And you could point out other things. So, for example, Starbucks just took on to its board of directors a longtime board director of Chevron. And while Starbucks fashions itself as a sort of climate-conscious corporation, taking on a board director who has millions of dollars worth of stock in Chevron doesn’t point to that. And so there’s common cause, for example, between Starbucks workers and the climate movement. And I guess one other thing I would say is that the relationships between these corporations also manifest themselves in common lobbying work that they do, how they unify behind industry groups that really carry out the general agenda of corporate power. So just to give you one example–I talk about this in the article–both Starbucks and Walmart are members of a huge lobbying organization called the Retail Industry Leaders Association. And, in fact, a recent Starbucks board member was the chair of the Retail Industry Leaders Association. This is a group where a lot of retail industry leaders, corporations like Starbucks and Walmart, pool their resources together to more effectively and more powerfully lobby Congress on anti-union legislation, and things like that. So they’re working together behind the scenes to advance their agenda, and it’s good for us to be able to map that out and know about it. Truthout (4/7/23) JJ: Absolutely. And the Retail Industry Leaders Association, I know that a lot of listeners have never heard that name, and I fault media for that. Journalists should be connecting these dots, mainstream media journalists. And that’s why we’re so grateful for independent media that actually does connect these dots. And I just want to say, this is why narrative is so key here, because Starbucks, for example, is like the epitome of privilege, you know, pumpkin spice lattes. And Amazon, that we didn’t talk about, but we could, well, it’s so wonderful. You press a button and it’s at your door. There’s a lot of media narrative coming at people that is saying, “You’re a consumer and you want these things.” And it’s a whole separate story, it’s on a whole separate page, who the workers are and what’s happening to them, right? And I just wonder if you could talk about what you would hope to see from journalism, what you see from good journalism and don’t see from bad journalism. Where can reporters fit in this story? DS: Yeah. I think it’s really important for progressive journalists, for bottom-up journalism, grassroots journalism, whatever you want to call it, I think it’s important to focus on doing business journalism, focusing on businesses, corporations, the ruling class, trying to understand them, trying to map them out. Derek Seidman: “We need to be able to look at businesses, look at corporations, look at corporate power, and look at their narratives and say, ‘What does this look like from the other side?'” I think a lot of traditional business journalism, when it looks at something like Starbucks CEO Brian Niccols coming in and getting paid $96 million, and saying that he’s going to institute a rule where all baristas have to finish drinks under four minutes, and write a nice handwritten note on them, traditional business journalists might look at that and almost cover it in a celebratory way, like, “Well, he’s really coming in and turning things around.” Baristas experienced that as speed-ups and surveillance, and that’s the story I think that we need to be able to tell. We need to be able to look at businesses, look at corporations, look at corporate power, and look at their narratives and say, “What does this look like from the other side?” And we also need to do a better job of just understanding their networks, and what the power structure looks like. That’s why, in the work that I do at Truthout, but also with Little Sis, I try to put a lot of emphasis on doing that mapping of corporate power. JJ: It’s so important, and I thank you so much. We’ve been speaking with Derek Seidman. You can find the piece we’re talking about, “Why Walmart Wants to See the Starbucks Barista Strike Fail,” at Truthout.org. He also writes for Little Sis. Derek Seidman, thank you so much for joining us this week on Counterspin. DS: Thank you. This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.
[Aviva Chomsky] Gunboat Diplomacy: Then & Now
The United States has a long history of intervening in the internal affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries. From Cuba to Chile, from Grenada to Panama, the U.S. has invaded, occupied, staged coups, carried out assassinations, and imposed san...
The United States has a long history of intervening in the internal affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries. From Cuba to Chile, from Grenada to Panama, the U.S. has invaded, occupied, staged coups, carried out assassinations, and imposed sanctions. Today, Washington has oil-rich Venezuela in its gunsights. It has deployed an armada of warships, including the world’s biggest aircraft carrier, near Venezuela. It’s blowing boats out of the water, which legal experts call extra-judicial killings. It’s threatening Caracas with regime change. The White House justifies its saber-rattling rhetoric and aggressive military actions by calling Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a “narco-trafficker.” As Noam Chomsky has often said, to best understand U.S. foreign policy, use the mafia model. Very simply, if you obey the master, you’re safe. Step out of line? Look out. This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.
Why Venezuela is Making Oil Deals with U.S. Despite Capture of "Prisoner of War" Maduro
TV videographer punched in head by woman while filming in Texas
U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database
KRIS-TV videographer Andrew Bishop was hit in the back of the head by a woman while reporting on homeless issues in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Dec. 17, 2025.Bishop, then a news producer at the station undergoing reporter training, said he set up a small...
KRIS-TV videographer Andrew Bishop was hit in the back of the head by a woman while reporting on homeless issues in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Dec. 17, 2025. Bishop, then a news producer at the station undergoing reporter training, said he set up a small tripod a few hundred yards away from a homeless encampment near City Hall when a woman began pointing and yelling at him. “I just kept shooting,” he said. “And she walked up around the car, and she basically just came behind me, and she just punched me in the back of my head and neck.” In a broadcast a few days later, reporter Jeydah Jenkins, who was with Bishop at the time, detailed how the city is tackling homelessness for a report on dine-and-dash incidents at an area restaurant. “I saw firsthand how tense it can get,” she said. “While gathering video for this story near City Hall, a homeless person physically attacked my photographer, showing how unpredictable these situations can be for everyone involved.” Although the broadcast did not identify the photographer, Bishop later told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was the one assaulted. He said he was not injured and avoided further confrontation by packing up his equipment and later filing a police report. Bishop said the assault highlighted safety concerns, as newsrooms face shrinking resources and increasingly rely on journalists to work alone in the field. “With news, we’re losing resources by the day,” he said. “It’s riskier today as the industry moves more to one-man-show journalists.” This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.
CPJ calls for immediate release of 3 imprisoned Venezuelan journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Venezuelan authorities to immediately and unconditionally release journalists Rory Branker, Nakary Mena Ramos, and Gianni González, drop all charges against them, and ensure that journalists in Venezuela can work freely and without fear of retaliation. “Pervasive attempts to silence critical voices under Venezuela’s Chavez and Maduro regimes must...
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Venezuelan authorities to immediately and unconditionally release journalists Rory Branker, Nakary Mena Ramos, and Gianni González, drop all charges against them, and ensure that journalists in Venezuela can work freely and without fear of retaliation. “Pervasive attempts to silence critical voices under Venezuela’s Chavez and Maduro regimes must end as interim President Delcy Rodríguez takes control of the country,” said CPJ Américas Regional Director Jose Zamora. “Rodríguez should immediately release all imprisoned journalists, end the use of arbitrary and temporary detentions, and provide the legal and security guarantees necessary for journalists to report freely, independently, and without fear of reprisal.” Upon claiming victory in a disputed July 28, 2024 election, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro launched a media crackdown that saw journalists detained and jailed, among other tactics to obstruct their reporting, including: Rory Branker, a journalist with the news website La Patilla, was detained by Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) agents and taken to El Helicoide detention center in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on February 20, La Patilla reported. Impacto Venezuela journalist Nakary Mena Ramos and her husband, camera operator Gianni González, were arrested in connection with Mena’s reporting on rising crime in Caracas on April 11, 2025. A criminal court ordered Mena held on preliminary charges including “hate crimes” and “publishing fake news,” while González remains detained at El Rodeo II prison. Both were initially denied access to private legal counsel. Maduro was removed from power during a U.S. military raid on January 3 and transported to the United States to face charges of narco-terrorism. His wife, Cilia Flores, also faces charges. Outlets reported that at least 20 journalists and media workers were detained for hours and five were deported while covering the inauguration of interim President Delcy Rodríguez at the country’s National Assembly, in surrounding areas, in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas and border between Colombia and Venezuela. CPJ’s requests for comment to Venezuela’s Interior Ministry did not receive an immediate response. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
Neglect at Federal Detention Center Ignored Until a Famous Person Is Held There
The federal Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn usually makes headlines only when famous people—such as Luigi Mangione and Ghislaine Maxwell—are held there while awaiting trial for pending federal charges. However, in June 2025, Katie Rose ...
The federal Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn usually makes headlines only when famous people—such as Luigi Mangione and Ghislaine Maxwell—are held there while awaiting trial for pending federal charges. However, in June 2025, Katie Rose Quandt and Maeve Brennan reported that, “for the many non-famous people stuck in MDC,… The post Neglect at Federal Detention Center Ignored Until a Famous Person Is Held There appeared first on Project Censored. This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.
CPJ urges release of Tunisian journalist Chadha Hadj Mbarek over health concerns
New York, January 8, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Tunisian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release jailed Tunisian journalist Chadha Hadj Mbarek and ensure she receives urgent, adequate medical care following reports that her health has severely deteriorated in prison. “Denying detained journalist Chadha Hadj Mbarek timely and urgent life-saving medical care is...
New York, January 8, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Tunisian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release jailed Tunisian journalist Chadha Hadj Mbarek and ensure she receives urgent, adequate medical care following reports that her health has severely deteriorated in prison. “Denying detained journalist Chadha Hadj Mbarek timely and urgent life-saving medical care is simply cruel and inhuman,” said CPJ Chief Programs Officer Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Tunisian authorities must immediately release Mbarek and ensure she receives the urgent medical treatment she needs.” According to a statement issued by Mbarek’s family on Wednesday, January 7, she was physically assaulted by a fellow prison inmate while held at Messaadine Prison in Sousse, suffering a serious hand injury that went untreated despite severe pain. Prison authorities allegedly denied her proper medical care and diagnostic tests, providing only painkillers after she staged repeated hunger strikes to obtain a medical examination, according to her brother, Amen Hadj Mbarek, who spoke to CPJ over the phone. After her transfer to the Belli prison in Nabeul a year ago, Mbarek’s health further deteriorated. Medical examinations later revealed a malignant tumor in her stomach and chest requiring surgeries. Her family said the delayed diagnosis was the direct result of prolonged medical neglect during her detention, placing her life at risk if not treated promptly. “Chadha’s condition has reached a critical and catastrophic stage,” Amen Hadj Mbarek said. “She asked for medical care months ago and was ignored until her illness became life-threatening. Any further delay puts her life in danger.” Mbarek, a journalist and social media content editor who worked with the independent digital content company Instalingo, was arrested in July 2023 and is serving a five-year prison sentence after being convicted under cybercrime Decree-law 54 of “conspiring against state security” and “offending the President of the Republic.” She is one of 41 people prosecuted in connection with their work at Instalingo and the only journalist among those detained in the case, according to Amen Hadj Mbarek, who added that her next appeal hearing is scheduled for January 9. CPJ calls on Tunisian authorities to: Immediately and unconditionally release Chadha Hadj Mbarek on medical grounds; Ensure she receives urgent, specialized medical care without delay or interference; Investigate allegations of assault and medical neglect during her detention and hold those responsible to account. CPJ’s email to the presidency requesting comment on Mbarek’s health status in custody did not receive a reply. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
More shocking footage shows federal agents raiding Minneapolis high school, handcuffing staff
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 08, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license. Federal immigration enforcement agents on Wednesday swarmed a high school in Minneapolis, where footage and ph...
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="US Border Patrol agents detain a person near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time as federal immigration enforcement actions sparked protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 7, 2026. Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340165" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/more-shocking-footage-shows-federal-agents-raiding-minneapolis-high-school-handcuffing-staff/us-migrants-ice" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"US Border Patrol agents detain a person near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time as federal immigration enforcement actions sparked protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 7, 2026. An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman Wednesday, triggering outrage from local leaders even as US President Donald Trump claimed the officer acted in self-defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey deemed the government's allegation that the woman was attacking federal agents \"bullshit,\" and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting a second day of mass raids to leave Minneapolis. (Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1767834846","copyright":"AFP or licensors","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"US-MIGRANTS-ICE","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="US-MIGRANTS-ICE" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" US Border Patrol agents detain a person near Roosevelt High School during dismissal time as federal immigration enforcement actions sparked protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 7, 2026. Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254528714-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="600" height="150" data-attachment-id="268291" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/this-is-why-deregulation-is-deadly/cd_stacked_white_600" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" data-orig-size="600,150" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Common Dreams Logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=300%2C75&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=600%2C150&ssl=1" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=300%2C75&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=400&ssl=1 400w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 08, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license. Federal immigration enforcement agents on Wednesday swarmed a high school in Minneapolis, where footage and photographs showed them handcuffing school staff members and firing chemical irritants at students. According to a report from KSTP 5 Eyewitness News, the agents descended upon Roosevelt High School on Wednesday afternoon, mere hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shot 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good. A witness who watched the raid described seeing administrators and staff trying to get the agents away from the building to stop them from apprehending students. The witness also said that the agents began deploying pepper spray after some students started protesting against their presence on school property. A Roosevelt High School official confirmed to MPR News that agents wearing US Border Patrol uniforms pepper sprayed students, while also firing pepper balls at them. Video footage taken from the scene shows agents deploying chemical irritants at demonstrators. An official from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis told MPR News that armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came onto school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people; they handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders. pic.twitter.com/171JUUfew8 — CAIN (@XTechPulse) January 8, 2026 The school official also told MPR News that the agents handcuffed two staff members at the school, and they described getting into a physical confrontation with an agent as they were trying to tell them to leave school property. “The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down,” the official said. “They don’t care. They’re just animals. I’ve never seen people behave like this.” Meanwhile near where they killed Renee Good ICE was terrorizing a high school — and now Minneapolis has canceled school for the week. None of this is about safety. A lawless regime with no guardrails. pic.twitter.com/H8l2nXn2FQ — The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 8, 2026 In the wake of the raid on the high school, Minneapolis Public Schools announced that it would be canceling all classes for the rest of the week “out of an abundance of caution,” citing “safety concerns” for faculty and students. Celia Mejia, a Minneapolis woman whose daughter attends the Green Central Elementary School in the southern part of the city, told KSTP 5 Eyewitness News that she had to pick up her daughter on Wednesday after the school went on lockdown after federal immigration agents were spotted in the area. “That was way too close to school to feel comfortable,” Mejia said. Julia Haas, another local resident who picked up her child at the elementary school after it went into lockdown, told KSTP 5 Eyewitness News that she was “very” frightened by the ordeal. “Nobody should have to deal with this ever,” Haas emphasized. The reasons for the raid on the high school were unclear, and the US Department of Homeland Security did not respond to KSTP Eyewitness 5 News’ or MPR News’ requests for comment. This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Brad Reed.
Hours after US Citizen shot dead by ICE, JD Vance says ‘door-to-door’ operations are coming
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="US Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino knocks on a door of a suspected undocumented immigrant while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025 in Kenner, Louisiana. Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="340153" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/hours-after-us-citizen-shot-dead-by-ice-jd-vance-says-door-to-door-operations-are-coming/department-of-homeland-security-formally-announces-start-of-immigration-enforcement-in-new-orleans" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1706&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1706" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"5","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-7M3","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER 6: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino knocks on a door of a suspected undocumented immigrant while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025 in Kenner, Louisiana. Federal agents are conducting 'Operation Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1765038768","copyright":"2025 Getty Images","focal_length":"95","iso":"640","shutter_speed":"0.003125","title":"Department Of Homeland Security Formally Announces Start Of Immigration Enforcement In New Orleans","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Department Of Homeland Security Formally Announces Start Of Immigration Enforcement In New Orleans" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" US Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino knocks on a door of a suspected undocumented immigrant while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025 in Kenner, Louisiana. Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> “This is starting to look disturbingly like Germany in the 1930s.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="US Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino knocks on a door of a suspected undocumented immigrant while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025 in Kenner, Louisiana. Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340153" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/hours-after-us-citizen-shot-dead-by-ice-jd-vance-says-door-to-door-operations-are-coming/department-of-homeland-security-formally-announces-start-of-immigration-enforcement-in-new-orleans" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1706&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1706" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"5","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-7M3","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER 6: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino knocks on a door of a suspected undocumented immigrant while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025 in Kenner, Louisiana. Federal agents are conducting 'Operation Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1765038768","copyright":"2025 Getty Images","focal_length":"95","iso":"640","shutter_speed":"0.003125","title":"Department Of Homeland Security Formally Announces Start Of Immigration Enforcement In New Orleans","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Department Of Homeland Security Formally Announces Start Of Immigration Enforcement In New Orleans" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" US Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino knocks on a door of a suspected undocumented immigrant while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025 in Kenner, Louisiana. Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2249757734-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="150" data-attachment-id="268291" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/this-is-why-deregulation-is-deadly/cd_stacked_white_600" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" data-orig-size="600,150" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Common Dreams Logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=300%2C75&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=600%2C150&ssl=1" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=300%2C75&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=400&ssl=1 400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 08, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license. Just hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed an unarmed US citizen in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance said the agency would soon be going “door to door” across the country to escalate the Trump administration’s mass deportation crusade in the coming year. In an interview on Fox News with host Jesse Watters, Vance boasted that during Trump’s first year back in power, the administration had gotten “2.5 million illegal aliens out” of the country, “without any of the really big marquee things that we’ve been working on.” Notably, only about 600,000 of these have been through formal deportations, while the rest have been through what the White House claims are “self-deportations.” Despite claims to the contrary, the vast majority of those detained by ICE have had no criminal records. Many have been legal residents, green card holders, and asylum seekers following the legal process. ICE’s budget is expected to triple in 2026 following the passage of Republican budget legislation last year that has allowed it to launch what it calls a “wartime recruitment” strategy, hiring as many as 10,000 new officers with minimal training. Last week, the Washington Postreported that the agency had earmarked $100 million toward online recruitment advertisements, meant to draw in “people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.” Vance continued, “I think we’re going to see those [deportation] numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online and working for ICE, going door to door and making sure that if you’re an illegal alien, you’ve got to get out of this country, and if you want to come back, apply through the proper channels.” “Door to door?” The Fourth Amendment still exists. This is starting to look disturbingly like Germany in the 1930s. https://t.co/2wc6QiImJg — WarMonitor (@TheWarMonitor) January 8, 2026 Vance’s comments came shortly after news broke that an ICE agent had fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis resident and widowed mother of three children, as she attempted to drive away from the scene in her car. Good was at the scene as a legal observer following a surge of more than 2,000 ICE agents to the city. The Trump administration has stood by the ICE shooter and described Good as a “domestic terrorist” who attempted to run over the agent in her car. But video evidence contradicts this claim, showing Good attempting to pivot her car away from the agents and only accelerating the vehicle after shots were fired, while the agent walked away from the incident unharmed. Especially in light of the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen who was legally observing agents, Vance’s comments about ICE going “door to door” to homes in the coming year sounded ominous to many. “Door to door?” asked one incredulous social media user. “The Fourth Amendment still exists. This is starting to look disturbingly like Germany in the 1930s.” ICE agent gets caught off duty with a Nazi SS tattoo on his neck (Minneapolis, MN 1/5/26) pic.twitter.com/ABAPlchQb9 — Devin Nunes' Cattle Dog (@Kaos_Vs_Control) January 6, 2026 “Under the Fourth Amendment, federal agents are generally not allowed to stop someone unless they have good reason to suspect that they are breaking laws,” explained Jesse Franzblau, the associate director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in November. “Yet a growing number of people, many of them Latinx, have reported being targeted, harassed, and detained by ICE and CBP agents solely because of their race.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that Fourth Amendment protections are strongest in the home, where the government is required to obtain a judicial warrant before entering private residences. However, in many cases, ICE has flouted these rules when carrying out arrests. “Whether you’re left or right, the thought of living in an America where the government goes ‘door to door,’ and that those words actually came out of the vice president of the United States’ mouth, should worry you deeply,” said Simon Samano, an editor at USA Today. The Trump administration has increasingly promoted the idea of using ICE to target American citizens. The administration has pledged to strip citizenship from as many as 200 naturalized citizens per month in 2026, a tenfold increase from previous years. Trump and his allies have suggested using denaturalization to kick out some of his top critics, including the Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Last week, a post by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, glorified the idea of Trump carrying out “100 million deportations,” which, if realized, would necessitate the stripping of citizenship from tens of millions of naturalized and US-born citizens. According to a YouGov poll published last week, the majority of Republican voters support the idea of deporting over a fourth of the country. In October, ProPublica reported that at least 170 US citizens had been wrongly detained in immigration custody since Trump returned to office last January. Meanwhile, Gregory Bovino, the commander at large of the Border Patrol, has previously suggested that US citizens must be prepared to prove their citizenship at a moment’s notice if stopped by immigration agents. Yet on Wednesday, even after an agent shot a US citizen in cold blood, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, clad in an oversized cowboy hat, assured the public that “anyone who is a citizen of this country or is here legally has nothing to fear.” Hours after Good was shot, another group of agents, including Bovino, were filmed demanding the identification of another driver, a Somali man who said he was an Uber driver waiting to pick up a passenger at the Minneapolis airport, asking him to prove his US citizenship. The CBP officer says to this man: “I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me.” These are the open racists and bullies who have been empowered by Trump, Noem, the Supreme Court, and 77 million Republican voters. https://t.co/WHbnhj35Is — Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 8, 2026 One of the agents was heard telling the man he did not believe he was a US citizen because “I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me.” This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Stephen Prager.
The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 8, 2026
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 8, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 8, 2026 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
Soleimani Statue Toppled As Iran Protests Gain Momentum
Ukraine wakes to more devastation from Russia missiles: OCHA Niger in grip of acute malnutrition and childhood disease Human Rights Council elects an Indonesian candidate President for 2026
Ukraine wakes to more devastation from Russia missiles: OCHA Niger in grip of acute malnutrition and childhood disease Human Rights Council elects an Indonesian candidate President for 2026 This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Daniel Johnson.
‘They are hunting journalists’: Nicaragua’s covert repression tactics strike fear beyond borders
An estimated 268 Nicaraguan journalists have fled the Central American country for exile, many settling in the neighboring Costa Rica, to escape what CPJ’s research has documented to be a government-backed system of political repression and judicial harassment against media outlets that often prevents journalists, fearing for their families, from reporting the truth. Yet for...
An estimated 268 Nicaraguan journalists have fled the Central American country for exile, many settling in the neighboring Costa Rica, to escape what CPJ’s research has documented to be a government-backed system of political repression and judicial harassment against media outlets that often prevents journalists, fearing for their families, from reporting the truth. Yet for some exiled journalists, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, that repression has followed them beyond borders. Forced to uproot their operations to deliver critical reporting from the outside, the exiled journalists say they are still being targeted by Nicaragua’s state security with covert persuasion, coercion, and psychological pressure tactics in hopes of repressing their dissenting voices and gaining information about the whereabouts of others. Yet on the heels of the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID funding — funding that many news outlets rely on across Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela—the journalists say their lives and their livelihoods hang in the balance now more than ever. A covert campaign of fear and intimidation CPJ has extensively documented Nicaragua’s press freedom crisis since the April 2018 eruption of anti-government protests calling for the end of President Daniel Ortega’s administration resulting in 325 reported deaths, including reporter Ángel Gahona, and the arrests of dozens journalists covering the protests. Using public raids and arrests, Ortega, who leads the country with his co-president and wife, Rosario Murillo, began a crackdown on independent media that saw the closure of dozens of outlets and a mass exile. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" height="663" width="1024" src="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?w=1024" alt="In this Sept. 5, 2018 file photo, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, lead a rally in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File)" class="wp-image-549323" srcset="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg 2901w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=300,194 300w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=768,497 768w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=1024,663 1024w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=1536,995 1536w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=2048,1327 2048w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=570,369 570w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=652,422 652w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=760,492 760w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=1140,738 1140w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=2000,1295 2000w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP24325823019626.jpg?resize=367,238 367w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Using public raids and arrests, Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega, who leads the country with his co-president and wife, Rosario Murillo, began a crackdown on independent media that saw the closure of dozens of outlets and a mass exile. (Photo: AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga) “They are hunting journalists,” an exiled journalist living in Costa Rica told CPJ after she said Nicaraguan authorities covertly approached her about removing her from the country’s blacklist in exchange for information on other exiled journalists. Within days, she fled Nicaragua, refusing to betray her peers. “The way they contacted me and what they offered was what scared me the most,” she told CPJ, adding that many of her colleagues still in Nicaragua are “terrified, and full of guilt about what could happen to their family.” She added, “And the one[s] outside don’t feel any different.” Inside Nicaragua, families of journalists have learned to live in silence. They keep relationships secret to protect those who remain behind. In most cases, there are no phone calls, only brief encrypted text exchanges. Social media accounts are deleted, and relatives in exile are never mentioned. Another exiled Nicaraguan journalist, who also requested anonymity due to security concerns, told CPJ that police paid a surprise visit to her sister’s home in the capital, Managua, to interrogate. “My sister told them she hadn’t been in touch with me for years and that she hated me,” the journalist said. “Statelessness is a kind of death” <img decoding="async" height="683" width="1024" src="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?w=1024" alt="Exiled Nicaraguans attend a Mass in honor of others exiled from the country, in San Jose, Costa Rica, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Diaz)" class="wp-image-549272" srcset="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg 5663w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=2048,1366 2048w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=570,380 570w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=652,435 652w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=760,507 760w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=1140,760 1140w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=2000,1334 2000w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP25117797347511.jpg?resize=367,245 367w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Exiled Nicaraguans attend mass honoring others exiled from the country on Sunday, April 27, 2025, in San José, Costa Rica. (Photo: AP Photo/Jose Diaz) In April 2025, CPJ joined six other press freedom groups in a joint statement condemning the Nicaraguan government’s failure to cooperate with the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process—a critical mechanism for assessing the human rights records of member states that has resulted in 279 recommendations for Nicaragua. Moreover, the experiences recounted by the exiled journalists reflect a growing pattern of transnational repression documented by the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), which has identified eight ways the state violates citizens’ rights beyond its borders, from the denial of passports to the persecution of families and threats against them abroad. Gerald Chávez, director of the digital news outlet Nicaragua Actual and representative of the Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua — the country’s only remaining active journalist association — said he experienced Nicaragua’s transnational repression tactics personally in 2018 when he fled to Costa Rica and could not renew his documents. In 2023, Nicaragua’s consulate in the Costa Rican capital, San José, refused to issue his new passport despite complete paperwork and payment. Later, when his family requested his birth certificate in Nicaragua, local authorities declined to release it. <img decoding="async" height="683" width="1024" src="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?w=1024" alt="Exiled Nicaraguan journalists Lucia Pineda, left, and Gerald Chavez work from a studio-apartment used by Nicaraguans reporting on their home country from San Jose, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. Pineda was the director of Canal 100% which was closed by the Nicaraguan government. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)" class="wp-image-549221" srcset="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg 8640w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=570,380 570w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=652,435 652w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=760,507 760w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=1140,760 1140w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=2000,1333 2000w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP22243545242530.jpg?resize=367,245 367w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Exiled Nicaraguan journalists Lucia Pineda, left, and Gerald Chavez work from a studio-apartment used by Nicaraguans reporting on their home country from San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. Pineda is the director of 100% Noticias a TV Channel that was closed by the Nicaraguan government but continues to broadcast online (Photo: AP Photo/Moises Castillo) “My country won’t renew my ID documents… my passport will never arrive,” Chávez told CPJ. In Spanish he calls it being “apatridia de facto,” or statelessness, which leaves him unable to travel, study, or access basic services in Costa Rica. Although Chávez can travel to a few countries using a refugee document issued by Costa Rica, most nations do not recognize it, and many airlines are unaware it exists, he explained. “It’s a kind of death. A way to paralyze you from doing journalism,” he said. Chávez and seven other Nicaraguan journalists have petitioned Spain — which in 2023 granted citizenship to Nicaraguans formally stripped of their nationality — to extend the same recognition to those like them who have been effectively rendered stateless. As head of the journalists’ association, Chávez said his colleagues who remain in Nicaragua live under constant surveillance. “Many have stopped using their phones or even leaving their houses,” he said. “Talking about what is happening in the country can get you accused of spreading false information or destabilizing the state.” Costa Rica is no longer a safe haven <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="597" width="1024" src="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?w=1024" alt="A mural of Nicaraguans killed during the country’s 2018 anti-government protests adorning a wall at the Nicaragua Nunca Más human rights organization in San José, Costa Rica. (Photo: AP Photo/Carlos Gonzalez) " class="wp-image-549374" srcset="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg 5000w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=300,175 300w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=768,447 768w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=1024,597 1024w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=1536,895 1536w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=2048,1193 2048w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=570,332 570w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=652,380 652w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=760,443 760w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=1140,664 1140w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=2000,1165 2000w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AP23063662057238.jpg?resize=367,214 367w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> A mural of Nicaraguans killed during the country’s 2018 anti-government protests adorning a wall at the Nicaragua Nunca Más human rights organization in San José, Costa Rica. (Photo: AP Photo/Carlos Gonzalez) An October 2025 quarterly report by the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy warned that the Nicaraguan government has intensified a campaign to coerce independent journalists into becoming informants through threats, harassment, and blackmail. If tactics such as digital, physical, and psychological harassment are spoken about publicly, reporters face prosecution under the 2020 Cybercrime Law, which criminalizes “false information” and is routinely used to silence the press. For Sergio Marín Cornavaca, director of the news website La Mesa Redonda, the risks facing exiled journalists in Costa Rica became undeniable after the June 2025 murder of former Nicaraguan army major and political commentator Roberto Samcam in San José. “Roberto had denounced, over and over, the existence of espionage cells working for the Nicaraguan regime here in Costa Rica,” Marín said. “No one listened until it was too late.” Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Organism (OIJ, by its Spanish acronym) said they are working to determine whether the crime had political motivations. On Friday, September 12, Costa Rican authorities announced the arrest of four people reported to be suspects in Samcam’s killing. After Samcam’s murder, Costa Rican intelligence officials contacted Marín to warn him that he, too, was being watched by the Nicaraguan government. “They said I was on a list,” he told CPJ. “That I needed to move constantly, change houses, avoid public places.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="683" width="1024" src="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?w=1024" alt="Costa Rican security forces conduct an operation to detain individuals suspected of involvement in the killing of exiled former Nicaraguan military officer Roberto Samcam, in San José, Costa Rica, September 12, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)" class="wp-image-549425" srcset="https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg 5040w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=570,380 570w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=652,435 652w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=760,507 760w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=1140,760 1140w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=2000,1333 2000w, https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-09-12T180128Z_100406784_RC2BQGAAK0SI_RTRMADP_3_NICARAGUA-POLITICS-COSTA-RICA.jpg?resize=367,245 367w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Costa Rican security forces conduct an operation to detain individuals suspected of involvement in the killing of exiled former Nicaraguan military officer Roberto Samcam, in San José, Costa Rica, September 12, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer) He relocated temporarily to a friend’s home for several weeks, a move that drained him financially. “I don’t have money,” he said. “I can’t stop working, but I can’t stay in one place either.” Costa Rica, once viewed as a refuge for Nicaragua’s independent press, no longer feels safe for many journalists amid a growing security crisis marked by a sharp rise in homicides in recent years. Authorities recorded 907 killings in 2023, making it the most violent year in the country’s history. In 2024, the country recorded 880 homicides, the second-highest figure in the country’s history, according to data from the Judicial Investigation Organism (OIJ). “It’s not secure for anyone,” Marín said, alleging, “there’s organized crime, contract killings, and Nicaragua’s embassy here is full of regime officials spying on the exile community.” According to Marín, even Costa Rican intelligence officials have acknowledged their situation and limits. “They told me straight, we don’t have the capacity to prevent anything,” he said. CPJ’s emails to Nicaragua’s Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Nicaraguan Embassy in San José regarding allegations of transnational repression did not receive any reply. Repression without borders In Costa Rica, Nicaraguan journalists told CPJ that they have been forced to establish informal security protocols to protect themselves—changing their routines, limiting public appearances, and using encrypted apps to communicate. “You live like a criminal,” Marín said. “Except your only crime is being a journalist.” Meanwhile in Nicaragua, pro-government media pundits routinely attack exiled reporters on TV and social media, accusing them of being “traitors” or “foreign agents.” State-aligned commentators amplify these messages to discredit independent voices and deepen fear among those abroad. “It feeds the machinery of intimidation,” said Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua representative Chávez. Chavéz told CPJ that many journalists have applied for relocation through the UNHCR’s Safe Mobility program, seeking asylum in Spain or Canada, now that the Trump administration has removed the United States from the initiative. Others have ceased doing journalism and are finding other means to support their families. “The attacks, threats, and denials of documentation reveal a systematic effort to silence critical voices, even beyond national territory,” Marín added. In an emailed statement, Costa Rica’s Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS), which analyses the country’s security information, told CPJ that it is aware of the risks faced by Nicaraguan journalists exiled in the country but has no legal authority to provide them with protection, adding that its role is limited to analyzing risk and potential transnational threats. Requests for protection, when applicable, must be petitioned through existing state mechanisms such as the OIJ’s victims and witness protection program or the public prosecutor’s victim protection office, said the DIS. Costa Rica’s refugee protection framework provides documentation and access to basic services but does not include direct security measures. CPJ’s email to UNHCR (ACNUR) seeking comment on protection measures for Nicaraguan journalists in exile did not receive a reply. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Americas Program.
Trump just took his most dramatic step yet against global climate action
Unlike the Paris Agreement, Trump’s withdrawal from a bedrock U.N. climate treaty may be difficult to reverse.
President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the global fight against climate change has gone further than almost anyone expected. During the first year of his second term in office, the president and his administration have cut foreign aid for climate resilience, pressured countries to delay crucial carbon tax agreements, and removed the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 accord that saw the world’s nations come together around a plan to limit global warming. Some of this was anticipated, but on Wednesday Trump took arguably his most dramatic step yet against global climate action. In a brief memorandum, he announced that he would “effectuate the withdrawal” of the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, the bedrock treaty that first brought countries together to discuss the climate crisis more than three decades ago. In other words, Trump hasn’t just skipped out on the world’s plan for tackling climate change — he’s also decreeing that the U.S. will no longer take any part in international talks on the subject. And this latest move may prove far more durable than leaving the Paris accord. Because of ambiguity in U.S. law, future presidents may not be able to reverse withdrawal from the UNFCCC even if they want to. If Paris was a contract to stop climate change, the UNFCCC was akin to the boardroom in which countries hashed out that contract. Trump’s withdrawal from the latter is an even more extreme measure because it means that the U.S. government will no longer be eligible to attend global climate talks, known as COPs, and will be the only country in the world that is unable to participate in multilateral debates about climate change. “This is a short-sighted, embarrassing, and foolish decision,” said Gina McCarthy, who was the White House climate advisor to former President Joe Biden, in a statement. “The Trump administration is throwing away decades of U.S. climate leadership and global collaboration.” The UNFCCC also has a stronger basis under domestic law than the Paris Agreement ever did. The U.S. Senate ratified the convention as a formal treaty in 1992 by a vote of 92 to 0, and it was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. (By contrast, the Obama administration used executive action to join the Paris Agreement without needing congressional approval.) Trump did not attempt to leave the treaty during his first term, and indeed no nation has ever attempted to do so. No one knows for sure how a future president could rejoin the UNFCCC. Some experts believe that a future president could rely on the 1992 Senate vote to justify rejoining, but others say that Trump’s withdrawal this week annuls that vote, requiring a new Senate vote with two-thirds support — a tall order in a far more polarized political environment. Article II of the U.S. Constitution says that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” But the document is silent about who has the authority to leave and rejoin those treaties; some legal scholars have argued that the president has unilateral power to terminate treaties, but others have argued the opposite. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat and a leading climate hawk, said in a statement Thursday that only the Senate can withdraw from Senate-ratified treaties and that Trump’s move was illegal. The question of who has the authority to rejoin a treaty is even murkier. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the issue. In 1979, after evaluating a legal challenge to then-President Jimmy Carter’s termination of a defense treaty with China, the Court referred to the issue as a “political question” not subject to judicial authority. In their initial reactions to Trump’s move, climate experts offered a range of different views on the question of rejoining the UNFCCC, reflecting the extreme uncertainty on the issue. Sue Biniaz, who served for decades as a lead U.S. negotiator in climate talks, said that she believes the country “could rather seamlessly rejoin.” Michael Gerrard, a climate law expert at Columbia University, said by email that there are competing theories about Senate consent for rejoining treaties — and that he didn’t know immediately which theory was correct. “I want to try to pin this down,” he said. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="Side-by-side photos of Trump turned away and a group photo of smiling representatives at COP30" class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 2000w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/united-states-climate-action.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="1125" width="2000" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> 2025: The year the US gave up on climate, and the world gave up on us Naveena Sadasivam Experts also said it’s not even certain if Trump did withdraw from the treaty in a legal sense. His memo says that it pulls the U.S. from more than 60 international agreements covering everything from cyber security to cotton. It declares that “For United Nations entities, withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law.” It is unclear if this means the U.S. will submit a formal withdrawal notice to the U.N. governing body, which is what would make the move official, or will simply not participate in negotiations for the remainder of Trump’s tenure. (The State Department did not immediately respond to Grist’s request for comment and clarification on the withdrawal.) If the withdrawal goes forward, it could take the U.S. out of the international climate fight for far longer than the remainder of Trump’s term. Trump has cemented opposition to any form of climate action as a core commitment of the Republican party. And given that Republicans hold a durable advantage in the Senate, where rural states hold disproportionate sway, a future vote to rejoin the agreement looks remote. If a future president tried to rejoin the UNFCCC without Senate consent, anti-climate groups would likely file a legal challenge to the move by citing the Senate’s treaty authority. For now, the other 197 countries that are party to the UNFCCC will continue to negotiate global agreements on climate change, albeit with the world’s largest economy missing. This was already the case in Brazil last year during the COP30 conference, which the Trump administration skipped even though the United States was still technically a party to the Paris agreement at the time. John Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state and the lead climate envoy under the Biden administration, has said the move would further isolate the U.S. on the world stage. “This is par for the course,” he said in a statement. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a gift to China and a get-out-of-jail-free card to countries and polluters who want to avoid responsibility. It’s another self-inflicted wound on the world stage.” Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivers a speech during the General Plenary of Leaders in the framework of the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Belem, Para State, Brazil, on November 6, 2025." class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1600w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP30-Lula-speech.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="900" width="1600" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> 10 years after the Paris Agreement, world leaders are letting go of its most famous goal Zoya Teirstein Some climate advocates echoed this view, saying that the absence of the U.S. could make it harder to achieve consensus at COPs. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, the United States played a crucial role in securing the Paris deal and a 2023 agreement to phase out fossil fuels, helping to overcome hesitation from countries including Saudi Arabia and China. A long-term withdrawal could empower large emitters to frustrate agreements on fossil fuels. This already happened at COP30, where a group of oil-producing countries tanked talks to produce a “road map” on transitioning away from oil and gas. “It is sad to attend international meetings and see an empty space where the United States should be,” said Kaveh Guilanpour, the vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and a leading expert on climate talks. “This is harmful to the world, because the enormous energy, innovation, and authority of the United States is missed.” Some negotiators from developing countries downplayed the significance of the U.S. exit, in part because they’ve seen administrations from both political parties obstruct important global climate action, whether or not those presidents endorsed the Paris Agreement. Over the past decade, developing countries have grown more vocal in demands for trillions of dollars in financial assistance from the rich countries that have emitted the most carbon dioxide. This money would help poor nations transition away from fossil fuels and adapt to climate disasters, but the U.S. and Europe have said that they can’t afford to pay up. “The absence of the U.S. is unfortunate, but I don’t think it is going to reverse global progress,” said Ali Mohamed, the lead climate envoy for Kenya, in an interview with Grist. “You have seen how in many countries, from Europe to Southeast Asia to Africa, the revolution of renewables is overtaking fossil fuels, because it makes business sense. International policy will continue to evolve and be developed by the coalition of the willing.” Other observers said the withdrawal announcement was just paperwork confirming what was already apparent in Trump’s actions. “The Trump Administration has de facto already halted cooperation and dialogue in this space,” said Allison Lombardo, former State Department deputy assistant secretary for international organization affairs in the Biden administration. “This formalizes what has already become a reality.” Zoya Teirstein contributed reporting to this story. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump just took his most dramatic step yet against global climate action on Jan 8, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.
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Trump abandonment of global treaties, including landmark climate deal, ‘threatens all life on Earth’
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2025. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images" data-attachment-id="340147" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/trump-abandonment-global-treaties-climate-deal/un-diplomacy-unga" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-1","caption":"US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2025. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1758640431","copyright":"AFP or licensors","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"UN-DIPLOMACY-UNGA","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="UN-DIPLOMACY-UNGA" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2025. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> “Trump cutting ties with the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate fossil fuel interests run our government.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2025. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340147" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/trump-abandonment-global-treaties-climate-deal/un-diplomacy-unga" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-1","caption":"US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2025. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1758640431","copyright":"AFP or licensors","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"UN-DIPLOMACY-UNGA","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="UN-DIPLOMACY-UNGA" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2025. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2236465192-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="600" height="150" data-attachment-id="268291" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/this-is-why-deregulation-is-deadly/cd_stacked_white_600" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" data-orig-size="600,150" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Common Dreams Logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=300%2C75&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=600%2C150&ssl=1" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=300%2C75&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=400&ssl=1 400w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 08, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license. President Donald Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from dozens of international treaties and organizations aimed at promoting cooperation on the world’s most pressing issues, including human rights and the worsening climate emergency. Among the treaties Trump ditched via a legally dubious executive order was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), making the US—the world’s largest historical emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases—the first country to abandon the landmark agreement. The US Senate ratified the convention in 1992 by unanimous consent, but lawmakers have repeatedly failed to assert their constitutional authority to stop presidents from unilaterally withdrawing from global treaties. Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that “Trump cutting ties with the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate fossil fuel interests run our government.” “Given deeply polarized US politics, it’s going to be nearly impossible for the U.S. to rejoin the UNFCCC with a two-thirds majority vote. Letting this lawless move stand could shut the US out of climate diplomacy forever,” Su warned. “Withdrawing from the world’s leading climate, biodiversity, and scientific institutions threatens all life on Earth.” Trump also pulled the US out of the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the UN International Law Commission, the UN Democracy Fund, UN Oceans, and dozens of other global bodies, deeming them “contrary to the interests of the United States.” The president’s move came as he continued to steamroll domestic and international law with an illegal assault on Venezuela and threats to seize Greenland with military force, among other grave abuses. Below is the full list of international organizations that Trump abandoned with the stroke of a pen: (a) Non-United Nations Organizations: (i) 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact; (ii) Colombo Plan Council; (iii) Commission for Environmental Cooperation; (iv) Education Cannot Wait; (v) European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats; (vi) Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories; (vii) Freedom Online Coalition; (viii) Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund; (ix) Global Counterterrorism Forum; (x) Global Forum on Cyber Expertise; (xi) Global Forum on Migration and Development; (xii) Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research; (xiii) Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development; (xiv) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; (xv) Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; (xvi) International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property; (xvii) International Cotton Advisory Committee; (xviii) International Development Law Organization; (xix) International Energy Forum; (xx) International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies; (xxi) International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance; (xxii) International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law; (xxiii) International Lead and Zinc Study Group; (xxiv) International Renewable Energy Agency; (xxv) International Solar Alliance; (xxvi) International Tropical Timber Organization; (xxvii) International Union for Conservation of Nature; (xxviii) Pan American Institute of Geography and History; (xxix) Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation; (xxx) Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia; (xxxi) Regional Cooperation Council; (xxxii) Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century; (xxxiii) Science and Technology Center in Ukraine; (xxxiv) Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme; and (xxxv) Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. (b) United Nations (UN) Organizations: (i) Department of Economic and Social Affairs; (ii) UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) — Economic Commission for Africa; (iii) ECOSOC — Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; (iv) ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific; (v) ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; (vi) International Law Commission; (vii) International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals; (viii) International Trade Centre; (ix) Office of the Special Adviser on Africa; (x) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict; (xi) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict; (xii) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children; (xiii) Peacebuilding Commission; (xiv) Peacebuilding Fund; (xv) Permanent Forum on People of African Descent; (xvi) UN Alliance of Civilizations; (xvii) UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries; (xviii) UN Conference on Trade and Development; (xix) UN Democracy Fund; (xx) UN Energy; (xxi) UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; (xxii) UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; (xxiii) UN Human Settlements Programme; (xxiv) UN Institute for Training and Research; (xxv) UN Oceans; (xxvi) UN Population Fund; (xxvii) UN Register of Conventional Arms; (xxviii) UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination; (xxix) UN System Staff College; (xxx) UN Water; and (xxxi) UN University. Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Trump’s withdrawal from the world’s bedrock climate treaty marks “a new low and yet another sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation.” “Withdrawal from the global climate convention will only serve to further isolate the United States and diminish its standing in the world following a spate of deplorable actions that have already sent our nation’s credibility plummeting, jeopardized ties with some of our closest historical allies, and made the world far more unsafe,” said Cleetus. “This administration remains cruelly indifferent to the unassailable facts on climate while pandering to fossil fuel polluters.” This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Jake Johnson.
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By Alefiya Presswala Editor’s Note: This is the first of two Dispatches on AI data centers, with a second article, by Ella Mrofka, to be published in January 2026. There are more than 5,400 data centers in the United States, accounting for nearly 50 pe...
By Alefiya Presswala Editor’s Note: This is the first of two Dispatches on AI data centers, with a second article, by Ella Mrofka, to be published in January 2026. There are more than 5,400 data centers in the United States, accounting for nearly 50 percent of the world’s estimated 11,000–12,000… The post Communities Push Back Against AI Data Center Expansion appeared first on Project Censored. This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.
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Top U.S. & World Headlines — January 8, 2026
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that we, meaning those who glorify the western world, were at “The End of History and the Last Man,” and that “the rise of Western liberal democracy marked the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution,” meaning that Western style “democracy is the final form of government for all nations,” motivated the […] The post Fukayama’s Misstep first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that we, meaning those who glorify the western world, were at “The End of History and the Last Man,” and that “the rise of Western liberal democracy marked the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution,” meaning that Western style “democracy is the final form of government for all nations,” motivated the Western world to rest comfortably and applaud its accomplishment in determining the final course of history. The pundits of the Western world failed to recognize that they, as victors, wrote the history, and the history they were writing did not correspond with the history that was occurring. As of Jan 1, 2026, the world has not demonstrated a trend toward democracy. Population Reviews’ <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/ec893250-5b53-4350-8324-5e7a87ea0d4b?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/ec893250-5b53-4350-8324-5e7a87ea0d4b?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw2InUNKvTsWt1MU0FHRe-4N">Democracy Ranking by Country 2025depicts the trend. Full Democracy: 25 countries Flawed Democracy: 50 countries Hybrid democracy: 33 countries Totalitarian: 47 countries The emergence of the most autocratic administration in the world’s most promoted democracy, the Donald Trump administration in the American government, has thrown the U.S. into despair and the world into confusion. Despite never being recognized as a bottoms-up democracy, where grassroots filters wants and desires to upper echelons of power, and having operated as a top-down democracy, where echelons of power convince the masses that constant wars and severe economic disparities are good for the nation, and, in times of danger, political repression is a necessary “dark deed” to assure survival (Ed: of the oligarchy), Americans felt protected by two words ─ checks and balances. The “checks and balances” in the American democracy has the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial departments oversee and regulate one another, and guarantees no department gains absolute authority or violates the Constitution, its Bill of rights, and its 27 amendments. The guarantees, which provided U.S. citizens with a feeling that no person or agency could limit their democratic privileges, has weakened. The three government departments show indeterminate understanding of the other departments’ authority and operate, more and more, as if each is an unrelated agency in the federal government. Without sufficient checks and balances, Americans see a void in Executive restraint, for which there is no rescue. Complaints that liberal governments pursued agendas that violated the rights of a majority led a coalition of white nationalists to seek and gain power, only to find their constitution shredded, their agendas corrupted by a small clique of “one” and a large clique of sycophants, and their moral compass pointed to scheming corruption. Their desire to have America isolated from the wars that raged across continents finds Trump’s America supporting Putin’s war, Israel’s genocide, and a revival of the Monroe Doctrine. Suppression of dissenting views, previously imposed on those who expressed “radical” views, have expanded to include those who contest Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and have reached the <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f2bfd401-8316-449d-9078-6c7553056411?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f2bfd401-8316-449d-9078-6c7553056411?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw0nZWgr-oOMepuMtM-tVJyB">conflicting arguments of the white nationalists who supported Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency. MASA (Make America Sane Again) is terrified and MAGA (Make America Great Again) feels betrayed. Fear that the Statue of Liberty will be replaced by a Statue of Donald Trump and the words liberty, freedom, and democracy will be words reserved for speeches and no longer characterize the land of shining shores has gripped the American public. It was always there — the fragility of American democracy and, despite 27 amendments, an incapacity to protect the fragile democracy from totalitarian predators. Several presidents ignored Federal laws, restricted civil liberties, pardoned the unpardonable, surrounded themselves with family and sycophants, or allowed corruption. President Trump has done it all in one year, and in spades. He has capitalized on democracy weakness and citizen complacency to end the distorted history of the United States of America as the world’s democratic beacon and begun a new history of the United States as the world’s savior of money interests, might dictates right, and Judeo-Christian dominance. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, serve as the models for Trump’s flirtation with autocracy. Toss in touches of the self-serving, gun toting, and devious practices of former Uganda leader Idi Amin and former Dominican Republic dictator, Rafael Trujillo, and we have a more complete picture of how the ego tripping, corrupt, revengeful, lying, cheating, and deceitful Donald Trump can be characterized. Yasser Arafat complained that Netanyahu always answered his requests with a “no,” citing national security risks. Trump uses the same words when his edicts are challenged. The Department of Interior announced Monday that it was pausing all large-scale offshore wind leases immediately in response to “national security risks” identified by the Department of War. Israel’s press releases always used the word “terrorist” with antagonists Hamas and Hezbollah. The Trump administration designated Cartel de los Soles, which it claims is headed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a foreign terrorist organization as the Trump administration indicates it could launch a military attack inside Venezuela’s borders. The sycophancy, corruption, revenge attacks on opponents, and restrictions of civil liberties engineered by Trump resemble the same method of operation alleged to his “good friend,” Vladimir Putin. Individual U.S. administrations exhibited either excessive Executive department cronyism, (<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/1ea757c7-6a51-4b0c-a6a6-bf2b87280268?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/1ea757c7-6a51-4b0c-a6a6-bf2b87280268?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw36X91W_ZZq8loqKv5OqvGE">Andrew Jackson spoils system), severe violations of the constitution (<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/cddb41b9-f2a1-49cf-86cc-c10a18be12e1?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/cddb41b9-f2a1-49cf-86cc-c10a18be12e1?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw19Ov1uOgTf6Db3InWvDcAd">Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have violated the U.S. Constitution by suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and arresting individuals without charge, including political opponents and journalists), or suppressed dissent (<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/719afa88-5804-4908-ac1b-7fd841b44ff2?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/719afa88-5804-4908-ac1b-7fd841b44ff2?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw20siSQSrHx1A7a-GF6mQ2u">Woodrow Wilson’s Attorney General Palmer raids against radicals<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/719afa88-5804-4908-ac1b-7fd841b44ff2?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/719afa88-5804-4908-ac1b-7fd841b44ff2?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw20siSQSrHx1A7a-GF6mQ2u">). Trump’s administrations are accused of being guilty of all of these transgressions on American life. Previous presidents have witnessed associates using the executive office for their personal gain and committing corruption but no president, until Trump, has been cited as benefitting excessively from corruption. NBC reports, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/7821a75c-738b-4733-959e-99ce3f87609d?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/7821a75c-738b-4733-959e-99ce3f87609d?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw2R_99aDilVvhMshOWAmoYE">Crypto coin, cellphones, real estate: Trump uses power of his office to reap profits for family businesses. If one theme has emerged in President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s this: He’s leveraged the power of his office for personal gain unlike anyone before in history. From crypto coins to bibles, overseas development deals to an upcoming line of cellphones, Trump family businesses have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars since his election, an unprecedented flood of often shadowy money from billionaires, foreign governments and cryptocurrency tycoons with interests before the federal government. The U.S. democratic political system has had its challenges, waded through them, and survived. A segment of society claims that the democracy designation is only an appearance, that the U.S. democracy is a disguised oligarchy whose democratic values appease the citizenry and never change the controlling mechanisms. They can now point to the Republican Party’s nominations of Donald Trump, where Party success was more important than adhering to democratic values and to his elections, where pluralistic America became adversarial America and show that democracy failed to politically educate and provide sufficient knowledge for citizens to make rational electoral choices. Regardless of the beliefs, the Trump administration, which still has three years to meddle with the constitution, has introduced and continues introducing, changes to the political system that should alarm every American. Reorganizing and dismantling of government agencies. The Executive department exercises jurisdiction of the cabinet agencies, which are often bloated and commanded by political hacks. They needed an overhaul but not a bludgeoning that Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) performed. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled lower courts and “granted the president an unparalleled ability to reorganize—or even dismantle—federal agencies.” This seems to violate Congressional oversight by the United States Congress over the executive branch. “Congressional oversight includes the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation. These [activities]include authorization, appropriations, investigative, and legislative hearings by standing committees; which is specialized investigations by select committees; and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff.“ Regulating Colleges Trump has threatened to remove tax-exempt status and cut research funding unless several colleges follow his recommended changes to their hiring, admissions practices, and curriculum. Dominating cultural institutions. Maybe the Kennedy Center needed a makeover; it did not need a takeover that disparaged Kennedy and exalted Trump. Sheldon Whitehouse, top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works (EPW) committee, launched a formal investigation into allegations of widespread cronyism, financial mismanagement, and corruption at Trump’s Kennedy Center. Democrats on the committee said they obtained documents that suggest the national cultural center is being operated as a “slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies”, resulting in millions of dollars in losses and a significant deviation from its statutory mission. A central charge is that the Kennedy Center is providing preferential access and financial benefits to organizations connected to the Trump administration and its allies. In one contract, [interim president Richard ] Grenell granted world football’s governing body, Fifa, free and exclusive use of the entire Kennedy Center campus from 24 November to 12 December for the World Cup draw. Estimates provided by Whitehouse show this will cost the Center $5,038,444 in losses from direct rental fees, programming rescheduling, labor, food and beverage and other services. Multiple events were cancelled or rescheduled to accommodate Fifa. Cancelling States rights The Tenth Amendment to the constitution says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Trump intends to change that and coerce states to follow his authority. From the New York Times, Dec. 31, 2025. Miffed at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and furious at its refusal to free Tina Peters, a convicted election denier and ardent Trump supporter, Mr. Trump has opened an assault against the Democratic-run state. His administration has cut off transportation money, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a leading climate and weather research center and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires. After House and Senate voice votes (quasi unanimous) passed Bill H.R. 131, which aimed to finish a water pipeline under construction to provide municipal and industrial water to communities in southeastern Colorado, Trump vetoed the Resolution, arguing that “the bill would extend the repayment period and reduce interest rates, which he viewed as continuing ‘failed policies’ that burden taxpayers.” Trump’s vengeance overrides care for the Coloradoan people. Manipulating Social media During Joe Biden’s administration, Congress cited national security concerns, and passed a law to ban the TikTok app, unless its control was sold to an American consortium. Set to go into effect on 20 January 2025, Trump halted the ban while his administration worked out a deal to transfer ownership. The final arrangement has Oracle (database management services), Silver Lake (investment firm), and MGX (Abu Dhabi‐linked investment firm) with a majority stake (~45 percent) in TikTok’s U.S. operations. The arrangement resolves the dubious “national security concerns” and presents another concern ─ billionaire Oracle executive chairperson and ardent Israel supporter, Larry Ellison, might have TikTok prevent Israel critics and Palestine supporters from airing opinions.The usual suspects, ever fearful that the U.S. public learns the truth of Israel’s genocidal pursuits, have targeted TikTop as a “tool of dangerous influence inciting violence against Israelis Palestinians,” and a “platform pushing pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine content.” Nothing said that <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/8309b962-564b-458e-9cf9-affb488c4b5c?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/8309b962-564b-458e-9cf9-affb488c4b5c?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw1YATIBdBWd3kEFM0Z0dmks">Israeli Defense Force actively recruits influencers on TikTok and other social media platforms.” In 2017, Ellison donated $16.6 million, to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, the largest donation in the organization’s history. In 2019, Palestinians and Palestinian Americans filed a $1 billion lawsuit against several Israel supporters, including Ellison, which accused them of “conspiring to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israeli-occupied territories, committing war crimes, and funding genocide.” The case was dismissed in February 2024. Although Oracle has only a 15 percent ownership of TikTok, Larry Ellison’s participation in its operations give Israel’s supporters hope that Palestinian expression will be censored. Turning armed forces into personal militias On September 30, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited top military brass to a meeting at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Some military observers criticized the meeting as “a waste of resources, arguing it did not address pressing issues like military strategy or acquisition reform.”Instead, Hegseth informed senior military officials that “The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies … but if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign.” Trump, before the meeting is quoted as saying, “I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m gonna fire them right on the spot.” In a rambling 74 minute speech, “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” The military has been told not to question “rules of engagement,” and the effect is immediate ─ murder on the high seas. U.S. strikes on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific ocean have killed more than 115 people since September. Not answered is why the boats are not stopped, the cargo examined and seized, the occupants interrogated and allowed to live and receive trial. Could they be people fleeing Venezuela and carrying contraband to subsidize their lives on a Caribbean Island beach, and do not have the USA as a destination? Targeting “drug boats” escalated into seizing oil tankers, bombing a port in Venezuela, bombing Venezuela military facilities, seizing Venezuela’s president and first lady, and offering them to New York city courts. None of these actions are related to defense of the American mainland; the U.S. military is now a “hit squad” for Trump and his cronies on land and at sea, and that includes the U.S. mainland. American law allows the president to call National Guard troops from any state into service if the US is “invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation,” or “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the US government. Trump has ordered National Guard troops into several cities and from his Quantico speech, hopes to use U.S. military troops for the same purpose. Is Trump testing the law and the military, learning if either can implement a future martial law that he might want after severe resistance to his complete domination of the American political system occurs? Compromising Rule of Law All of the previous maneuvers by Donald Trump contain compromises with the “Rule of Law,“ a principle that all individuals and institutions are accountable to the law, which must be clear, public, and applied equally.” Trump’s pardons of convicted criminals and use of the nation’s highest office to enrich his family and friends evades the law and selects individuals who are allowed to evade the laws. He has brought compromises of the Rule of Law to its highest level Pardons have been granted to individuals with connections to Trump and bypassed the traditional review processes. In less than one year, he has granted clemency to almost 1,600 individuals. These include about 1500, convicted by courts for their participation in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Luminaries, convicted of white collar crime include: Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor and Trump’s dirty tricks ally. Scott Howard Jenkins, convicted of accepting cash bribes and bribes in the form of campaign contributions. Trump accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Department of Justice against political opponents by unfairly prosecuting and denying Jenkins, an ardent Trump supporter, a fair trial. Glen Casada, involved in conspiracy and fraud. Trump claimed the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden had “significantly over-prosecuted individuals for a minor issue involving constituent mailers.” Changpeng Zhao, former CEO of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency platform, convicted of anti-money laundering violations. Zhao ‘s pardon allows Binance to apply for licenses and forge other commercial partnerships made difficult by states that revoked money-transmitter licenses from the company’s U.S. affiliate, Binance.US. Zhao’s company assisted in business dealings that benefitted World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture run by Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr. Trump claimed he knew “nothing about the guy.” George Santos, former U.S. representative, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity-theft charges, and admitted to using campaign funds to buy luxury products and pay off his credit card debt. Slated to be the next Attorney General. Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Honduras, convicted on drug-trafficking and firearms charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison for helping cocaine traffickers move hundreds of tons of narcotics into the U.S. Rumored to be appointed head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Todd and Julie Chrisley, reality TV stars from “Chrisley Knows Best,” convicted in a scheme to swindle banks out of tens of millions of dollars. Next Federal Reserve Commissioners. Put it all together and we have Trump replacing the penal system. He doesn’t determine who gets convicted or acquitted; he determines who serves the sentencing. Commit a crime. No problem. Snuggle up to Trump and the crime brings no time. Each day, Donald Trump behaves similar to Louis IV, who is quoted as saying, “Le loi, c’est moi,” or, “The law is me.” A previously mentioned <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/7821a75c-738b-4733-959e-99ce3f87609d?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/7821a75c-738b-4733-959e-99ce3f87609d?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw2R_99aDilVvhMshOWAmoYE">NBC report, described how Trump uses power of his office to reap profits for family businesses. <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6ff5de98-ca8c-45e5-ba4b-6e6f495cdde6?j=eyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/6ff5de98-ca8c-45e5-ba4b-6e6f495cdde6?j%3DeyJ1Ijoiam4wMmoifQ.PaddeBtKle9joHJvDN3ueADzsKO9yeCM5BKLmMw0ldw&source=gmail&ust=1767922280321000&usg=AOvVaw37VaVxurwnBflGd1PuLeG4">The Atlantic also summarizes the unlawful corruption of the former and present Trump administrations. Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months. Its brazenness, volume, and variety defy historical comparison, even in a country with a centuries-long history of grift—including, notably, Trump’s first four years in office. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of his first—foreign regimes staying at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C.; the (aborted) plan to host the G7 at Trump’s hotel in Florida—seem quaint. Foreign regimes are beginning to see just how far their money can go in Trump’s America. The highest bidder has never had so much to gain. In less than one year, Trump has dimmed the Statue of Liberty torch and made the Lady weep. Feeling invincible after killing more than 40 people, including 33 Cubans, without loss of American life (who knows???), in the abduction of Nicholas Maduro, Trump will assuredly move ahead with his plan to incorporate Greenland in the U.S. defense perimeter and delight in turning a devastated Gaza into a Middle East Riviera playground. He will continue to demolish democratic institutions and attempt to perpetuate his criminal form of governance by a succession plan that favors his family and cronies. By denigrating democracy, Trump has served to alert the populace that American democracy is frail and weathered. Changing gun laws, which includes the second amendment, denying executive clemency, being able to indict sitting presidents, and refurbishing the holy trinity of government so they function more appropriately and achieve required checks and balances are only a small portion of the renovations needed for the decaying democracy. Regulation of a controlling media, Internet search engines, social media, and the crushing Artificial Intelligence so they assure information is accurate and not selective, and all voices are heard and dissent is not silenced, is a difficult challenge. Another constitutional convention will be appropriate, but a nation divided to the extent of contemporary USA will not be able to agree on the definition of “democracy.” Simplicius, an erudite and interesting scholar in the substack universe, predicts, It’s the law of the jungle now, might is right, and Trump has become a kind of ill-fated Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse figure, ushering in the new age of chaos just in time for the final arc of the Fourth Turning to transform the world into something unrecognizable. This is not altogether a bad thing. The old age is dying, and something new is being born; this is a natural process and should be welcomed, albeit with great caution and an emphasis on awareness. From my perspective, the United States is headed to becoming a more repressive state, engaging in civil strife, receiving international alienation, and suffering a resulting economic decline. And that is my optimistic view. The post Fukayama’s Misstep first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.
Trump Vows to “Indefinitely” Control Venezuela’s Oil as U.S. Seizes Two More Oil Tankers
U.S. forces have seized two more oil tankers with links to Venezuela, days after the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro along with his wife, making former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez the new leader of the country....
U.S. forces have seized two more oil tankers with links to Venezuela, days after the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro along with his wife, making former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez the new leader of the country. “This is a decapitation without regime change,” says Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez. “The political system in Venezuela remains intact.” In Caracas, former Venezuelan diplomat Carlos Ron says Maduro is a “prisoner of war” and that Venezuelans “are angry and are upset about this incursion from the United States.” This comes as the Trump administration has announced plans to control sales of Venezuela’s oil “indefinitely.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“Terror & Chaos”: Minneapolis Reeling After ICE Killing of Renee Nicole Good
We speak with two people who responded to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis Wednesday. Trump administration officials claim the agent acted in self-defense, but local officia...
We speak with two people who responded to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis Wednesday. Trump administration officials claim the agent acted in self-defense, but local officials, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, reject that claim. “This could happen to you in your city,” says Robin Wonsley, member of the Minneapolis City Council. “This happening here in Minneapolis sets a tone for this to play out in many other cities.” The shooting comes after the Trump administration deployed over 2,000 ICE agents to Minnesota. “This is not normal,” says Edwin Torres DeSantiago with the Immigrant Defense Network, which monitors ICE activity and has received thousands of requests from Minnesotans who want to volunteer as “constitutional observers” of ICE in Minneapolis. “We’ve been seeing people terrorized all over the state and all over the country under the guise of protection.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
ICE Agent Fatally Shoots 37-Year-Old Minneapolis Mother During Immigration Enforcement Raid, Mayor Tells ICE to “Get the Fuck Out of Minneapolis” as Trump Spreads Disinformation About Shooting, Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly to File Articles of Impeachment Against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, White House Plans “Indefinite” Control of Venezuela’s Oil Industry as U.S. Seizes More Tankers, Trump Invites President Gustavo Petro to White House After Threatening Attacks on Colombia, Trump Announces U.S. Withdrawal from Dozens of International Groups and U.N. Agencies, Drone Strike by Sudanese Paramilitary Group Kills 13, Including Children, Israeli Forces Kill Children and Civilians in Fresh Violations of Gaza Ceasefire, U.N. Rights Chief Decries “Apartheid” in Occupied West Bank as Israel Approves New Settlements, Trump Calls for Increasing U.S. Military Spending to $1.5 Trillion, House Oversight Committee to Subpoena Billionaire Les Wexner over Epstein Ties
ICE Agent Fatally Shoots 37-Year-Old Minneapolis Mother During Immigration Enforcement Raid Mayor Tells ICE to "Get the Fuck Out of Minneapolis" as Trump Spreads Disinformation About Shooting Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly to File Articles of Impeachment Against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem White House Plans "Indefinite" Control of Venezuela's Oil Industry as U.S. Seizes More Tankers Trump Invites President Gustavo Petro to White House After Threatening Attacks on Colombia Trump Announces U.S. Withdrawal from Dozens of International Groups and U.N. Agencies Drone Strike by Sudanese Paramilitary Group Kills 13, Including Children Israeli Forces Kill Children and Civilians in Fresh Violations of Gaza Ceasefire U.N. Rights Chief Decries "Apartheid" in Occupied West Bank as Israel Approves New Settlements Trump Calls for Increasing U.S. Military Spending to $1.5 Trillion House Oversight Committee to Subpoena Billionaire Les Wexner over Epstein Ties This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! Thursday, January 8, 2026
Democracy Now! Thursday, January 8, 2026 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
350.org on the US withdrawal from the UNFCCC & other international bodies
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from 66 international organizations, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1992 treaty that underpins all global climate cooperation,...
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from 66 international organizations, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1992 treaty that underpins all global climate cooperation, and the global scientific authority Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). President Trump <a href="https://email.cisionone.cision.com/c/eJxkjcHO2yAQhJ8G3zYCjAEffPgvfo0Is0tMG5sUNrHap69s9VL9x5nR9w1O2kcjO5qUs85bo5Tq1ikMaUH0aBejpOxlIq1G64wKKXmjbZcnOw7JOS2xRxrvSsUkvZJO614Y2TLSz_wLtpCfVBsMg_Xeu4gJ4jB-zO0cuue0Mr-a6L-EnoWej-O4HWtmWsu70e1RPkLPKUSGthJxE3rWUluhZ6n-W-BV6bzcGbDs4YnwA7i-txccmVes4WjAK8F7z0wIjQNTg1TLBnlnqnvgfHJQ6iPs-c8VTyQwhEoQy8411N_A5fJcEDVuUNJ3sdBztxHmAJWeFBpBxukq7v8K0X9p6fVoujqFHSsFYWQs21ausLVbqY-ucSXaTrg3ypCNDowhB0YnBL9ghGVxPaE1KTjZfSb9NwAA__8l4Jiw" rel="noopener noreferrer" >said that these organizations promote “radical climate policies” and global governance that “no longer serve American interests.” While President Trump claims American taxpayers have spent billions with "little return" on global treaties and organizations, the UNFCCC's Paris Agreement alone has reduced <a href="https://email.cisionone.cision.com/c/eJwsjUvOGyEQhE8Du_7FoweYBQtv5hpWAz0elHk4gB3l9pGtLOsrVX0lmpBRSY7aOx8caq3lFq322tt5Degmnx3qwsiJFemQUipJ1ujmafXeqGILz3et86qCVt4YK1D1WvhX_Q0H1Z1bh2lyIQSfywp5mt_48ynkHrcxnl3YmzCLMEve60GD6aT976i5_1ztIczyfKW9Zhr1Orswy5-NBmzUYWwMT2q1Az0a88HngHKdDOvV4NXlwaUSNN6ZOkMt8Qvu_4GwN6OCmVG2SGdpTAJVvo7j-obja5d9fJ4_Y4sa2WUPiOwBzVogpJIhJW-5OFzJK_mO5l8AAAD__5kBa4I" rel="noopener noreferrer" >projected warming by 2100 from 3.6°C to 2.7°C because of international climate cooperation. This week’s anniversary of the <a href="https://email.cisionone.cision.com/c/eJxkUL1u3DAMfhp540GmZMs3eDhccMjQdukDBLRJx0ItOZXUXG_psxc2nGboIuL7-P0I5B670epK-tq1rmttXdfV3LfCtXG21WcSHKyzgxmwaRuacNBEXPm-PTeTc6jZsJxf6nqcdFdrh2iU1dmz_PA_IZBfJGVomrbrOjfyBGNzfrenbVEt_VzKW1bmovCm8CaUynxa06vC27yWIgk4eUlAkSGsSWBaKAQaFoEod8jlFz9g8pEzjIsPVATGmeKrwNtCD2EgSOsi4CMsBJNPkvcmo8zljzKXIr-LMk8K3fNep7DB6_bop633E1LkfX5dkyi8frns6OY39KH5Jvd9ft9-dewjZ4XtUfO8lk81p8f_8XcfD-u4RvbFrzErvNJOxSM__8ufKX-IJ5-C8KkKwp4gySKUBTz3O_FyEMpcUHd4tlXqKXISUlaPawjrDkLejl_lkkTCZja2ttKODqwVBxYnhm7gEYbBGeHWTuR09d7j3wAAAP__5HexkA" rel="noopener noreferrer" >climate-fueled LA wildfires, which displaced 100,000 Americans from their homes, should also serve as a reminder to the US President of what climate chaos means for its own citizens. Savio Carvalho, 350.org Managing Director for Campaigns and Networks said: "The US is shooting itself in the foot by becoming the only country in the world unwilling to participate in humanity's great race to save the planet and future generations. Renewable energy is fast reshaping the global economy. Walking away from the UNFCCC in a desperate attempt to cling to a dying fossil fuel era won’t bring economic strength, but weakness and isolation. This won’t stop us from rising up to demand that the US, the world's largest historical emitter, fulfills its moral duty to cut its emissions and support climate-vulnerable nations. It won’t stop the more than 80 countries who showed us at COP30 that they are determined to chart a roadmap for a fossil-free future. President Trump cannot stop the global momentum towards clean energy and climate justice–but he is ensuring that the US loses out on billions in global climate investments and surrenders its standing as a global leader, as more businesses, governments, and frontline communities build the clean energy economy of the future.” Fenton Lutunatabua, 350.org Program Manager Pacific & Caribbean said: "Global climate cooperation should not be at the mercy of the US government's decisions, and we continue to look to our own people for true climate leadership. Despite rich nations stalling action, the Pacific has consistently championed an end to climate-destroying fossil fuels, and led the world to the historic climate ruling at the International Court of Justice. Now is not the time other high-polluting nations to be shirking their climate responsibilities, like the US. While those in power seek to tear the global community apart, it is more important than ever that we remain united in our fight to secure a safe and livable future for our children." Masayoshi Iyoda, 350.org Japan Campaigner said: “US President Trump has crossed a line that we absolutely need to hold–not just to protect the planet, but the people, including Japanese citizens still reeling from last year’s heatwaves. But while this delivers another blow to global climate cooperation, the fact that no other country has yet followed the US’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement shows that this unpopular move will not gain traction. We urge the Japanese government to exert diplomatic efforts to urge Trump to remain part of the global climate regime. This should not be used as an excuse for Japan’s own inaction on climate. We call on Prime Minister Takaichi to clearly state that Japan remains committed to the UNFCCC process, and will accelerate a fast and fair transition away from fossil fuels.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
In 2025, America suffered a billion-dollar disaster every 10 days
A new analysis finds that in 2025, major catastrophes took 276 lives and caused $115 billion in damages. It could have been much worse.
Last year began with the costliest wildfires in American history, as a series of blazes tore across Los Angeles for nearly all of January. A parade of other catastrophes followed: severe storms across the southern and northeastern United States, tornadoes in the central states, drought and heatwaves through the western expanse of the country. All told, the U.S. notched 23 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2025, which claimed 276 lives and caused $115 billion in damages, according to a new analysis from the research group Climate Central. Only 2023 and 2024 recorded more of these events, and 2025 was the 15th consecutive year with an above-average number. (Since 1980, the annual average has been nine events costing $67.6 billion. In that time, the country tallied 426 total billion-dollar disasters, costing more than $3.1 trillion.) Last year was the ninth most expensive on record for billion-dollar disasters. The clear signal here is climate change: It’s worsening wildfires, causing heavier rainfall and flooding, and supercharging hurricanes. In the 1980s, billion-dollar disasters happened on average every 82 days, according to the analysis, but over the last decade that window has tightened to just 16 days. In 2025, Americans endured one of these events every 10 days on average — an almost nonstop cavalcade of suffering. Last May, the Trump administration announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would no longer update the federal government’s own billion-dollar disaster database, to the alarm of experts who call it an essential tool for determining risk and adapting to climate change. In October, Climate Central revived that database, hence its release of these figures for 2025. “The continuation of this dataset, like other datasets, is important because it helps demonstrate the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events,” said Adam Smith, senior climate impacts scientist with the organization, who’s leading the program and was formerly the lead scientist for NOAA’s version. That, in turn, can give policymakers and the general public more information for “a more enhanced decision-making process, as we try to learn from these events and rebuild after these extremes that we know will continue into the future.” At $61.2 billion in damages, the Los Angeles fires accounted for more than half of the losses from the 23 total events in 2025, according to the analysis. That outbreak brought a public health crisis that’s harder to calculate: Hundreds of people likely died from inhaling smoke, even if they were many miles away from the flames. Wildfire smoke already exacerbates conditions like heart disease and cardiovascular disease, but this smoke was especially toxic because the fires were chewing through houses and cars, melting plastic and metal. For the folks who survived inhaling the smoke but nonetheless experienced complications, medical costs add yet more to that $61.2 billion that Climate Central reported. Add still more when you factor in the trauma of surviving such a disaster, and the associated mental health costs. “Even though we have a very robust, comprehensive estimate based on the data that’s available, it’s still conservative with respect to what is truly lost, but cannot be completely measured,” Smith said. Elsewhere across the U.S., communities struggled with unruly weather: hail events in Texas and Colorado, and severe storms all across the South and Northeast. (Of the 23 events, 21 were related to tornadoes, hail, or high wind events. When considering only severe storms, 2025 was the second most costly year for billion-dollar disasters, after 2023.) Generally speaking, the warmer the atmosphere, the more moisture it can hold and then dump as rain. In addition, the Gulf of Mexico was extra-hot in 2025, which added still more moisture to storms that marched across southern states. (Scientists are still working out how climate change might be influencing tornadoes, like the six separate billion-dollar outbreaks that struck the U.S. in 2025.) In addition to climate change making weather and wildfires more catastrophic, human factors are adding to the growing costs of billion-dollar disasters. In the West, for example, communities have been expanding into the “wildland urban interface,” where structures butt up against forests. So there’s more to burn, while at the same time climate change is amplifying the blazes. “You’re supercharging some of the ingredients that when they’re aligned in a certain way — with the dryness of the fuels and the near hurricane-force winds, and then, of course, some ignition source — it’s literally impossible to stop,” Smith said. But if climate change is worsening disasters, why didn’t 2025 see more billion-dollar events than the two years before it? And why was it the ninth most expensive, not the first? That’s largely because for the first time in a decade, no hurricane made landfall in the U.S. last year, thanks to an atmospheric quirk above the southeastern states that created a sort of force field that bounced storms back out to sea. That was fortunate — both for human lives and economic losses — because hurricanes tend to be the costliest of weather and climate extremes. “If you talk about major hurricanes making landfall, you can easily approach or exceed $100 billion,” Smith said. “The $115 billion could have been $215 billion.” Although the U.S. got lucky, the hurricane season was still extreme. Only five Atlantic hurricanes spun up, but four of them — or 80 percent — reached major strength, while in a typical year it’s 40 percent. In addition, 2025 was the second year to have produced three or more Category 5 storms, at least in recorded history. That’s where climate change comes in: It’s boosting hurricanes by warming up the ocean waters the storms use for fuel. And indeed in 2025 those temperatures reached record highs: Hurricane Melissa, which ravaged the Caribbean, fed on waters made hundreds of times more likely by climate change, which increased wind speeds by 11 mph and extreme rainfall by 16 percent. All that oceanic fuel helped the storm undergo “extreme rapid intensification,” its maximum sustained wind speeds jumping from 70 to 140 mph in 18 hours. So just because no hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. last year, doesn’t mean that the storms won’t get more powerful from here. To prepare, Smith said that Climate Central will be improving the billion-dollar disaster database, for example reexamining historic data to dig more deeply into individual events like wildfires. “By this time next year,” Smith said, “if we’re having a conversation, I think that it’ll be even a much more useful and helpful data resource.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In 2025, America suffered a billion-dollar disaster every 10 days on Jan 8, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Matt Simon.
The post “We’re Too Close to the Debris” appeared first on ProPublica.
This story works best on ProPublica’s website. Delta Airlines Flight 573 took off from San Juan, Puerto Rico, at 4:45 p.m. Eastern time on Jan. 16, 2025, and headed for Atlanta. At 5:49 p.m., air traffic controllers told pilots over the Caribbean that a SpaceX Starship rocket had exploded. All planes were ordered to avoid an area where the Federal Aviation Administration estimated debris would fall. The plane turned sharply south to get out of the debris zone. And it wasn’t alone. ProPublica identified 20 other planes that appeared to make sudden turns to exit or avoid the danger zone in the minutes after the explosion. While none of the planes were damaged by the debris, such emergency maneuvering can be risky. The airspace remained closed for 86 minutes, during which time flight patterns show dozens of other planes likely had to change course — making pilots and passengers unwitting participants in SpaceX’s test of the most powerful rocket ever built. When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk chose a remote Texas outpost on the Gulf Coast to develop his company’s ambitious Starship, he put the 400-foot rocket on a collision course with the commercial airline industry. Each time SpaceX did a test run of Starship and its booster, dubbed Super Heavy, the megarocket’s flight path would take it soaring over busy Caribbean airspace before it reached the relative safety of the open Atlantic Ocean. The company planned as many as five such launches a year as it perfected the craft, a version of which is supposed to one day land on the moon. The FAA, which also oversees commercial space launches, predicted the impact to the national airspace would be “minor or minimal,” akin to a weather event, the agency’s 2022 approval shows. No airport would need to close and no airplane would be denied access for “an extended period of time.” But the reality has been far different. Last year, three of Starship’s five launches exploded at unexpected points on their flight paths, twice raining flaming debris over congested commercial airways and disrupting flights. And while no aircraft collided with rocket parts, pilots were forced to scramble for safety. A ProPublica investigation, based on agency documents, interviews with pilots and passengers, air traffic control recordings and photos and videos of the events, found that by authorizing SpaceX to test its experimental rocket over busy airspace, the FAA accepted the inherent risk that the rocket might put airplane passengers in danger. And once the rocket failed spectacularly and that risk became real, neither the FAA nor Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy sought to revoke or suspend Starship’s license to launch, a move that is permitted when “necessary to protect the public health and safety.” Instead, the FAA allowed SpaceX to test even more prototypes over the same airspace, adding stress to the already-taxed air traffic control system each time it launched. The first two Starship explosions last year forced the FAA to make real-time calls on where to clear airspace and for how long. Such emergency closures came with little or no warning, ProPublica found, forcing pilots to suddenly upend their flight plans and change course in heavily trafficked airspace to get out of the way of falling debris. In one case, a plane with 283 people aboard ran low on fuel, prompting its pilot to declare an emergency and cross a designated debris zone to reach an airport. The world’s largest pilots union told the FAA in October that such events call into question whether “a suitable process” is in place to respond to unexpected rocket mishaps. “There is high potential for debris striking an aircraft resulting in devastating loss of the aircraft, flight crew, and passengers,” wrote Steve Jangelis, a pilot and aviation safety chair. The FAA said in response to questions that it “limits the number of aircraft exposed to the hazards, making the likelihood of a catastrophic event extremely improbable.” Yet for the public and the press, gauging that danger has been difficult. In fact, nearly a year after last January’s explosion, it remains unclear just how close Starship’s wreckage came to airplanes. SpaceX estimated where debris fell after each incident and reported that information to the federal government. But the company didn’t respond to ProPublica’s requests for that data, and the federal agencies that have seen it, including the FAA, haven’t released it. The agency told us that it was unaware of any other publicly available data on Starship debris. In public remarks, Musk downplayed the risk posed by Starship. To caption a video of flaming debris in January, he wrote, “Entertainment is guaranteed!” and, after the March explosion, he posted, “Rockets are hard.” The company has been more measured, saying it learns from mistakes, which “help us improve Starship’s reliability.” For airplanes traveling at high speeds, there is little margin for error. Research shows as little as 300 grams of debris — or two-thirds of a pound — “could catastrophically destroy an aircraft,” said Aaron Boley, a professor at the University of British Columbia who has studied the danger space objects pose to airplanes. Photographs of Starship pieces that washed up on beaches show items much bigger than that, including large, intact tanks. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="768" data-id="60247" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=768" alt="Small brown, blue and white pieces of plastic scattered along a beach." class="wp-image-60247" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, 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https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6172_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="768" data-id="60246" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=768" alt="A large metal tank wrapped in a plastic-like material by the water’s edge on a beach." class="wp-image-60246" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6173_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="768" data-id="60248" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=768" alt="Nine large metal tanks wrapped in a plastic-like material lined up on a beach." class="wp-image-60248" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_6174_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /> Debris washed up on a beach in Mexico following a SpaceX explosion. Courtesy of Jesus Elias Ibarra Rodriguez “It doesn’t actually take that much material to cause a major problem to an aircraft,” Boley said. In response to growing alarm over the rocket’s repeated failures, the FAA has expanded prelaunch airspace closures and offered pilots more warning of potential trouble spots. The agency said it also required SpaceX to conduct investigations into the incidents and to “implement numerous corrective actions to enhance public safety.” An FAA spokesperson referred ProPublica’s questions about what those corrective actions were to SpaceX, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Experts say the FAA’s shifting approach telegraphs a disquieting truth about air safety as private companies increasingly push to use the skies as their laboratories: Regulators are learning as they go. During last year’s Starship launches, the FAA was under pressure to fulfill a dual mandate: to regulate and promote the commercial space industry while keeping the flying public safe, ProPublica found. In his October letter, Jangelis called the arrangement “a direct conflict of interest.” In an interview, Kelvin Coleman, who was head of FAA’s commercial space office during the launches, said his office determined that the risk from the mishaps “was within the acceptable limits of our regulations.” But, he said, “as more launches are starting to take place, I think we have to take a real hard look at the tools that we have in place and how do we better integrate space launch into the airspace.” “We Need to Protect the Airspace” On Jan. 16, 2025, as SpaceX prepared to launch Starship 7 from Boca Chica, Texas, the government had to address the possibility the giant rocket would break up unexpectedly. Using debris modeling and simulations, the U.S. Space Force, the branch of the military that deals with the nation’s space interests, helped the FAA draw the contours of theoretical “debris response areas” — no-fly zones that could be activated if Starship exploded. With those plans in place, Starship Flight 7 lifted off at 5:37 p.m. EST. About seven minutes later, it achieved a notable feat: Its reusable booster rocket separated, flipped and returned to Earth, where giant mechanical arms caught it as SpaceX employees cheered. But about 90 seconds later, as Starship’s upper stage continued to climb, SpaceX lost contact with it. The craft caught fire and exploded, far above Earth’s surface. A pilot on a flight from Miami to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, recorded video of space debris visible from the cockpit while flying at 37,000 feet. Provided to ProPublica Air traffic control’s communications came alive with surprised pilots who saw the accident, some of whom took photos and shot videos of the flaming streaks in the sky: Pilot: I just got a major streak going for at least 60 miles, all these different colors. Just curious but — it looked like it was coming towards us, but obviously because of the distance …. Just letting you know. Controller: Can you, can you give an estimate on how far away it is? Another controller warned a different pilot of debris in the area: Controller: Due to a space vehicle mishap — a rocket launch that basically exploded between our airspace and Miami — I’m going to give you holding instructions because there was debris in the area, so I’m going to keep you away from it. Two FAA safety inspectors were in Boca Chica to watch the launch at SpaceX’s mission control, said Coleman, who, for Flight 7, was on his laptop in Washington, D.C., receiving updates. As wreckage descended rapidly toward airplanes’ flight paths over the Caribbean, the FAA activated a no-fly zone based on the vehicle’s last known position and prelaunch calculations. Air traffic controllers warned pilots to avoid the area, which stretched hundreds of miles over a ribbon of ocean roughly from the Bahamas to just east of St. Martin, covering portions of populated islands, including all of Turks and Caicos. While the U.S. controls some airspace in the region, it relies on other countries to cooperate when it recommends a closure. The FAA also cordoned off a triangular zone south of Key West. When a pilot asked when planes would be able to proceed through the area, a controller replied: Controller: The only information I got is that the rocket exploded so we need to protect the airspace, and Miami and Domingo stopped taking aircraft. There were at least 11 planes in the closed airspace when Starship exploded, and flight tracking data shows they hurried to move out of the way, clearing the area within 15 minutes. Such maneuvers aren’t without risk. “If many aircraft need to suddenly change their routing plans,” Boley said, “then it could cause additional stress” on an already taxed air traffic control system, “which can lead to errors.” That wasn’t the end of the disruption though. The FAA kept the debris response area, or DRA, active for another 71 minutes, leaving some flights in a holding pattern over the Caribbean. Several began running low on fuel and some informed air traffic controllers that they needed to land. “We haven’t got enough fuel to wait,” said one pilot for Iberia airlines who was en route from Madrid with 283 people on board. The controller warned him that if he proceeded across the closed airspace, it would be at his own risk: Controller: If you’re going to pass through the DRA, you guys’re going to need to declare an emergency. That’s what my supervisor — if you’re going to land at San Juan, you need to declare an emergency for fuel reasons, that’s what my supervisor just told me. Pilot: In that case, we declare emergency. Mayday mayday mayday. The plane landed safely in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Iberia did not respond to requests for comment, but in statements to ProPublica, other airlines downplayed the launch fallout. Delta, for example, said the incident “had minimal impact to our operation and no aircraft damage.” The company’s “safety management system and our safety culture help us address potential issues to reinforce that air transportation remains the safest form of travel in the world,” a spokesperson said. After the incident, some pilots registered concerns with the FAA, which was also considering a request from SpaceX to increase the number of annual Starship launches from five to 25. “Last night’s Space X rocket explosion, which caused the diversion of several flights operating over the Gulf of Mexico, was pretty eye opening and scary,” wrote Steve Kriese in comments to the FAA, saying he was a captain for a major airline and often flew over the Gulf. “I do not support the increase of rocket launches by Space X, until a thorough review can be conducted on the disaster that occurred last night, and safety measures can be put in place that keeps the flying public safe.” Kriese could not be reached for comment. The Air Line Pilots Association urged the FAA to suspend Starship testing until the root cause of the failure could be investigated and corrected. A letter from the group, which represents more than 80,000 pilots flying for 43 airlines, said flight crews traveling in the Caribbean didn’t know where planes might be at risk from rocket debris until after the explosion. “By that time, it’s much too late for crews who are flying in the vicinity of the rocket operation, to be able to make a decision for the safe outcome of the flight,” wrote Jangelis, the pilot and aviation safety chair for the group. The explosion, he said, “raises additional concerns about whether the FAA is providing adequate separation of space operations from airline flights.” In response, the FAA said it would “review existing processes and determine whether additional measures can be taken to improve situational awareness for flight crews prior to launch.” According to FAA documents, the explosion propelled Starship fragments across an area nearly the size of New Jersey. Debris landed on beaches and roadways in Turks and Caicos. It also damaged a car. No one was injured. Three months later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which was evaluating potential impacts to marine life, sent the FAA a report with a map of where debris from an explosion could fall during future Starship failures. The estimate, which incorporated SpaceX’s own data from the Starship 7 incident, depicted an area more than three times the size of the airspace closed by the FAA. In a statement, an FAA spokesperson said NOAA’s map was “intended to cover multiple potential operations,” while the FAA’s safety analysis is for a “single actual launch.” A NOAA spokesperson said that the map reflects “the general area where mishaps could occur” and is not directly comparable with the FAA’s no-fly zones. Nevertheless Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas, said the illustration suggested the no-fly zones the FAA activated may not fully capture how far and wide debris spreads after a rocket breakup. The current predictive science, he said, “carries significant uncertainty.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="642" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=1149" alt="A streak of light across the sky with a collection of bright dots at the right-hand end of it." class="wp-image-60344" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=300,168 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,429 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,572 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1536,858 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2048,1143 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,482 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,236 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,308 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,312 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,294 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,420 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,642 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-01-17T004848Z_867909317_RC2CBCAOQAXI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP-HAITI_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2000,1117 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Debris from the Jan. 16, 2025, Starship rocket explosion left a trail of fire and smoke visible from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Reuters/via Reuters TV At an industry conference a few weeks after the January explosion, Shana Diez, a SpaceX executive, acknowledged the FAA’s challenges in overseeing commercial launches. “The biggest thing that we really would like to work with them on in the future is improving their real time awareness of where the launch vehicles are and where the launch vehicles’ debris could end up,” she said. “We’re Too Close to the Debris” On Feb. 26 of last year, with the investigation into Starship Flight 7 still open, the FAA cleared Flight 8 to proceed, saying it “determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements.” The action was allowed under a practice that began during the first Trump administration, known as “expedited return-to-flight,” that permitted commercial space companies to launch again even before the investigation into a prior problematic flight was complete, as long as safety systems were working properly. Coleman, who took a voluntary separation offer last year, said that before granting approval, the FAA confirmed that “safety critical systems,” such as the rocket’s ability to self-destruct if it went off course, worked as designed during Flight 7. By March 6, SpaceX was ready to launch again. This time the FAA gave pilots a heads-up an hour and 40 minutes before liftoff. “In the event of a debris-generating space launch vehicle mishap, there is the potential for debris falling within an area,” the advisory said, again listing coordinates for two zones in the Gulf and Caribbean. The FAA said a prelaunch safety analysis, which includes planning for potential debris, “incorporates lessons learned from previous flights.” The zone described in the agency’s advisory for the Caribbean was wider and longer than the previous one, while the area over the Gulf was significantly expanded. Flight 8 launched at 6:30 p.m. EST and its booster returned to the launchpad as planned. But a little more than eight minutes into the flight, some of Starship’s engines cut out. The craft went into a spin and about 90 seconds later SpaceX lost touch with it and it exploded. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="762" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=1149" alt="A large rocket launches into the sky next to a tall metal tower. The area around the tower is filled with smoke and fire." class="wp-image-60348" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=300,199 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,509 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,679 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1536,1019 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2048,1359 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,572 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,280 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,366 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,370 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,350 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,499 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,762 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-03-07T115720Z_1050081002_RC2Z7DAZUA6H_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-STARSHIP_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2000,1327 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> SpaceX’s eighth Starship test launched from a launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, on March 6, 2025, before blowing up 90 miles above Earth. Joe Skipper/Reuters The FAA activated the no-fly zones less than two minutes later, using the same coordinates it had released prelaunch. Even with the advance warning, data shows at least five planes were in the debris zones at the time of the explosion, and they all cleared the airspace in a matter of minutes. A pilot on one of those planes, Frontier Flight 081, told passengers they could see the rocket explosion out the right-side windows. Dane Siler and Mariah Davenport, who were heading home to the Midwest after vacationing in the Dominican Republic, lifted the window shade and saw debris blazing across the sky, with one spot brighter than the rest. “It literally looked like the sun coming out,” Siler told ProPublica. “It was super bright.” They and other passengers shot videos, marveling at what looked like fireworks, the couple said. The Starship fragments appeared to be higher than the plane, many miles off. But before long, the pilot announced “I’m sorry to report that we have to turn around because we’re too close to the debris,” Siler said. Caption: Cellphone video from passengers aboard Frontier Flight 081 shows debris in the sky about a minute after the FAA alerted the flight crew to exit the debris zone on March 6, 2025. Flight data from OpenSky Network. Video courtesy of Dane Siler and Mariah Davenport. Frontier did not respond to requests for comment. The FAA lifted the restriction on planes flying through the debris zone about 30 minutes after Starship exploded, much sooner than it had in January. The agency said that the Space Force had “notified the FAA that all debris was down approximately 30 minutes after the Starship Flight 8 anomaly.” But in response to ProPublica’s questions, the Space Force acknowledged that it did not track the debris in real time. Instead, it said “computational modeling,” along with other scientific measures, allowed the agency to “predict and mitigate risks effectively.” The FAA said “the aircraft were not at risk” during the aftermath of Flight 8. Experts told ProPublica that the science underlying such modeling is far from settled, and the government’s ability to anticipate how debris will behave after an explosion like Starship’s is limited. “You’re not going to find anybody who’s going to be able to answer that question with any precision,” said John Crassidis, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Buffalo. “At best, you have an educated guess. At worst, it’s just a potshot.” Where pieces fall — and how long they take to land — depends on many factors, including atmospheric winds and the size, shape and type of material involved, experts said. During the breakup of Flight 7, the FAA kept airspace closed for roughly 86 minutes. However, Diez, the SpaceX executive, told attendees at the industry conference that, in fact, it had taken “hours” for all the debris to reach the ground. The FAA, SpaceX and Diez did not respond to follow-up questions about her remarks. It’s unclear how accurate the FAA’s debris projections were for the March explosion. The agency acknowledged that debris fell in the Bahamas, but it did not provide ProPublica the exact location, making it impossible to determine whether the wreckage landed where the FAA expected. While some of the country’s islands were within the boundaries of the designated debris zone, most were not. Calls and emails to Bahamas officials were not returned. The FAA said no injuries or serious property damage occurred. FAA Greenlights More Launches By May, after months of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashing spending and firing workers at federal agencies across Washington, the FAA granted SpaceX’s request to exponentially increase the number of Starship launches from Texas. Starship is key to “delivering greater access to space and enabling cost-effective delivery of cargo and people to the Moon and Mars,” the FAA found. The agency said it will make sure parties involved “are taking steps to ensure the safe, efficient, and equitable use” of national airspace. The U.S. is in a race to beat China to the lunar surface — a priority set by Trump’s first administration and continued under President Joe Biden. Supporters say the moon can be mined for resources like water and rare earth metals, and can offer a place to test new technologies. It could also serve as a stepping stone for more distant destinations, enabling Musk to achieve his longstanding goal of bringing humans to Mars. Trump pledged last January that the U.S. will “pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.” But with experimental launches like Starship’s, Jangelis said, the FAA should be “as conservative as possible” when managing the airspace below them. “We expect the FAA to make sure our aircraft and our passengers stay safe,” he said. “There has to be a balance between the for-profit space business and the for-profit airlines and commerce.” A More Conservative Approach <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="766" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=1149" alt="A man holds a little boy on his shoulders as they both look up at the sky. Behind them is a big group of people who are also looking up and taking pictures." class="wp-image-60349" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-05-28T011857Z_672923152_RC2OQEAQZ9FV_RTRMADP_3_SPACEX-STARSHIP-MUSK_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2000,1333 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Crowds flocked to South Padre Island, Texas, to watch Starship’s ninth test launch on May 27. Gabriel V. Cardenas/Reuters In mid-May, United Kingdom officials sent a letter to their U.S. counterparts, asking that SpaceX and the FAA change Starship’s flight path or take other precautions because they were worried about the safety of their Caribbean territories. The following day, the FAA announced in a news release that it had approved the next Starship launch, pending either the agency’s closure of the investigation into Flight 8 or granting of a “return to flight” determination. A week later, with the investigation into Flight 8 still open, the agency said SpaceX had “satisfactorily addressed” the causes of the mishap. The FAA did not detail what those causes were at the time but said it would verify that the company implemented all necessary “corrective actions.” This time the FAA was more aggressive on air safety. The agency preventively closed an extensive swath of airspace extending 1,600 nautical miles from the launch site, across the Gulf of Mexico and through part of the Caribbean. The FAA said that 175 flights or more could be affected, and it advised Turks and Caicos’ Providenciales International Airport to close during the launch. The FAA Closed a Heavily Trafficked Air Corridor Prior to Flight 9 Flight data from the day before Starship Flight 9’s launch shows just how busy the area around the FAA’s no-fly zone could be around the time of the launch. The FAA Closed a Heavily Trafficked Air Corridor Prior to Flight 9 Flight data from the day before Starship Flight 9’s launch shows just how busy the area around the FAA’s no-fly zone could be around the time of the launch. Note: ProPublica connected gaps in some flight paths to create continuous lines. Source: OpenSky Network The agency said the move was driven in part by an “updated flight safety analysis” and SpaceX’s decision to reuse a previously launched Super Heavy booster — something the company had never tried before. The agency also said it was “in close contact and collaboration with the United Kingdom, Turks & Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba.” Coleman told ProPublica that the concerns of the Caribbean countries, along with Starship’s prior failures, helped convince the FAA to close more airspace ahead of Flight 9. On May 27, the craft lifted off at 7:36 p.m. EDT, an hour later than in March and two hours later than in January. The FAA said it required the launch window to be scheduled during “non-peak transit periods.” This mission, too, ended in failure. Starship’s Super Heavy booster blew up over the Gulf of Mexico, where it was supposed to have made what’s called a “hard splashdown.” In response, the FAA again activated an emergency no-fly zone. Most aircraft had already been rerouted around the closed airspace, but the agency said it diverted one plane and put another in a holding pattern for 24 minutes. The FAA did not provide additional details on the flights. According to the agency, no debris fell outside the hazard area where the FAA had closed airspace. Pieces from the booster eventually washed up on Mexico’s beaches. Starship’s upper stage reached the highest planned point in its flight path, but it went into a spin on the way down, blowing up over the Indian Ocean. The Path Ahead <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="656" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?w=752" alt="A map of the southern United States and Mexico showing two potential no-fly zones for airplanes during future Starship launches. One zone stretches from south Texas through the Gulf of Mexico and moves northeast over a portion of Florida. The other stretches from south Texas and moves southeast through the Gulf and past Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. " class="wp-image-54598" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png 2182w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=300,171 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=768,439 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=1024,585 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=1536,877 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=2048,1169 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=863,493 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=422,241 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=552,315 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=558,319 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=527,301 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=752,429 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=1149,656 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/spacex-safety-data-faa-launch-map.png?resize=2000,1142 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> A map released by the FAA shows potential no-fly zones planned for future Starship launches that would cross over a portion of Florida. Air hazard areas — the AHAs on this map — are paths that would be cleared of air traffic before launches. Federal Aviation Administration SpaceX launched Starship again in August and October. Unlike the prior flights, both went off without incident, and the company said it was turning its focus to the next generation of Starship to provide “service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.” But about a week later, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he would open up SpaceX’s multibillion-dollar contract for a crewed lunar lander to rival companies. SpaceX is “an amazing company,” he said on CNBC. “The problem is, they’re behind.” Musk pushed back, saying on X that “SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry.” He insulted Duffy, calling him “Sean Dummy” and saying “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.” The Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment or make Duffy available. In a web post on Oct. 30, SpaceX said it was proposing “a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations” that would “result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.” SpaceX is now seeking FAA approval to add new trajectories as Starship strives to reach orbit. Under the plan, the rocket would fly over land in Florida and Mexico, as well as the airspace of Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, likely disrupting hundreds of flights. In its letter, the pilots’ union told the FAA that testing Starship “over a densely populated area should not be allowed (given the dubious failure record)” until the craft becomes more reliable. The planned air closures could prove “crippling” for the Central Florida aviation network, it added. Still, SpaceX is undeterred. Diez, the company executive, said on X in October, “We are putting in the work to make 2026 an epic year for Starship.” How We Analyzed Data on Planes at Risk We analyzed flight tracking data to determine how many planes flew in or near areas at risk from falling debris during recent SpaceX Starship explosions. The bulk of the flight tracking data we used came from the OpenSky Network, a nonprofit that collects data from a technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance — Broadcast. These systems communicate a plane’s position to air traffic controllers and other planes. The signals can be tracked by ground sensors. OpenSky and similar services, such as ADS-B Exchange, have crowdsourced a network of sensors that report real-time information, including a plane’s model, flight number, location, heading and altitude. Most paths came from OpenSky’s database. They were formed by connecting individual trace points to create a line. Technical issues, especially gaps between sensors, can create inconsistent flight traces. In cases where there are gaps, the flight path depicts the plane traveling in a straight line between the available points. Missing maneuvers were supplemented with data from ADS-B Exchange, which we also used for fact-checking. We compared the plane’s locations and maneuvers to the FAA’s debris zone, which was based on coordinates it released to air traffic personnel. We identified planes inside the zone during or just after the explosion in January, as well as others that appeared to take significant action to avoid the area. Planes that had just crossed the zone or flew in parallel to it were not included. This analysis may not be comprehensive of all evasive maneuvers or disruptions caused by the explosions. We also analyzed historical data for the same day of the week (Thursday) and time period when the January debris zone was active to determine the number of planes that typically pass through the area. The post “We’re Too Close to the Debris” appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Heather Vogell.
ProPublica’s Visual Storytelling Department
The post Our Year in Visual Journalism appeared first on ProPublica.
Paul Windle for “Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to ‘Munch’ Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health.” Art direction by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photography by Sarahbeth Maney for “Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much.” Photo editing by Peter DiCampo. Photography by Sarahbeth Maney for “We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.” Photo editing by Cengiz Yar. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3000" height="2000" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png" alt="" class="wp-image-63303" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-still-02.png?resize=2000,1333 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px" /> Design and development by Anna Donlan for “Sick in a Hospital Town.” Visual editing by Alex Bandoni. Videos by Katie Campbell and Almudena Toral. Additional video editing by Gerardo del Valle. Graphics by Lucas Waldron. Illustration for “How a Global Online Network of White Supremacists Groomed a Teen to Kill.” Art direction by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photography by Annie Flanagan for “This Storm-Battered Town Voted for Trump. He Has Vowed to Overturn the Law That Could Fix Its Homes.” Photo editing by Andrea Wise. Illustration by Jacqueline Tam for “Portland Said It Was Investing in Homeless People’s Safety. Deaths Have Quadrupled.” Art direction by Peter DiCampo. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="652" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?w=752" alt="An illustration of a person inspecting an exaggeratedly large pill with a magnifying glass amid a landscape dotted with smaller pills." class="wp-image-63344" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png 3432w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=300,170 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=768,435 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=1024,581 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=1536,871 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=2048,1161 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=863,489 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=422,239 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=552,313 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=558,316 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=527,299 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=752,426 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=1149,652 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rxInspector.png?resize=2000,1134 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Illustration by Sophi Miyoko Gullbrants for “Look Up Where Your Generic Prescription Drugs Were Made.” Art direction by Lisa Larson-Walker. Development by Brandon Roberts, Ruth Talbot and Nick McMillan. Additional design and development by Jeff Frankl. Additional development by Pratheek Rebala, Andrea Suozzo, Al Shaw and Alec Glassford. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="683" width="1024" data-id="54924" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=1024" alt="A man with white hair wearing a plaid shirt and jeans walks down the center of a long, dark, ominous-looking row of empty shelves toward what looks like a light at the end of a tunnel." class="wp-image-54924" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1536,1025 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2048,1366 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,576 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,352 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,502 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20250925-McGarvey-BirdFlu-2733_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2000,1334 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="683" width="1024" data-id="63236" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-63236" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-birdflu.png?resize=2000,1333 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Photography by Maddie McGarvey for “What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic.” Graphics by Chris Alcantara. Video illustration for “Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More.” Art direction by Alex Bandoni and Lisa Larson-Walker. Illustration and art direction by Shoshana Gordon for “ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids to Detention in Federal Shelters This Year. It’s a New Record.” Direction, production and editing by Gerardo del Valle for “‘An American Nightmare’: Three Men Deported to CECOT and Their Families Reflect on Their Monthslong Ordeal.” Cinematography by Alejandro Bonilla Suárez and Edwin Corona Ramos. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="766" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?w=1149" alt="A man in jeans and a red T-shirt kneels in a road with his arm around a woman in jeans and a pink cardigan." class="wp-image-63452" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg?resize=2000,1333 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Photography by Adriana Loureiro Fernández for “What I Witnessed as I Photographed the Disappearances and the Homecomings of My Countrymen.” Photo editing by Cengiz Yar. Direction, production, filming and editing by Mauricio Rodríguez Pons for “Status: Venezuelan.” Photography by Roberto “Bear” Guerra for “Wealthy Ranchers Profit from Public Lands. And Taxpayers Pick up the Tab.” Visual editing by Cengiz Yar. Design by Allen Tan. Illustrations by Shoshana Gordon. Graphics by Lucas Waldron. Ceramics, video and art direction by Lisa Larson-Walker for “The Price of Remission.” Videography by Gerardo del Valle and Katie Campbell. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1724" width="1149" data-id="63520" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?w=1149" alt="A painting of a man and a woman standing together looking out of the window of a hospital on a bright day." class="wp-image-63520" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg 2000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=768,1152 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=1024,1536 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=1365,2048 1365w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=863,1295 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=527,791 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=752,1128 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=1149,1724 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F3-thanks-v1.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1724" width="1149" data-id="63521" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?w=1149" alt="A painting of a man standing at the end of a hospital hallway in quiet contemplation. " class="wp-image-63521" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg 2000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=768,1152 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=1024,1536 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=1365,2048 1365w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=863,1295 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=527,791 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=752,1128 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=1149,1724 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260107-revlimid-PPUB-002-F1_diagnosis-v1.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Paintings by James Lee Chiahan for “The Price of Remission.” Art direction by Lisa Larson-Walker. <img decoding="async" src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/Section_5_Final__preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1125&q=75&w=2000&s=cd355eaa5ae6c00394278c6c39cb4c82" alt="An illustration of a close-up view of a farmworker’s hands harvesting an onion while kneeling. Onion plants stretch off into the background."/> Illustration by Dadu Shin for “The H-2A Visa Trap.” Design and development by Zisiga Mukulu. Visual editing and art direction by Shoshana Gordon. Video illustration by Sean Dong for “Slow Pay, Low Pay or No Pay.” Art direction by Alex Bandoni. Illustration by Rui Pu for “Beyond Showerheads: Trump’s Attempts to Kill Appliance Regulations Cause Chaos.” Art direction by Alex Bandoni. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="464" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?w=752" alt="A map depicting drought-stricken areas of the earth in red." class="wp-image-63258" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png 2854w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=300,185 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=768,474 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=1024,631 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=1536,947 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=2048,1263 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=863,532 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=422,260 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=552,340 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=558,344 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=527,325 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=752,464 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=1149,709 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20251231-EOY-groundwater-still.png?resize=2000,1233 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Graphics by Lucas Waldron for “The Drying Planet.” Visual editing by Alex Bandoni. Additional design and development by Anna Donlan. Illustrations by Olivier Kugler for ProPublica. <img decoding="async" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ProPublica-Oct-2025-Final-RGB-alt2-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg" alt="An illustration of a corridor in a prison that ends at stairs leading up into an airplane. Several men walk out of cells and toward the plane. They are all dressed in gray, and their hands are cuffed behind their backs."/> Illustration by Chris W. Kim for “Louisiana Made It Nearly Impossible to Get Parole. Now It’s Releasing Prisoners to Deport Them.” Art direction by Peter DiCampo. Direction and production by Nadia Sussman for “Before a Breath.” Produced and filmed by Liz Moughon and edited by Margaret Cheatham Williams. Illustration by Nicole Rifkin for “Anchorage Police Say They Witnessed a Sexual Assault in Public. It Took Seven Years for the Case to Go to Trial.” Art direction by Peter DiCampo. Direction, production, filming and editing by Nadia Sussman for “This Family Will Return Home After Helene. Their Onerous Journey to Rebuild Shows Why Many Others Won’t.” Cinematography by Dillon Deaton. Photography by Greg Kahn for “Citing Trump Order on ‘Biological Truth,’ VA Makes It Harder for Male Veterans With Breast Cancer to Get Coverage.” Photo editing by Andrea Wise. Illustrations and art direction by Shoshana Gordon for “How Paul Newby Made North Carolina a Blueprint for Conservative Courts.” Animation and editing by Mauricio Rodríguez Pons for “Who Is Russell Vought? How a Little-Known D.C. Insider Became Trump’s Dismantler-in-Chief.” Video produced by Lisa Riordan Seville, Katie Campbell and Andy Kroll. Cinematography and additional editing by Katie Campbell. Illustration by Ricardo Tomás for “The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE.” Art direction by Alex Bandoni. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="501" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?w=752" alt="A graphic uses trucks to represent food aid that was canceled by the Trump administration." class="wp-image-63259" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg 1208w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=1024,682 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-EOY-foodDelivery.jpg?resize=1149,766 1149w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Illustrations by Justin Metz for “Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived.” Design and development by Ruth Talbot. Anna Donlan contributed design. Art direction by Andrea Wise. Photography by Stephanie Mei-Ling for ProPublica. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="862" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?w=752" alt="A man stands on a pile of flood debris in the middle of a forest clearing." class="wp-image-63260" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=300,225 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=768,576 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1024,768 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1536,1152 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=2048,1536 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=863,647 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=422,317 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=552,414 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=558,419 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=527,395 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=752,564 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1149,862 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20250408-Reyes-Hurricane-Helene-Recovery-161_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=2000,1500 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> Photography by Juan Diego Reyes for “Helene’s Unheard Warnings.” Graphics and development by Lucas Waldron. Design by Anna Donlan. Visual editing by Shoshana Gordon and Anna Donlan. Photography for “DOGE Targeted Him on Social Media. Then the Taliban Took His Family.” Design and development by Allen Tan. Visual editing by Alex Bandoni and Cengiz Yar. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="990" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?w=752" alt="Satellite images show a refugee camp encircled by floodwaters, with annotations describing how canals and motorized pumps keep rainwater out of neighborhoods." class="wp-image-63339" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg 1215w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=228,300 228w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=768,1011 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=778,1024 778w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=1166,1536 1166w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=863,1136 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=422,556 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=552,727 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=558,735 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=527,694 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=752,990 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bentiu-camp-fallback_preview.jpg?resize=1149,1513 1149w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Graphics by Chris Alcantara for “Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="683" data-id="59837" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?w=683" alt="A man stands holding his right hand over his heart in front of an area full of water and grassy plants." class="wp-image-59837" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg 2001w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=768,1151 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=1025,1536 1025w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=1366,2048 1366w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=863,1294 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=527,790 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=752,1127 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=1149,1723 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250828-DiCampo-ForeignAid-001_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000_9dedc1.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="683" data-id="60846" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=683" alt="A woman with neat cornrows in a polka-dot dress stands looking down and away from the camera indoors. On her hip, she holds an emaciated child in a loose spotted shirt and beaded necklace. He stares at the camera, his mouth slightly open. Behind them, blankets are hanging from a line." class="wp-image-60846" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 2000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,1152 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,1536 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1365,2048 1365w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,1295 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,791 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,1128 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1724 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250805-Otieno-Foreign-Aid-Kenya-431_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /> Photography by Peter DiCampo, left, for “Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.” and Brian Otieno, right, for “The Summer of Starvation: Amid Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts, a Mother Struggles to Keep Her Sons Alive.” Photo editing by Peter DiCampo. Visual Storytelling Department Boyzell Hosey, senior editor, visual storytelling Visuals Lisa Larson-Walker, art director Andrea Wise, visual strategy editor Alex Bandoni, visuals editor Peter DiCampo, visuals editor Cengiz Yar, visuals editor Shoshana Gordon, visuals editor Sarahbeth Maney, visual fellow Graphics Lena V. Groeger, graphics director Anna Donlan, interactive story designer Zisiga Mukulu, interactive story designer Lucas Waldron, graphics editor Chris Alcantara, graphics editor Video Almudena Toral, executive producer Lisa Riordan Seville, senior producer Katie Campbell, video journalist and filmmaker Mauricio Rodríguez Pons, video journalist and filmmaker Nadia Sussman, video journalist and filmmaker Margaret Cheatham Williams, video and film editor Gerardo del Valle, video journalist and filmmaker Liz Moughon, video and film fellow Product Ben Werdmuller, senior director of technology Allen Tan, director of design Alanna McLafferty, senior product engineer Artemis Sparks, principal engineer, devops Dan Phiffer, senior engineer Jeff Frankl, editorial experience designer Jesse Browning, data integrations engineer Katie Antonsson, audience data and insights analyst Melody Kramer, product manager Sarah Glen, product manager Aaron Brezel, AI engineering fellow Dana Chiueh, AI engineering fellow News Apps Ken Schwencke, senior editor, data and news apps Kevin Uhrmacher, deputy news apps editor Al Shaw, senior news apps developer Alec Glassford, senior engineer, news apps and product Sergio Hernandez, news apps developer Nat Lash, news apps developer Andrea Suozzo, news apps developer Ruth Talbot, news apps developer Brandon Roberts, news apps developer The post Our Year in Visual Journalism appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by ProPublica’s Visual Storytelling Department.
Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4
Thursday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD
Thursday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4.
Trump invaded Venezuela to restore an oil industry he helped destroy
U.S. sanctions helped cause the near-total collapse of Venezuelan oil production — damage that President Trump is now using as justification for his military strike against the country.
The middle-of-the-night kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro shocked the world on Saturday. Military helicopters bombed Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, as U.S. special forces breached Maduro’s residence, captured him, and flew him to New York to stand trial on unproven charges of narcoterrorism. President Donald Trump has offered several justifications for Maduro’s ouster, including the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry. But the very conditions Trump has been pointing to were exacerbated by the actions of past U.S. presidents — including Trump himself. If the Venezuelan oil industry is in tatters, it’s at least partially because of U.S. policies dating back at least a decade. On Wednesday, Trump’s Department of Energy put out a “fact sheet” stipulating that the U.S. is “selectively rolling back sanctions to enable the transport and sale of Venezuelan crude and oil products to global markets.” This outcome is doubly ironic because U.S. sanctions are one of the reasons the Venezuelan oil industry is diminished in the first place. The announcement also states that the U.S. will market Venezuelan oil, bank the proceeds, and disburse the revenue “for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people at the discretion of the U.S. government.” Maduro first drew the ire of President Trump in 2017 after the Venezuelan government stripped powers from the opposition-controlled legislature and violently suppressed mass protests. Trump responded by imposing sanctions on Maduro, several senior officials, and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, significantly broadening the targeted sanctions that the Obama administration first imposed in 2015. Speaking to reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that August, Trump said he would not rule out a “military option” in Venezuela. Two years later, after Maduro secured a second term in a contested election, the Trump administration dramatically escalated its pressure campaign, announcing a full oil embargo on the country. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces a kind of heavy crude used to make diesel fuel and petrochemicals. At the time, the United States received roughly 40 percent of Venezuelan oil exports. The embargo severed not only that trade but also exports to European Union countries, India, and other U.S. allies. Suddenly, Venezuela was largely cut off from global markets. By the time sanctions kicked in, Venezuela’s oil production was already slipping. Low oil prices in the early 2010s caused instability for an industry that had long been plagued by mismanagement, corruption, and underinvestment. But the sanctions delivered a devastating blow. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="A man holds a placard showing President Donald Trump drinking from a barrel of oil during a protest outside the American embassy in Madrid. Trump has justified his abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro by claiming the United States will help tap Venezuela's oil reserves." class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1600w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Venezuela-oil-protest.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="900" width="1600" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> Trump says he’ll unleash Venezuela’s oil. But who wants it? Jake Bittle “When they cut off the ability of the government to export their oil and access international finance, it was all downhill from there,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an economic policy think tank. “It was economic violence to punish Venezuelans.” Even as global oil prices rose again, the sanctions had limited Venezuelan exports and prevented the country from rebuilding its oil sector. With few buyers and little access to financing or technology, oil output collapsed by nearly 80 percent by the end of the decade, compared to its 2012 peak. Most of those sanctions remained in place under the Biden administration, and experts say the cumulative effect was the near-total collapse of Venezuelan oil production — damage that President Trump is now using as justification for his military strike against the country this week. While the Trump administration’s precise motivations are not entirely clear, the president has described Venezuela’s oil industry as a “total bust” in interviews following the U.S. capture of Maduro. “They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place,” Trump said on Saturday. He added that U.S. oil companies will spend billions of dollars to “fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.” But there are few signs that oil companies are eager to return. For one, prices are hovering around $60 a barrel, which is roughly the breakeven point for many companies. And without political stability, oil majors are unlikely to commit the billions of dollars necessary to restart production in Venezuela’s oil fields. The Trump administration has reportedly scheduled a meeting with oil companies for later this week to discuss a possible reentry. For now, Chevron is the only U.S. company with active operations in the country. The sanctions reshaped the global flow of oil. When the U.S. banned Venezuelan oil, the U.S. Gulf Coast refiners who specialize in heavy crude turned to new suppliers in Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina. Elsewhere, countries that had depended on Venezuelan oil increasingly turned to Russia. Other oil-producing countries also increased their production to make up for the declining exports from Venezuela. The sanctions also had ripple effects far beyond the oil sector. By cutting off Venezuela’s ability to access international finance, they dealt a huge blow to an economy highly dependent on imports. Unable to borrow, the country struggled to purchase basic necessities such as food and medicine. At the same time, the oil embargo blocked the export of its most profitable asset. The result was a stranglehold on the country’s economy that drove poverty and deaths. Patients with HIV, diabetes, and hypertension were not able to access life-saving drugs. One study at the time estimated that some 40,000 additional deaths could be attributed to the economic conditions caused by the sanctions. “When you can’t get the things that you need to produce electricity and clean water, all kinds of diseases get worse,” said Weisbrot. Even before the latest attacks against Venezuela, the United States’ sanctions against the country were described as “economic warfare” by a former United Nations rapporteur and other international law experts. While it’s unclear how the Trump administration plans to proceed, restoring the semblance of a functional economy in Venezuela and undoing the damage of past U.S. policy may take decades. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump invaded Venezuela to restore an oil industry he helped destroy on Jan 8, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Naveena Sadasivam.
The right to protest is under attack in the United Kingdom
The US Propaganda Campaign to Smear Venezuela’s New President Delcy Rodriguez
The US “regime change” operation against Venezuela has been defeated. The Bolivarian Revolution remains firmly in power. Now, Washington’s campaign against the Chavistas attempts to paint Interim President Delcy Rodriguez as compromising on the heritage of Presidents Nicolas Maduro and Hugo Chavez. The Wall Street Journal ran an article Venezuelan Regime’s New Strategy: Appease Trump […] The post The US Propaganda Campaign to Smear Venezuela’s New President Delcy Rodriguez first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The US “regime change” operation against Venezuela has been defeated. The Bolivarian Revolution remains firmly in power. Now, Washington’s campaign against the Chavistas attempts to paint Interim President Delcy Rodriguez as compromising on the heritage of Presidents Nicolas Maduro and Hugo Chavez. The Wall Street Journal ran an article Venezuelan Regime’s New Strategy: Appease Trump to Survive, referring to Delcy Rodriguez’ official statement January 4 (below). The Washington Post on January 6 could state “the Trump administration appears to have quietly settled on Delcy Rodríguez, Nicolás Maduro’s right hand, as the figure it prefers to lead Venezuela after Maduro’s fall. This was not an improvised choice. Reportedly, it is the result of prolonged negotiations in which she presented herself as the natural successor to Maduro.” In fact, Venezuela operated according to its constitution, approved in a national referendum, where the vice president takes office if the President cannot fulfill his duties. The vice president is Delcy Rodriguez. Her becoming president follows Venezuela’s highest law. Trump had nothing to do with it. Trump’s remarks on January 3 that Rodríguez had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and appeared “quite courteous,” saying “we’re going to do whatever you need,” aimed to sell the story of her acquiescing to Washington. But Rodríguez swiftly contradicted that story hours later, appearing on state television to declare that “there is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.” January 5, the Wall Street Journal escalated the campaign to smear now acting President Delcy in an article that came out two days after she assumed presidential powers. It claimed the CIA viewed Delcy as the best-positioned short-term successor to President Maduro. The intention is to make us think the CIA has a special connection with her. In fact, by this time, she was already interim president, and Washington saw it could do nothing about it but sell the story she is there by US choice. This US fake news campaign seeks to sow division in the Chavista movement and among defenders of Venezuela by instigating rumors that the kidnapping of Maduro involved a “mole,” and that Delcy Rodriguez had a deal with the CIA and Trump. In addition, much is made of part of her January 4 statement out of its context: “We invite the US government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence.” Some interpret this as compromising if not a step towards capitulation. In fact, she emphasized Venezuela does not want war, but a “respectful international relationship between the United States and Venezuela, and between Venezuela and the countries of the region, based on sovereign equality and non-interference…That has always been the position of President Nicolás Maduro and it is the position of all of Venezuela at this time.” This is also exactly what Cuba has always asked of the United States. Her whole statement: Message from Venezuela to the World and to the United States Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to peace and peaceful coexistence. Our country aspires to live without external threats, in an environment of respect and international cooperation. We believe that global peace is built by first guaranteeing peace within each nation. We consider it a priority to move toward a balanced and respectful international relationship between the United States and Venezuela, and between Venezuela and the countries of the region, based on sovereign equality and non-interference. These principles guide our diplomacy with the rest of the world. We extend an invitation to the US government to work together on a cooperation agenda aimed at shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence. President Donald Trump: our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war. That has always been the position of President Nicolás Maduro and it is the position of all of Venezuela at this time. That is the Venezuela I believe in, to which I have dedicated my life. My dream is for Venezuela to be a great power where all good Venezuelans can come together. Venezuela has a right to peace, development, sovereignty, and a future. Delcy Rodríguez, Acting President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Unfortunately, many who should know better fell for the US rulers’ propaganda campaign. A Consortium News piece declared, “Did Venezuela VP Hand Over Maduro in Deal With the US?” Rather than exposing US psyops, which earned it its high reputation, here it gives it legitimacy. Another, Tariq Ali, once a respected Trotskyist anti-war activist, claimed on X that “the US is backing Delcy who has promised them whatever they want.” And reposts long discredited Eva Golinger, “Internal Coup? Was Maduro Betrayed by his VP?” And, “Sure seems like Delcy Rodriguez was the CIA source on the inside who set Maduro up and handed him over to the United States.” None of these smears are based on any evidence. On January 4, President Trump declared, “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” Delcy Rodriguez has responded, “The Venezuelan people are a people who do not surrender, and we do not give up…President Nicolas Maduro’s instructions have been given. Let’s go out and defend our homeland…We are ready to defend Venezuela…We will never again be slaves.” Manolo de los Santos’ excellent article explains who Delcy Rodriguez is. “The Rodríguez family’s revolutionary credentials are etched in struggle. Their father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a leader of the Socialist League, a Marxist-Leninist organization, was tortured and murdered by the Punto Fijo regime in 1976. Both Delcy and her brother Jorge (the President of the National Assembly) emerged from this tradition of clandestine and mass struggle for socialism. President Maduro himself was a cadre of the same organization. To suggest betrayal among them or capitulation born of cowardice or opportunism ignores four decades of shared political formation, persecution, and leadership under relentless imperialist aggression and the class character of their revolutionary leadership.” Now, not only do we have the US government repudiating the world and international law by invading a country and seizing its president for admitted concocted reasons. We must face the fact that the US psyops system continues to be so effective that it is able to dupe leading long-time opponents of the US empire, like Tariq Ali, into being mouthpieces for its own “regime change” propaganda. The post The US Propaganda Campaign to Smear Venezuela’s New President Delcy Rodriguez first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stansfield Smith.
Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK)
Once done, it remains, by nature and fact, irreversible. The precedent of indicting and abducting a serving head of state and his spouse, dropping them into the jurisdiction of another country to face criminal charges of inventive pedigree (narcoterrorism foremost among them), is the stuff of nightmares in international statecraft. With the now former Venezuelan […] The post Kidnapping Blues: The Maduro Abduction Precedent first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Once done, it remains, by nature and fact, irreversible. The precedent of indicting and abducting a serving head of state and his spouse, dropping them into the jurisdiction of another country to face criminal charges of inventive pedigree (narcoterrorism foremost among them), is the stuff of nightmares in international statecraft. With the now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores facing such charges in New York, other world leaders are doubtless feeling a prevailing gloom. Is there anything stopping US President Donald Trump from deploying the US military and law enforcement agents from nabbing the next sitting leader in the middle of the night? Even more broadly, is there anything stopping other States from doing the same? This is something that has excited discussion in various political quarters, notably in East and Southeast Asia. Regarding the sullen, fleshy North Korean despot, Kim Jong-Un, the question is a pressing one. Certain lawmakers certainly think so. South Korean Rep. Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform Party, noted the brazen indifference the Trump administration had taken to renaming Maduro as a “leader of a transnational crime ring” instead of accepting him as a legitimate head of state. “The logic applied to President Maduro could also be applied to the North Korean leader,” reasoned Lee on Facebook. The US Justice Department had, after all, indicted North Korean hackers in 2021, using rather hyperbolic language in describing them as the “world’s leading bank robbers”. The former mayor of Daegu, Hong Joon-pyo, was similarly confident that the North Korean leader “must have been startled by this.” Here, we were witnessing “a return to the logic of power and the era of imperialism”. That said, the tendency of brutish US power to apprehend and dispose of sovereign heads of state, was not spanking, new exercise. “There was the invasion of Panama in 1989, the arrest of [Manuel] Noriega in 1990, and the United States has also played the role of world’s police in events such as the case of Chile [the overthrow of the Allende government in 1973] and the execution of [Saddam] Hussein.” A truly sterling record. Kim Dong-yub of the University of North Korean Studies also considered the Maduro precedent “deeply concerning” for Pyongyang, offering the following, tormented formulation: “When an adversary believes decapitation can arrive without warning, under the guise of policing or asset recovery, the rational response is to automate retaliation and compress decision time.” Leaving aside the torturous prose, the nervousness at the prospect of such a fate inflicted by so fickle a world leader is bound to be palpable. The North Korean leader, for his part, responded to the events in Venezuela with military drills involving the firing of two hypersonic missiles into the Sea of Japan. The activity in question was, according to him, “clearly aimed at gradually putting the nuclear water deterrent on a high-developed basis”. This was “necessary” because of “the recent geopolitical crisis and complicated international events”. Kim also expressed pride in the “important achievements” that had been made in preparing the country’s nuclear forces “for an actual war”. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry was less oblique in a statement on Maduro’s fate. “The incident is another example that clearly confirms once again the rogue and brutal nature of the US, which the international community has so frequently witnessed for a long time”. In Southeast Asia, the abduction precedent particularly troubled the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. “The leader of Venezuela and his wife were seized in a United States military operation of unusual scope and nature,” he brooded in a social media post. “Such actions constitute a clear violation of international law and amount to an unlawful use of force against a sovereign state.” Irrespective of the reasons behind the move, “the forcible removal of a sitting head of government through external action sets a dangerous precedent”, eroding “fundamental restraints on the use of power between states and weakens the legal framework that underpins international order.” Malaysia’s neighbour, Indonesia, was similarly troubled by the Maduro precedent. A January 5 statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “grave concern over any actions involving the use or threat of force, which risk setting a dangerous precedent in international relations and could undermine regional stability, peace, and the principles of sovereignty and diplomacy.” In the Philippines, the official response, given the security ties between Manila and Washington, was less testy. It was left to various lawmakers to state a few troubling truths. Rep. Perci Cendaña of the left-wing Akbayan Party-list saw the actions of the Trump administration as birds of a feather with the “similar aggressive acts of Russia in Ukraine and China in the West Philippine Sea”. Mamamayang Liberal Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima considered the operation against Venezuela one of disturbing redux, the US having again morphed “into an aggressor state” and sabotaging the rules-based international system. In doing so, its conduct had normalised the actions of Russia in the ongoing Ukraine War, Chinese expansionist aggression in the South and East China Seas, and Israel’s genocidal policy against the Palestinians. It was time, she opined gravely, to consider her country’s reliance on the US “for moral leadership on the world stage and as an ally for regional security and a rules-based international order.” With the thuggish Donroe Doctrine running with strapping vigour, and the Trump administration hungering for additional scalps in its name, de Lima’s sentiments, along with those of her colleagues, are hard to fault. The post Kidnapping Blues: The Maduro Abduction Precedent first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Photographer duo Guzman (Constance Hansen and Russell Peacock) on learning to see your work objectively
I recently attempted to get a lamp rewired, and the repair guy said it actually worked fine, and “you’d be surprised how many people just have two bad light bulbs lying around.” I keep thinking about that specific insight and wondering what I know. Do you feel like you have some insight about people based on the nature of your work?
I recently attempted to get a lamp rewired, and the repair guy said it actually worked fine, and “you’d be surprised how many people just have two bad light bulbs lying around.” I keep thinking about that specific insight and wondering what I know. Do you feel like you have some insight about people based on the nature of your work? Russell: Insight into the human condition? Yes. Russell: Gee, you’re going to make us think. Constance: You know what? I’d say in a lot of ways we’re voyeurs, and so we’re always watching how people react to certain things. It’s like a visual dialogue rather than writing it down. So yeah, we do think about what’s going on in a sly way. A lot of times we maybe add little bits of it into our work. It’s ambiguous, but it’s in there. Ozzy Westside Highway Ozzy and Kelly Collaboration is a significant part of your life and work together. Has your approach changed over the years? Russell: When we first started, we both took pictures. We took turns kind of alternating, not every other shot, but it would vary. We did that for a while until about the year 2000. And then I stopped taking pictures totally, and Connie just took the pictures and I would kind of be around putting my two cents in. So that’s the biggest shift in approach. And then within that, things change. Constance: We don’t really think about it. If someone has to climb a tree, go under water, I’m like, “Hey, Russell, you want to do that?” It’s not so regulated, it’s just that he likes to stand right there and he has a dialogue with the person. He makes suggestions, and I think it works out really well. In other words, I feel that we kind of know when the right moment is, and we work at it by playing with the person. In the beginning, we wouldn’t really know who was going to take the picture sometimes, or the picture could end up being from the side, a different angle. Russell: The other thing I was just thinking about, is when both people are taking the picture, it’s kind of like a… Constance: …press conference. Russell: One person goes in a direction, and for example, the person currently photographing would say, “Oh, can you stand up and go over there?” Then the other person photographing has to start with them standing over there. It’s as if you’re doing a drawing with two people and someone draws something and then the other person has to add onto that. It’s a back and forth between the two of us and the subject. It’s a different dynamic than if you would be by yourself taking a picture of a person. Ozzy Westside Highway That’s interesting. Earlier I was thinking about chance and spontaneity in terms of outside forces with the work that you do, but now I’m thinking about how it’s also with one another. Constance: Oh, yeah. Even someone saying something could change everything. When we go in to shoot, we bring all different size cameras and there’s four eyes instead of two eyes, so we’re like a monster. A lot of times we would have assistants for each of us, and we would have all these cameras, and we expected the cameras to be loaded, there would be no time for one person to get all that filled. We’re figuring out, “oh this is perfect for four by five,” because four by five changes the perspective, you’re lengthening people and twisting in reality. And then you have 35 millimeter, which is grainy and more off the cuff and spontaneous, two and a quarter, which is more formal, a big camera. We would play with it all, we enjoyed playing. Russell: The other thing that is part of this is, there’s a certain amount of pre-thought before you even start taking pictures. That’s kind of half of the photo shoot right there, but not always. Sometimes there’s no thought at all. You just go in and take pictures. Constance: Well, we have plans, and sometimes there’s sabotage, but in a way, we kind of embrace that. Russell: To a certain degree, photography is a collaboration anyway. First of all, between subject and photographer, then sometimes you have… Constance: Set designers, stylists, hair, makeup. Russell:…depending on what you’re doing. Not unlike doing a film, there’s a lot of things that are getting put in. It’s not solitary. Photography’s always kind of in the world. Constance: And we also collaborate a lot. I was actually just talking to [set designer] Marla Weinhoff this morning because [we were looking at that] Ozzy [Osbourne] picture, I’m like, “Marla, did you bring that car?” She goes, I don’t remember. “Did you put the dirt on the West Side Highway?” Balancing Act Russell: A stylist could say, “Oh, I have this great jacket. Can you try it on?” To the subject. And then you look at the jacket and it leads you in another direction, so you’re just piling on with ideas. That’s the fun part, you really don’t know where you’re going to end up. The best shoots are where you create an environment where people can collaborate and have their input all kind of go in a direction. Sometimes you go off track and you’re like, “What are we doing? This took two hours and it’s not working.” Constance: We had this great idea with a truck and a boat, and we were going to take Soundgarden on a tour up 42nd Street. Russell: The idea is an old boat on a flatbed truck, so when you photograph the band in the boat, you only see the boat, you are kind of looking up at it, and they’re floating through Manhattan. We thought it was a great idea. It was an editorial shoot for a magazine. Not a big budget, but we somehow got that all together. But they came in, we gave the idea, and they said, “Nah.” Constance: “We’re not doing that.” We’re like, “Oh.” Russell: So you’re like, okay, then you’re doing another plan B, plan C. Constance: We did bring a chainsaw. Russell: And then at the end of the shoot they’re like, “Oh, let’s do the boat.” Constance: They got into the shoot, they got so comfortable. But by then it was too dark. We’re like… That ship has sailed. Jon Stewart Russell: Bands typically are kind of wary about being manipulated, especially alternative bands. They want authenticity. They don’t want to end up looking stupid, which I understand. Constance: We threw knives at… Russell: Jon Stewart. You know that carnival event where someone’s throwing knives at a girl on the wheel? I can imagine. Russell: The wheel’s spinning and the guy’s throwing knives. So we had Jon Stewart do that, and he was like… Constance: Brand new, really. He was hysterical. Russell: It was the ’90s. Constance: We were laughing so hard. Russell: With portraits, you have to kind of know how far you can go with someone. Sometimes they say no and that’s okay. You’re better off pushing and not being afraid to ask something that you want to do. Sometimes you’re like, “Oh gee, I wish I had tried this, but maybe there was not enough time.” Could you talk about some of your most recent work, in which you mine your archives and repurpose older images? Constance: Everything we took, we consider fair game, so to speak. We’re always pulling things out and going like, “Oh, this is going to be a really good picture.” It could have been shot for Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman—who knows—but we decide we’re going to redo it. We’re always fiddling with everything we do and we bring it forward. Our work isn’t linear at all. We might have shot something in the early 2000s or in the ’90s or even in the ’80s, and when we bring it forward, it loses context, it has no reference to what it was. Right now we’re thinking of doing a gun show because over the years [of our archive] there are photographs of people that are pretending to have a gun, [or] they have a gun. Looking at it in terms of society, we always add something about what’s going on. If we think something is annoying, we might address it sort of subversively, and you notice it, but we’re not writing it out or we’re not hitting you on the head with it. It’s just there. We don’t really tell a story, we just give you something to play with. Russell: You may think about this too in your work: when you have one image—whether it’s an abstract painting or a photograph of something, it speaks about something—and then when you put different paintings or photographs together, context changes. In our case, the context can drastically change from that one image to the next. That’s why books are interesting because they’re able to form a narrative. Constance: But you don’t even have to know what this narrative is about. Russell: The narrative is what this juxtaposition of pictures are together. Constance: It’s more emotional, I think. Russell: Our way of working is—we’re asking questions, we’re not trying to answer any. You can just put it out there. That’s probably how you work. You create something, and it’s interesting how people respond to your work. Janus Constance: Also, we’re not pure. For our last show, we dipped photos in persimmon and put together collages and cut things out. Russell: And we were just kind of going back and looking at past work with a theme in mind. It’s a good exercise. Sometimes it’s good to have a box to work within, and then you can kind of see where that goes. That helps us. Constance: Yeah, it’s terrifying, I think, if you can do anything. Russell: A very common feeling for a lot of photographers is there’s nothing more terrifying than it’s just a blank white wall to photograph someone against, but we love that. If it’s just the person and you, there’s no other way to go. No chainsaw. Russell: Yeah, no chainsaw. Constance: Well, we do end up sneaking stuff in. We might hand them a hammer or something. Russell: And it’s hard for a person being photographed to just be kind of against this stark wall. They don’t know how to stand. They can stand awkward so it’s a challenge. Constance: But sometimes you use that stiffness. Sometimes we just love it. You know what I mean? We want to capture that. We want that feeling. Russell: People are fascinating as subjects because everyone’s different. How they stand and respond to the camera, it’s never the same. Yeah, I’m sure even from hour to hour. Constance: Yeah, they’re entirely different, sometimes from the beginning when they come in and they’re just getting used to us to where they’re throwing themselves, now they are annoyed. Russell: And that’s not to say the first picture where they’re really uncomfortable and awkward is bad. Constance: It could be our favorite. Russell: Yeah, it could be the best one. It’s Complicated There’s so much movement and physicality in your process in the way you talk about it, too, which leads me to wonder about self-portraiture and your archive over many years of working. Constance: It’s interesting because when you’re younger, you’re photographing yourselves too. From the very beginning, from the first time we have cameras, self-portraits. When you add 40 some odd years and you’re getting older and older, it definitely becomes a lot more intense, because you’re realizing you have a lot more behind you than you have in front of you. So that does inform me. Russell: Well, this is common to self-portraiture in general, whether it’s photography or painting, whatever, you begin to see yourself objectively, and you’re just like another character. That’s kind of liberating. I think when you’re younger, you’re more self-conscious about who you are and how you want to be perceived, and then when you get older, you just say, fuck it. And it’s kind of liberating. What would you say to your younger self or younger artists? Russell: Where does one begin? Constance: Well, I don’t know what I could even say to my younger self, but maybe that I see your life, and I wouldn’t regret anything. Russell: It’s kind of impossible. Constance: I rarely regret, I just keep going forward when I think about it. “Oh yeah, that was stupid, or that was a sidetrack, or whatever.” But I don’t really regret it because it got us here, you just keep going forward and you’re just sure. It’s one thing ruminating in your own brain, but to put it out there in the world, it’s very complicated. Russell: And then as Connie says, you’re negating all the things you did right. You don’t tell on those. Right. And no one really knows. Russell: That’s it. Constance: Yeah, I mean, all the experience I had was just because I’m like, “Oh, there’s this door I’m going to open it,” or “Oh, I think I’ll try this.” I never had a plan. I have just been floating through this. Guzman recommends: I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante Bugonia by Yorgos Lanthimos The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship by Charles Bukowski Paul Outerbridge, photographer Louise Bourgeois, sculptor and artist Ashley Yang Thompson - Still Worm This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Annie Bielski.
Jonathan Cook: From Gaza to Venezuela, the US has been unmasked as the serial villain
The path to Caracas — and potentially next to Colombia, Cuba and Greenland, other targets of Donald Trump’s colonial greed– was paved in Gaza, writes Jonathan Cook. ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook For decades, the United States and Israel have stuck closely to their respective, scripted roles in the Middle East: the job of good cop
The path to Caracas — and potentially next to Colombia, Cuba and Greenland, other targets of Donald Trump’s colonial greed– was paved in Gaza, writes Jonathan Cook. ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook For decades, the United States and Israel have stuck closely to their respective, scripted roles in the Middle East: the job of good cop and bad cop. The charade has continued despite Washington’s active participation in Israel’s 25-month slaughter of Gaza’s people — and a dawning realisation among ever-larger sections of Western publics that they have been duped. Here is my first prediction of 2026: this law enforcement role-playing is going to continue even after the Trump administration’s outrageously illegal abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, at the weekend, and Trump’s admission that the US attack was about grabbing the country’s oil. READ MORE: Venezuela attack, Greenland threats and Gaza assault mark the collapse of international legal order The path to Caracas — and potentially next to Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland and Canada, other targets of Donald Trump’s greed — was paved in Gaza. It is worth standing back, as one year ends and another begins, to consider how we got here, and what lies ahead. The central conceit of the good cop, bad cop narrative is that both the US and Israel are the ones upholding the law and fighting the criminals. Unlike the Hollywood version, neither of these real-world cops is in any way good. But there is a further difference: the spectacle is not intended for those the pair confront. After all, the Palestinians know only too well that they have been suffering for decades under the boot of a lawless, joint US-Israeli criminal enterprise. No, the intended audience are the onlookers: Western publics. Ban on aid groups The US “honest broker” myth should have perished long ago. But somehow it persists, despite the evidence endlessly discrediting it. And that is because Western capitals and Western media keep propping the myth up, treating it as a plausible description of events it simply cannot explain. Nothing has disrupted the official “policing” storyline in Gaza, supposedly against Hamas “law-breaking”. It is now echoed in Trump’s outlandish claim that his self-declared oil grab in Venezuela is really about bringing Maduro to justice for supposed drug trafficking — or “narco-terrorism” as the administration prefers to call it. Why has Gaza dropped off the front pages? Only because the “good cop” declares it has brought hostilities from the “bad cop” to an end. Last week, Trump publicly applauded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, for sticking to the president’s so-called “peace plan”. “Israel has lived up to the plan, 100 percent,” Trump declared. The reality, however, is that Israel violated the “ceasefire” nearly 1000 times in the first two months after it was supposed to go into effect, in mid-October. Israel continues to kill and starve the people of Gaza, if at a slower rate. Last week, Israel announced it was banning 37 humanitarian organisations from Gaza, including Doctors Without Borders, which supports one in five emergency hospitals beds in the strip. The group noted that Israel was “cutting off life-saving medical assistance for hundreds of thousands of people”. The ceasefire is just the latest storyline in a two-year piece of theatre. Horrifying dream While Western capitals and the media stubbornly adhere to the good cop, bad cop narrative, Western publics have started waking from it, as if from a bad dream. The mass demonstrations of two years ago may have gradually shrunk in numbers, but only after western politicians and media waged an aggressive war of attrition and campaign of vilification against them. Public exhaustion has set in. The cause of the disbelief and anger that spurred millions to take to the streets, and to campuses, remains unaddressed. Western powers are still colluding deeply in Israel’s crimes. The public’s initial outrage has slowly hardened into a burning resentment and disdain towards their own political and media establishments. That mood intensifies each time western officials, unable to win the argument, resort to force. Britain illustrates especially starkly the authoritarian, repressive trends visible across the West. There, protests against genocide have been designated “hate marches”. Slogans in solidarity with the Palestinians are now grounds for arrest for antisemitism. Journalists critical of the government have been arrested or their homes raided. Support for practical action to stop the genocide, by targeting the weapons factories supplying Israel with killer drones, is now classed as terrorism. The government is flaunting its indifference – again backed by the media – as anti-genocide activists risk death to protest the outlawing of Palestine Action and their abusive treatment by prison authorities, in the biggest UK hunger strike since the IRA’s nearly half a century ago. To no effect, a group of United Nations legal experts – called special rapporteurs –expressed grave concern last month at the UK’s flouting of international law in its treatment of the hunger-strikers, who face prolonged detention on remand in violation of British law. Just before Christmas, the world’s most famous environmental campaigner, Greta Thunberg, was arrested in London by the Metropolitan Police for holding a sign drawing attention to the plight of those prisoners. This has been a process of escalation, of upping the stakes. First, opposition to Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians was conflated with antisemitism. Now opposition to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is conflated with terrorism. Scrapping jury trials The task of Western establishments — and their media — has been to shore up a patently duplicitous narrative to excuse their complicity in the Gaza genocide: that the more vocal the criticism of Israel, the more evident the antisemitism. The implication is clear. The correct response to that genocide is silence. Ultimately, domestic courts in the UK — led by a judiciary highly unrepresentative of wider British society — are unlikely to hold the line against this all-out assault on law, morality and basic logic. The test will be a ruling by the High Court, expected soon, on the legality of the British government’s decision to outlaw Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation — the first time a direct-action group has been proscribed in British history. Worryingly, the judge hearing the case — who, in approving the judicial review, had indicated a degree of scepticism about proscription — was removed from the hearing at the last minute and without explanation. He was replaced by a new panel of three judges who have a track record of demonstrating more deference to the British state. Ousting the review judge in the appeal against Palestine Action’s proscription, and replacing him with three new judges, is a desperate attempt to create a veneer of judicial authority in support of the actions of Starmer’s outlaw government. My latest: https://t.co/r84WPOfAT4 pic.twitter.com/ace8CbDIZv — Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 26, 2025 The lacuna in this growing domestic architecture of authoritarianism is the right to trial by jury. Unsurprisingly, juries have a tendency to take a far more critical view of the British establishment’s behaviour than the establishment does itself. For centuries, juries have been a central component of fair trials, and viewed as a fundamental to a justice system capable of limiting state power and governmental overreach. Now the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to scrap many jury trials — citing the need to address a record backlog of cases, a backlog it is failing to address by properly funding the court system. Once the principle is conceded, it is surely only a matter of time before all jury trials are eradicated. Bank accounts frozen Already, under government direction, judges in political trials — notably in climate protest cases — have been denying defendants the chance to explain their motivations and reasoning to juries. That is because too often, when presented with information the media has withheld from them, those juries acquit. Starmer’s government understands that efforts to crush the Palestinian solidarity movement, and chill speech critical of UK complicity in genocide, depend on securing convictions. Juries are an obstacle. Even so, the government has up its sleeve other punishments — outside the scope of judicial scrutiny — that can be used to penalise pro-Palestinian activism, whether it be efforts to stop Israel’s genocide or to simply ameliorate the suffering of its victims. Last month it emerged that the National Crime Agency, a body answerable to government ministers, was likely behind efforts to economically intimidate and vilify the wider Palestinian solidarity movement. The bank accounts of solidarity groups in Manchester and Scotland have been frozen, as part of investigations into Palestine Action, despite neither having an affiliation with the direct-action group. These underhand, extrajudicial moves by the government hamper efforts to raise or donate money to charities that help feed Palestinians in Gaza, treat the wounded and house those without shelter in the winter. It is hard to get one’s head round the depravity of these decisions. Declared non-person This is far from just a British problem. Other Western states are following suit in a bid not only to rehabilitate the genocidal state of Israel but to erase any perception of their own participation in its crimes. And the template is being rolled out not just domestically but at the international level too. While Western states bully their publics into silence on Gaza, international humanitarian institutions have done their best to hold their nerve. United Nations special rapporteurs — independent legal experts — have issued a series of damning reports on Israel’s genocide and Western complicity. The US responded last week by slashing $15 billion from its funding of UN humanitarian agencies. Most visible among the rapporteurs has been the UN’s expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. Washington’s response to her has been illuminating. In July she was placed on a US Treasury sanctions list normally reserved for those accused of terrorism, drug trafficking or money laundering. Her listing came a few days after she published her report on the collusion of Western corporations in Israel’s genocide. The US sanctions violate the diplomatic immunity she enjoys as a UN official and make it impossible for her to attend meetings at UN headquarters in New York. With the US effectively exercising a stranglehold on the international financial system, the sanctions also mean no banks or credit cards will allow her to use their services. She cannot be paid by employers. She cannot book a flight or hotel. Universities, human rights institutions and charities have cut her adrift for fear of facing reprisals themselves if they continue to have dealings with her. Her assets in the US have been frozen, including her bank account and an apartment. It is unlikely her new book on Palestine can be distributed in the US. Effectively, Albanese has been turned into a “non-person”, with the silent consent of Western politicians and media. ICC sanctioned The State Department justified the sanctions on the grounds Albanese had recommended that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant. In fact, ICC judges approved the arrest warrants in November 2024 after the court’s prosecutors amassed evidence of crimes against humanity committed by Netanyahu and Gallant, chiefly over their imposition of an aid blockade to starve Gaza’s population. It was no surprise, therefore, that the Trump administration has issued similar sanctions against eight judges at the Hague war crimes court, either for approving those arrest warrants or for authorising an investigation into crimes by US military personnel in Afghanistan. In an executive order announcing the sanctions in February, Trump declared a “national emergency”, saying the court represented an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”. You might imagine that this lawless move against some of the most renowned jurists in the world would have provoked considerable pushback in Europe. You would be wrong. The all-out assault on one of the main pillars of international law has been barely mentioned. Le Monde broke ranks in November to interview French judge Nicolas Guillou. He detailed the impact since he was sanctioned in August: “All my accounts with American companies, such as Amazon, Airbnb, PayPal and others, have been closed . . . Being under sanctions is like being sent back to the 1990s.” European banks, fearful of the US Treasury, also closed his accounts, and European companies refuse to provide him with services. He concluded: “Putting someone under sanctions creates a state of permanent anxiety and powerlessness, with the intent of discouragement.” Washington has sanctioned too the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, and two of his deputies. In fact, Khan, a British lawyer, has found himself embroiled in a protracted legal and reputational struggle ever since he submitted the applications in May 2024. That included threats, reported by Middle East Eye, from the then UK foreign secretary David Cameron that Britain would defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute that founded the ICC if Khan did not back down. ‘Might is right’ politics Clearly, Israel and the US are eager to intimidate the court, and ready to destroy it rather than be judged by international law standards and held accountable for their crimes. But the sanctions have an additional audience: the International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes referred to as the World Court. Its panel of 15 judges have issued a series of rulings over the past two years against Israel. Most explosively, the ICJ ruled in January 2024 that a “plausible” case had been made that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. As a result, the ICJ is currently investigating Israel for this, the ultimate crime. The wheels of justice turn slowly at the World Court. But its judges are undoubtedly watching the treatment of Albanese and the ICC with alarm. Like gangsters, Israel and the US are sending a very direct message to each of the ICJ judges: you will be punished too, if you dare to find us guilty. ICC judge Nicholas Gillou notes that Europe could show solidarity with the victims of these sanctions by invoking what is known as “a blocking statute” – a mechanism that protects EU citizens and companies from the effects of sanctions imposed by third countries. But any hope that Europe will break ranks with the US and Israel over this naked attack on the two main courts upholding international law — bulwarks against a return to “might is right” global politics — is almost certainly forlorn. Last month, drawing on the Trump playbook, the European Union imposed economic sanctions on a dozen of its own critics. Notable was the inclusion of Jacques Baud, a former colonel in the Swiss army. His distinguished military career includes leading peacekeeping missions for the UN, including in Rwanda and Sudan, and serving as a Nato senior strategic analyst. Reputational assassination Baud was accused of no crime. His offence is being deeply critical of European officials and the strategic coherence of their support for war in Ukraine. Given his military expertise, his analyses are embarrassing European establishments. The draconian sanctions mean he is effectively imprisoned in Belgium, where he lives. He cannot leave to return to Switzerland. His assets are frozen. He cannot use a bank account and cannot have any kind of economic relations with other citizens of the EU. Baud cannot appeal the decision or subject it to judicial review. Like Albanese he has been turned into a non-person. A precedent has thereby been set that means anyone who challenges Western leaders — whether judges, journalists, lawyers, or human rights groups — could similarly end up destitute. What the US and the EU are rolling out are extrajudicial reputational assassinations and economic incarcerations, as a way to silence critics and watchdogs, that cannot be appealed. This is a model Israel and its lobbyists in the West have been trialling for years. The US doxing website Canary Mission, for example, seeks to destroy the careers and livelihoods of students and academics critical of Israel. Meanwhile, the lawfare group UK Lawyers for Israel is currently under investigation for threatening individuals and groups with vexatious legal actions to pressure them into retracting their solidarity with Palestinians. Criminals in charge Washington — the gangster-in-chief posing as global policeman — refuses to accept any limitations on its actions. If legal authorities, whether domestic or international, try to stand in its way, they are either punished or pushed aside. In this topsy-turvy world, Trump’s naked exercise of colonial violence is feted as peace-making. As he was massing troops off Venezuela’s coast last month, Fifa, the international football federation, awarded him its inaugural “peace prize” — an honour created specifically to stroke his ego. Though the Nobel Committee could not bring itself to hand the peace prize directly to Trump, its judges did the next best thing. They awarded it to Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuela opposition leader who has publicly called on the US to invade her country and seize its resources. The complete abandonment of long-standing international legal safeguards puts everyone in jeopardy — all the more so when technological developments mean states have near-absolute control over their citizens’ lives, and superpowers can use ever more sophisticated weapons to wreck countries at little cost to themselves in blood or treasure. But paradoxically, the very act of dismantling the global system of international law is still being dressed up in the garb of law enforcement. Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza is supposedly needed to defeat Hamas’ “illegitimate” rule. The abduction of Maduro from Caracas is sold as the enforcement of drug-trafficking laws. European leaders’ response to Trump’s crime of aggression against Venezuela signals where things head next. Britain’s Starmer effectively welcomed Washington’s criminal regime-change operation and threat to occupy Venezuela to control its oil. He said he “shed no tears” for Maduro. Similarly, Kaja Kallas, Europe’s foreign policy chief, emphasised Maduro’s supposed lack of “legitimacy”. Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Greenland, Canada — all in Washington’s sights — should fear that similar “legal” pretexts will be found to justify attacks on their own sovereignty. Trump’s favourite new catchphrase is that he can do global business “the easy way or the hard way”. Now, having shredded international law, the “good cop” looks ready to discard an outdated disguise and reveal the serial villain underneath. Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published by the Middle East Eye and reepublished from the author’s blog with permission. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
‘An extraordinary, charismatic man’: Sir Tim Shadbolt dies at 78
RNZ News New Zealand former Invercargill and Waitematā mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt died today. He was 78. Sir Tim, who was awarded the Knight Companion of New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List, served eight terms as Invercargill Mayor between 1993 and 1995, and again between 1998-2022, and two terms
RNZ News New Zealand former Invercargill and Waitematā mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt died today. He was 78. Sir Tim, who was awarded the Knight Companion of New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List, served eight terms as Invercargill Mayor between 1993 and 1995, and again between 1998-2022, and two terms as Waitematā (Auckland) Mayor, between 1983 and 1989, making him one of the longest-serving mayors in New Zealand. “Today we lost the cornerstone of our family and the man who has devoted himself to promoting the City of Invercargill for almost 30 years,” the mayor’s partner of many decades, Asha Dutt, said in a statement on behalf of the family. READ MORE: ‘Our hearts are broken’: Tim Shadbolt dies “Tim was a kind-hearted man who cared deeply about the people around him. He was a champion for the underdog and an active political campaigner from his student days of anti-war protest, his activism for Māori rights, and his fight to keep the Southern Institute of Technology and Zero Fees autonomous. “Tim will be remembered with gratitude, respect, and affection for his commitment to the south and his passion for life. The citizens of Invercargill can be proud of the enormous legacy he leaves.” Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell told RNZ he was saddened by the news of Sir Tim’s passing. “He was an extraordinary, charismatic man. On the surface he was a bit of a joker and a bit of a showman. But also a profoundly capable person. ‘Beloved by Invercargill’ “He is beloved by the people of Invercargill and they’re going to be deeply affected by his death.” The longstanding local leader was responsible for amplifying the city’s profile, not just around New Zealand, but offshore, Campbell said. “You went anywhere in this country, you go into a taxi, the taxi driver says: ‘where do you come from?’ you say: ‘Invercargill’. They say ‘Sir Tim Shadbolt’. “You could go to London and the same thing happened. You could go to Melbourne and the same thing happened. “He was extraordinarily well known.” Campbell, who won the city’s mayoralty last year, said aside from Sir Tim’s longevity, his advocacy for both the Southern Institute of Technology and Invercargill Airport were some of his greatest achievements in office. “I think the city is much stronger as a consequence of having Sir Tim as mayor for as long as it did,” he said. ‘Everybody smiled’ “There’s a lot of good that comes from continuity. Just having the same person, pushing the same programmes, being well-known, being popular, everybody smiled when they saw him. “I think he raised the spirits of Invercargill, he certainly raised the profile of Invercargill, and that’s what he’s going to be remembered for.” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon paid tribute to Shadbolt, writing on social media that “few New Zealanders have given such devoted public service as Sir Tim.” I’m saddened to hear of the passing of Sir Tim Shadbolt. Few New Zealanders have given such devoted public service as Sir Tim. He served Southlanders and Aucklanders for decades – with a smile on his face and a distinctive charm. He devoted his career to making his community… — Christopher Luxon (@chrisluxonmp) January 8, 2026 Labour party leader Chris Hipkins also expressed his condolences. “From all of the Labour Party, we are very sad to hear of the passing of Sir Tim Shadbolt,” he said. “Sir Tim gave decades of service to the people of Invercargill. He was a passionate advocate for his community, a tireless public servant, and a voice for those often unheard. “He believed deeply in the power of people and his leadership helped transform Invercargill.” Sir Tim’s family has requested privacy during this time and said funeral service details will be announced once confirmed. The Invercargill City Council said flowers could be left at the Blade of Grass sculpture outside the council’s Esk Street offices. Politician needs communicating “in all ways” When he was tapped for New Year Honours in 2018, he told RNZ that being a good politician required people to “communicate in all ways”. “You’ve got to be an excellent and confident public speaker, you’ve got to be a good writer — you’re always writing reports or newspaper columns. You’ve got to be able to communicate via the radio, the internet, and all the changes in technology that we live in.” “I like to think I am a good politician,” he said then. “I guess it’s the old cliché that the proof is in the pudding and we’ve had a golden run, really, in Invercargill. “When I arrived there we were the fastest declining city in New Zealand or Australia, and we’ve turned that around, mainly with the zero fees schemes (at the Southern Institute of Technology) where we went from a thousand students to 5000 students, so it’s good to actually be able to see changes that are significant.” He said the zero fees scheme changed Invercargill. “Instead of being sort of a rural backwater, we were suddenly on the cutting edge of innovation and change and that to me is the project I feel most strongly about. ‘Gritty, honest people’ “The people of Invercargill are gritty, honest, hard working and prepared to take risks, and I was a risk.” Tim Shadbolt with a group of protesters outside the Auckland Town Hall in 1973. Image: Te Ara/Public Domain/RNZ An iconic personality Shadbolt, with his trademark cheesy grin, became one of New Zealand’s most readily identifiable personalities. Born in Auckland in 1947, he attended Rutherford High and Auckland University. He first came to national prominence in the 1960s as a student activist on issues like the Vietnam war and apartheid. A talented public speaker and debater, he worked as a concrete contractor and was a member of the Auckland Regional Council. In 1983, Shadbolt was elected mayor of Waitematā — and spent a colourful, and at times controversial, six years in the job. In 1997, he sued Independent News for articles on the disappearance of the mayoral chain and robes eight years earlier, and was awarded $50,000 in damages. In 1992, he stood for mayor in Auckland, Waitakere and Dunedin, finishing third in each poll. Elected mayor again But the following year, Shadbolt was a mayor again, easily beating 13 rivals for the job in a byelection in Invercargill. In 1993, Shadbolt was elected mayor again, easily beating 13 rivals for the job in a byelection in Invercargill. Image: LDR/Otago Daily Times/Stephen Jaquiery/RNZ Voted out after only two years, he was re-elected in a landslide in 1998. He lost his last bid for re-election in 2022. He also showed an interest in national politics — he was the New Zealand First candidate for the Selwyn byelection in 1994, less than 24 hours after joining the party. And in 1996, he was on the party list for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. Prince Harry (front, right) meets Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt. Image: Twitter/NZ Governor-General/RNZ Always prepared to make fun of himself, he appeared in a famous cheese ad featuring the line: “I don’t care where, as long as I’m Mayor”. The Invercargill City Council paid tribute to him, saying “he was a huge advocate for Invercargill and tirelessly championed for its people. His impact and legacy will be remembered for generations to come.” “The former mayor was known for ‘putting Invercargill on the map’ and to honour this legacy, the Invercargill Airport terminal building was officially named to the Sir Tim Shadbolt Terminal last year. “While Southland was not originally the place he called home, Invercargill will always be proud to claim him as one of its own.” This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The Current Situation in Venezuela: A Government in Charge, a People Resilient
As dawn broke on 3 January and the stench of bombs lingered in the air, the population was both alarmed and shocked. It is important to emphasise that the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe bombing campaign in Iraq was dwarfed by the bombing of Operation Absolute Resolve (2026) against Venezuela. The bombs were way more powerful, and the weapons systems far more sophisticated and overwhelming. Yet it did not take long for people to take to the streets. A spontaneous open-mic outside the Presidential Palace of Miraflores drew crowds to speak out against the attack on their country. Most speakers spoke passionately with great feeling about the Bolivarian process. They understood that this attack was against their sovereignty, and-more significantly–that this was an attack on behalf of the Venezuela’s old oligarchy and US oil conglomerates. Their clarity was striking, yet corporate media ignored this coverage. More The post The Current Situation in Venezuela: A Government in Charge, a People Resilient appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1080" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1080" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1080" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396399" class="size-medium wp-image-396399" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Presidenta_Encargada_Delcy_Rodriguez_lidera_Consejo_de_Ministros_para_garantizar_la_paz_y_soberania_nacional_04.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Vicepresidencia de Venezuela – Public Domain On the early morning of January 3, the United States government launched a massive attack on Caracas, Venezuela, and three of the country’s states. Roughly 150 aircraft swarmed the skies, bombing with exceptional ferocity. Amongst these aircraft were EA-18 Growlers equipped with the most advanced electronic warfare systems, such as the Next General Jammers, as well as AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook helicopters. Residents of the city had never experienced such sustained violence: loud explosions, massive plumes of smoke, and aircraft—seemingly unconcerned about counter-attacks —plunged the city into darkness. Later, at a press conference, US President Donald Trump said, ‘The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have. It was dark and it was deadly’. The United States does not spend more than $1 trillion annually on its military without having built the world’s most lethal arsenal. This was hyper-imperialism in hyper-drive. Elite Delta Force troops descended from the helicopters to the location where President Nicolás Maduro was spending the night. They faced resistance from soldiers on the ground, but overwhelming firepower from the air killed many Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers (24 Venezuelans, according to the Venezuelan Army, and 32 Cubans, according to Havana). Once ground resistance was neutralised, the Delta Force seized President Maduro and Venezuela National Assembly member, Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife. They were taken to the USS Iwo Jima and then flown to the United States to stand trial in the Southern District of New York, based on an indictment alleging that they ‘corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import cocaine into the United States’. Six people are accused in the indictment, including Maduro and Flores. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Vice President Delcy Rodriquez assumed leadership in Maduro’s absensce. She held a widely publicized meeting with all the main political leaders, including the Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello who was also named in the indictment. In this initial meeting, Rodriquez called for the release of Maduro and Flores, emphasised that Maduro remains the legitimate president, and confirmed that the government remained intact and at work to assess the situation. Within a day, Rodriquez—now sworn in as acting president in the absence of Maduro –said that she is open to discussion with the United States to prevent another attack, though she continued to insist on the release and return of Maduro and Flores. Certainly, the scale of the attack by the United States made it clear that Venezuela cannot sustain a full barrage from the US over a period, thus, reopening dialogue will be necessary, especially regarding Trump’s primary interest: the oil industry. Rodriquez comes from a revolutionary family, her father Jorge Antonio Rodriquez being the founder of the Socialist League, in which Delcy Rodriquez and Maduro once served as cadres. There is no question of any surrender of the Bolivarian process, which is a fundamental political line for Rodriquez and the team that is leading Venezuela’s government. As dawn broke on 3 January and the stench of bombs lingered in the air, the population was both alarmed and shocked. It is important to emphasise that the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe bombing campaign in Iraq was dwarfed by the bombing of Operation Absolute Resolve (2026) against Venezuela. The bombs were way more powerful, and the weapons systems far more sophisticated and overwhelming. Yet it did not take long for people to take to the streets. A spontaneous open-mic outside the Presidential Palace of Miraflores drew crowds to speak out against the attack on their country. Most speakers spoke passionately with great feeling about the Bolivarian process. They understood that this attack was against their sovereignty, and-–more significantly–-that this was an attack on behalf of the Venezuela’s old oligarchy and US oil conglomerates. Their clarity was striking, yet corporate media ignored this coverage. The weakness of the new mood in the Global South A few hours before the attack on Venezuela, President Maduro met with Qiu Xiaoqi, the high envoy of President Xi Jinping. They discussed China’s Third Policy Paper on Latin America (released December 10), in which the Chinese government affirmed, ‘as a developing country and a member of the Global South, China has always stood in solidarity through thick and thin with the Global South, including Latin America and the Caribbean’. They reviewed the 600 projects that are being jointly conducted between China and Venezuela and the $70 billion Chinese investment in Venezuela. Maduro and Qiu chatted, and then they took photographs which were posted widely on social media and shown on Venezuelan television. Qiu then left with the Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela Lan Hu and the directors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Latin America and Caribbean department, Liu Bo and Wang Hao. Within hours, the city was being bombed. That day, the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, ‘Such hegemonic acts of the US seriously violate international law and Venezuelan sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region. China firmly opposes it’. Beyond that, little could be done. China does not have the capacity to roll back US hyper-imperialism through military force. Within Latin America, the rising Angry Tide – led by Argentina’s Javier Milei – celebrated the capture of Maduro, while Ecuador’s right-wing President Daniel Noboa made the point not only about Venezuela, but about the need to defeat the Pink Tide that had been inspired by Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarianism: ‘All the criminal narco-Chavistas will have their moment. Their structure will finally collapse across the continent’. Argentina led a group of ten countries to block a condemnation of the US violation of the UN Charter at a meeting of the thirty-three-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). These countries were Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago. It is a sign of the Angry Tide’s growing influence that CELAC, once able to stand for sovereignty, is now dragged into support for US adventurism in Latin America and for Trump’s orientation toward the revival of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. CELAC was established in 2010 from the Rio Group (1986) in 2010 to form a regional body excluding the United States (as the Organisation of American States does), which is why its creation was helped along by the Pink Tide. Its first co-chairs were right-wing Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. This kind of unity of the right and left over the idea of sovereignty is now weakened beyond recognition. A failure of CELAC to act has meant that not only its orientation (including the passage of the idea that the Latin America is a Zone of Peace in the 2014 Havana summit) has been dismissed, but so too has the Charter of the Organisation of American States. Trump has openly pledged to revive the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, first articulated by US President James Monroe to combat not only European interference in the Western hemisphere but also the growth of independence led by people such as Simón Bolívar, one of Latin America’s greatest heroes. Bolivarianism was revived by Chávez as one of the core ideological frameworks of the Pink Tide. Trump’s open embrace of the Monroe Doctrine and his call for a “Trump Corollary” (do what it takes to enforce the Doctrine) signals the US aim to restore old oligarchies across the hemisphere and grant US conglomerates free rein (potentially even reviving the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a trade initiative defeated by Chávez and others in 2005). This is class struggle on a continental level. This article was produced by Globetrotter. The post The Current Situation in Venezuela: A Government in Charge, a People Resilient appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad – Carlos Ron.
Outscooped By Trump: The Strike on Nigeria’s Real Target Was Venezuela
Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming. Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote a piece More The post Outscooped By Trump: The Strike on Nigeria’s Real Target Was Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1970" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1970" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1970" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1970" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg.png 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="819" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 819px) 100vw, 819px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396409" class="size-medium wp-image-396409" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png" alt="" width="680" height="523" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-680x523.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-819x630.png 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-768x591.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-1536x1182.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-2048x1576.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-500x385.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nigeria_-_Sokoto.svg-600x462.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image Source: erivative work: User:Profoss – Original work:Uwe Dedering – CC BY-SA 3.0 Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming. Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote a piece that said his real aim was to send a message to Maduro and that among the options he was entertaining was a SEAL-type operation to capture or kill Maduro. How did I come to this conclusion? I have no assets in the U.S. intelligence community. I was completely running on instinct, and my instincts told me that the egomaniac Trump wanted to eclipse Obama’s feat in sending in the SEALS to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, just as he wanted badly to get the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got. But it was the holidays and, out of consideration for the folks that run my stories, who deserved a New Year’s break to be with their families, I sat on it after I finished it on December 27 and only sent it to Foreign Policy in Focus on January 2, eight hours before the Caracas operation that kidnapped Maduro, in violation of all the norms of civilized conduct among states. But though out-scooped by Trump, I still think that there are elements in the unfiled article that could be useful in helping us anticipate what could unfold in the days and weeks ahead. So here’s the scoop that wasn’t. Trump Strikes Nigeria But Real Target Is Venezuela The Trump regime’s air strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day may have had symbolic significance but no strategic value. There will likely be no impact on the efforts of the militant group called Lakurawa, allied to ISIS, to establish a base in Sokoto state. Many have been puzzled by the attacks that involved the use of Tomahawk missiles, especially given the relatively minuscule space given to Africa in the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025. That brief section focuses on transforming the U.S. relationship with Africa from one based on aid to trade, though it does say, “we must remain wary of resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in parts of Africa while avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments.” It is likely that the attacks were carried out for reasons unrelated to Africa. One is to appease Trump’s Christian evangelical base. As Joshua Keating, an expert in crisis areas, has noted, “Trump’s sudden interest in Africa’s most populous country was likely motivated less by any particular event there — these are all longstanding issues — than by developments in Washington. Though it doesn’t get a ton of mainstream media attention, the plight of Christians in Nigeria has been a galvanizing issue for evangelical Christians in the US in recent years.” On his internet platform Truth Social, Trump has cited figures from the international Christian rights NGO Open Doors, claiming that of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith globally in 2024, 3,100 were in Nigeria. In her recent book on the key groups that make up the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Furious Minds, Laura Field says that non-establishment Christian groups have an outsized influence in the Trump administration. With the Republicans struggling in the lead-up to the mid-term elections in 2026, these groups’ muscle on the ground can determine whether the Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives. The Main Target: Venezuela However, the main goal of the strikes, in my view, had to do mainly with developments thousands of miles away. It was to signal to the government of Nicolas Maduro that it will face not just attacks on Venezuelan boats at sea but also air attacks on ground targets. This interpretation would be consistent with NSS 2025. NSS 2025 is an iconoclastic document. It literally dumps the 80-year-old strategy of liberal containment that guided the United States from the post-World War II years through the Cold War years to the post-Cold War years, which was to meet challenges to global capital wherever and whenever the U.S. state saw its interests threatened or challenged. Next to its overthrowing the 80-year-old American “Grand Strategy,” the most significant departure in NSS 2025 is its break with the key assumption of U.S. security policy since the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2008), including the first Trump administration (2017-2021): that Washington must focus its resources on containing China, which was defined as the principal U.S. strategic competitor. Replacing China and the Asia Pacific as the main U.S. concern in the western hemisphere, the document comes out with a reiteration of the Monroe Doctrine, but one fortified with what it calls the “Trump corollary.” It states that Washington “will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.” There is no more stark expression of the rude replacement of the liberal containment doctrine by a “spheres of influence” approach. Meantime, the debate goes on in Trump administration on whether a ground invasion of Venezuela is the best way to implement the western-hemisphere-first strategy. Air strikes are one thing, boots on the ground are another, and one opposed by much of the MAGA base that is tired of the “forever wars.” The “Molotov Cocktail” throwers in that base have made known their opposition or disquiet regarding a Venezuelan adventure. Laura Loomer, an influential firebrand, has challenged Trump’s rationale for the attacks on Venezuelan boats, which is to prevent the opioid fentanyl and other drugs from being shipped to the United States. “Fentanyl isn’t being manufactured in Venezuela,” she said, urging that the Pentagon target the Mexican drug cartels responsible for most shipments instead. She has also criticized María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize awardee for 2025 and the leader of the opposition in Venezuela, for “actively stoking and promoting violent regime change.” Steve Bannon, a key official in the first Trump administration, said “neoconservative neoliberals” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing for a Venezuelan intervention that would derail the administration from its domestic priorities. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the volatile Georgia congresswoman, has posted on X that “People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it.” My fearless forecast: Trump will limit attacks on his perceived adversaries globally to air strikes or naval bombardments to keep them off balance and not risk triggering another forever war with a ground invasion. Of course, Trump’s people are probably weighing a SEAL-type special op—like then-President Obama’s killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011—to murder or capture Maduro, but Maduro is likely to be already very well prepared for such a contingency. He’s not stupid. Frankly, if you ask me, Washington has dug itself into a hole with its focus on Venezuela, one from which there is no easy exit. If one gives a broad interpretation to Che Guevara’s dictum that the best way to defeat the United States was to create “two, three many Vietnams,” then Venezuela has the potential for becoming the third phase of the death rattle of the empire, Vietnam being the first and bin Laden’s dragging Washington to eventual defeat in the Middle East the second. The post Outscooped By Trump: The Strike on Nigeria’s Real Target Was Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Walden Bello.
The USA Today: a Derangement Threatening the World
Hong Kong. People around the world walked into 2026 carrying a fragile hope that this year would be better than 2025 and 2024, years defined by the horrific genocide in Gaza. After two years marked by genocide, the collapse of moral restraint, and the reckless shredding of international law, there was a quiet desire to believe that More The post The USA Today: a Derangement Threatening the World appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Hong Kong. People around the world walked into 2026 carrying a fragile hope that this year would be better than 2025 and 2024, years defined by the horrific genocide in Gaza. After two years marked by genocide, the collapse of moral restraint, and the reckless shredding of international law, there was a quiet desire to believe that dehumanizing actions had reached their limit. Fatigue itself became optimism. Surely the system would pause. Surely something had been learned. That hope lasted barely a week. The attack on Venezuela on January 3rd arrived as confirmation. The coercive removal of a head of state through kidnapping. A clear breach of international law. Executed calmly, justified procedurally, absorbed with disturbing ease. The world reacted with surprise but not fury. Partly because it has seen this movie before—a telling reminder of humanity’s inured psychological state. Many have almost given up on the possibility of a better future and resigned themselves to growing global lawlessness. That distinction matters. Outrage enforces norms. Shock without consequence merely rehearses impunity. When illegality triggers analysis instead of cost, it becomes precedent. This is how gangster logic enters global politics: not through chaos, but through repetition. This was not a failure of the international order. It was the order functioning exactly as designed by the mob masquerading as guardians of the global order. Western analysts and media moved quickly—remember Iraq—to make the event legible, reasonable, and ultimately forgettable. (Sahlane, Ahmed. “Covering the War on Iraq.” In Discourse, Media, and Conflict, 73–91. Cambridge University Press, April 2022.) The dominant framings were familiar. First, energy discipline. Venezuela’s oil reserves the largest in the world are described as “mismanaged,” belonging to the US because it was an early investor. Intervention is implied as corrective rather than coercive. Sovereignty gives way to “global energy stability.” (“Trump Says US Is Taking Control of Venezuela’s Oil Reserves. Here’s What It Means.” CNN Business, January 4, 2026.LINK.) Second, regional stability. Commentators warn of refugee flows, cartel violence, and spillover risk. The United States is framed as a reluctant stabilizerand even a force for good. (Muñoz-Pogossian, Betilde, and Alexandra Winkler. “The Persistence of the Venezuelan Migrant and Refugee Crisis.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 20, 2025.) Third, geopolitical objectives and hegemony masquerading as law enforcement. Comparisons are drawn to counter-narcotics operations. The language of policing replaces the language of invasion. (“The War on Narco-Terrorism in Latin America.” Steptoe. Accessed January 7, 2026. Finally, the moral escape hatch: “messy, but necessary.” Legal discomfort acknowledged, then dismissed. Illegality is rendered tolerable when performed by the hegemon and endorsed by Western Allies. (de Wet, Alex. “Can Military Intervention Be ‘Humanitarian’?” Middle East Research and Information Project, May 14, 2017. And now, Western foreign policy analysts and media are turning a blatant breach of international law by the US into an opportunity to demonise others. They are warning that Trump has set a precedent Beijing could use against Taiwan or Putin against others. (“U.S. Strike on Venezuela Puts China’s Taiwan Saber-Rattling in Focus,” CNBC, January 5, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/05/us-venezuela-strike-taiwan-china-precedent-russia-ukraine.html.) This is moral evasion dressed as strategic analysis with the goal of diverting attention from the grave crime committed. It converts American criminality into hypothetical Chinese villainy within hours—erasing what was done by raising panic about what might be done by their enemies. China has not refrained from attacking Taiwan because it was waiting for the United States to set a precedent. (Ryan Hass, “Trump’s Strikes on Venezuela Will Not Embolden China to Invade Taiwan,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 4, 2026, .) The speed of this deflection is the entire tell : accountability vanishes, anxiety replaces it, and American lawlessness becomes a warning about someone else’s future behaviour. These narratives launder power. By converting a breach of law into strategic inevitability, agency disappears. Responsibility dissolves. Violence becomes abstract. This is not analysis. It is anesthesia with amnesia. What remains unspoken is simpler: the United States acts this way because it believes it can, until that suddenly changes. Resistance is growing globally and hurting it in ways it refuses to acknowledge. This denial, masking deep insecurity in a changing world, drives it to act more ruthlessly. In the absence of producing a transformative leader capable of breaking this spiral, it continues to act as every rogue empire has done, absolving itself because it is supposedly a democracy. That propaganda is lazily swallowed by most of its citizens, then lavishly spread by mainstream Western media. After all, if you can deny a live-streaming genocide and convince many of this lie, you can argue that a leader of a sovereign state was not kidnapped but brought to justice in a country where its own president is a convicted felon who evaded justice. This is where American society enters the picture. Not as a potential source of resistance but instead often as an enthusiastic cheerleader, a silent stabilizer and perverse beneficiary of the nation’s active pursuit of global hegemony. This is a condition layered onto a culture largely wedded to delusional exceptionalism, white supremacy, cheap overconsumption, and constant entertainment, including foreign wars, crassness, and violence. There will be no mass revolt. There never is. A few commentators will speak up. There will be sporadic protests, but who really cares? This action was against those foreign brown Others. Some campus statements may be made, but students will play it safe. Big city sound and fury on social media, measured alarm. And then… absorption, acceptance, even celebration. Liberal outrage will surface briefly, performing its ritual role, then quickly dissipate. Democratic elections will be invoked as proof of accountability, even as policy remains unchanged. Apologists will cite the often-made claim about America’s ability to always remake itself and produce great leaders, with no proof on offer, as nothing changes in its geopolitical strategy and foreign policy. This is not apathy. It is the conditioning that has spawned a deranged society. Silence and tacit support are reframed as exhaustion. Support of acts of terror is framed as apathy and marketed as pragmatism. Moral responsibility is outsourced to institutions structurally incapable of restraining empire. A deranged society does not need to approve of power to enable it. It merely needs to stop resisting. This is decadence doing its work. Oscar Wilde once observed that America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilization. (Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, The Fortnightly Review, February 1891.) Wilde was diagnosing a condition over a hundred years ago when American decadence was nothing like it is today. For him, decadence meant abundance without ethics, power without discipline, spectacle without responsibility. American decadence today is on steroids, and most Americans, despite being afflicted with this debilitating condition, simply cannot see it. How else does one explain the gun violence, the killing of children, and the total inability to stop it? Today, decadence has curdled into something more dangerous. The United States now sits on the edge of derangement. This is a society that arms its military to police the world while arming its children to survive their schools. A nation that exports violence abroad and normalizes it at home. School shootings provoke ritualized grief and immediate forgetting. Immunity and impunity are not failures of the system. They are its operating logic. You cannot normalize lawlessness abroad and expect reverence for law at home. You cannot build global dominance on coercion and expect domestic cohesion. Violence travels inward. Liberal America refuses to confront this contradiction. It prefers performance. Brown, yellow, and black liberals sip lattes, issue statements, and decry genocide in carefully calibrated language, all while remaining structurally loyal to the order that produces it. Representation is mistaken for power. Proximity is mistaken for influence. Visibility substitutes for resistance. This is not a judgment of individual sincerity. It is a critique of political comfort. American liberalism has become a lifestyle posture rather than a transformative force or a belief rooted in fairness, justice, and equality. It allows moral expression without political cost. Outrage is encouraged. Disruption is discouraged. The system absorbs dissent while conceding nothing structural. This is why leadership changes fail to change outcomes. The leaders are mere performers groomed by the plutocracy to take office but not make change. Change the President. Change the Mayor. Change rhetoric. Change the optics. Use soaring language to enhance the performance. The drones will still fly. Sanctions will still strangle civilian economies. Interventions will continue. Thousands in far flung places will be killed. Empire does not respond to personalities or body bags. It responds to architecture. Europe understands this hierarchy perfectly. Had Russia or China carried out a comparable act, European capitals would already be mobilizing sanctions, invoking international law, issuing grave warnings. NATO language would dominate the media cycle. When the United States acts, Europe hesitates. It calibrates. It waits. This is not alliance. It is terminal decline manifesting as dependency on a bully. Moral language in Europe is conditional, selectively deployed, and ultimately unserious. It appears where safe and vanishes when costly. The media follows the same logic. Events are described. Systems remain unnamed. Complexity is invoked to defer judgment indefinitely. Latin America occupies a special place in this architecture and the psyche of America. Not as sovereign nations, but as a testing ground, where subservience is demanded and enforced. A zone where norms are trialed, stretched, and broken with limited consequence. The absence of nuclear deterrence matters. Power does not respect law. It respects cost. Latin America has long been denied the latter and lectured about the former. Intervention there is not an aberration. It is rehearsal. Asia occupies a different strategic category. The United States would not attempt such an action in East or South Asia. Not because it has evolved, but because it calculates. Vietnam and Afghanistan were bitter defeats which offered brutal lessons. China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea impose strategic costs that limit external interference. Nuclear deterrence succeeds where international law has repeatedly failed. But restraint is not respect. While sovereignty may be preserved strategically, many Asians continue to kneel psychologically. They still measure success through American validation. They still adopt American narratives as universal. They still mistake proximity to power for protection. This is the deeper danger. Hegemony does not operate only through force. It operates through desire. Through aspiration. Through the internalization of another civilization’s priorities as one’s own. This is how societies become comfortably numb. Asia would be wise to catch itself here. History is crowded with elites who believed accommodation would spare them. It never does. When discipline is required, aspiration becomes a liability. Sanctions make this logic clear. Economies are strangled. Livelihoods collapse. Unrest follows. That unrest is then cited as evidence of governance failure. Intervention creates the crisis it later condemns. Cause disappears. Symptoms dominate coverage. Iran is the case in point. What is most alarming is not aggression, but the absence of rage. Everywhere. Hundreds of commentators now debate tactics, alignment, and risk. Very few say the obvious: a society that can absorb this behavior without fury is deeply unwell. A polity that cannot be shaken by illegality abroad has already accepted it as normal. One that cannot summon anger for injustice elsewhere will eventually excuse it at home. This is not a moral sermon. It is a structural warning. Empires do not require universal support. They require sufficient numbness. We entered 2026 hoping peace might finally follow a year of atrocity. Venezuela reminded us that nothing fundamental had shifted. The machinery still hums. The narratives still hold. The silence still protects power. Venezuela is not the crisis. It is the mirror. And what it reflects is an empire mistaking immunity for strength, impunity for legitimacy, decadence for civilization, and drifting toward derangement while far too many, inside and outside it, remain comfortably numb. The post The USA Today: a Derangement Threatening the World appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Chandran Nair.
There are, of course, many interesting aspects of the Trump regime’s illegal and deadly intervention in Venezuela: 1. The mainstream press’s reaction to the operation, at least in comparison to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is interesting. After the latter invasion, all we heard was “Aggression! Aggression! Aggression! Russia is threatening the world with its aggression!” More The post A Lawless Regime appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396430" class="size-medium wp-image-396430" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9196-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair There are, of course, many interesting aspects of the Trump regime’s illegal and deadly intervention in Venezuela: 1. The mainstream press’s reaction to the operation, at least in comparison to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is interesting. After the latter invasion, all we heard was “Aggression! Aggression! Aggression! Russia is threatening the world with its aggression!” One does not see that terminology with respect to the military attack on Venezuela. There is detailed analysis, maybe even criticism, but there is no big emotional outburst of “Aggression! Aggression! Aggression! The United States is threatening the world with its aggression!” Yet, as illegal and deadly as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was, at least Russia had an excuse: That the U.S.-controlled NATO knowingly and deliberately provoked Russia into invading by threatening to absorb Ukraine into NATO, an action that U.S. officials had previously promised not to do. There was no such excuse with respect to the U.S. military aggression against Venezuela. It was pure, unadulterated aggression. 2. The U.S. government had no legal authority to attack Venezuela and kill people in the attempt to bring Maduro to the United States to stand trial for having allegedly violated U.S. drug laws. That’s what extradition agreements between nation-states are all about. Nations enter into such agreements as a mutual way to get suspected criminal defendants sent to a country to stand trial. If no extradition treaty exists, then under the law the suspected criminal simply remains where he is and there is nothing that the accusing nation can do about it. There is actually an extradition treaty between the United States and Venezuela. The U.S. government chose not to pursue that route, no doubt because the person being accused of the crime was the president of the country, Nicolás Maduro. As a practical matter, there was never any chance that an extradition request would have been successful, but that still does not legally justify attacking the country as a way to bring a criminal suspect to the United States to stand trial. 3. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that President Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for crimes committed during the course and scope of his official duties as president. Thus, even though Trump’s orders to assassinate people on the high seas near South America who are suspected of violating U.S. drug laws are clearly illegal killings, there is no reasonable possibility that Trump will ever be convicted for ordering such killings, given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But if the U.S. president is immune from criminal prosecution, why isn’t the president of a foreign country also immune from criminal prosecution as well? The answer: Because the U.S president is head of the U.S. Empire. Foreign presidents are heads of lower-level countries and, therefore, lack the same legal protection under the U.S. system as the head of the Empire. 4. I find it interesting that the military personnel who took Maduro and his wife into custody did not simply kill them instead, even if it meant shooting them in the back. After all, that’s what they have done with those people in those little boats. It befuddles me that they treated the Maduros differently. I’m not being critical, mind you, because they did the right thing in not summarily assassinating them or executing them after arrest. I’m just pointing this out because they should have treated those defenseless people in those little boats in the same way. Legally and morally, they should have demanded their surrender, taken them into custody, brought them to the United States, and put them on trial, as they have done with Maduro and his wife. 5. So far, this hasn’t turned out to be a full regime-change operation because Trump is permitting the Maduro regime to remain in power, albeit without Maduro. The Venezuelan socialist regime is still intact, with Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, now in charge, along with the Venezuelan national-security establishment, notwithstanding the fact that most everyone knows that Maduro lost the last election and was an illegitimate president. Given that he’s illegitimate, so is his vice president. Clearly dissing the dissidents against the Maduro regime, Trump is obviously hoping to convert Rodríguez into a U.S.-controlled puppet. It is pretty obvious that if she doesn’t follow Trump’s orders, she is staring at the possibility of another military strike aimed at her, one that will bring her to the United States to stand trial for who knows what, including supposedly being labeled a “narco-terrorist.” 6. It is also clear that the drug war has been used as just a ruse to abduct Maduro and bring him to the United States, especially given Trump’s pardon of other major drug lords in the U.S. federal system. In fact, Trump has already threatened Rodríguez with another military strike if she doesn’t stop drugs from exported from Venezuela to the United States. Of course, that would just be another sham reason for another such military strike. After all, given that U.S. officials have been unable to stop the black-market transportation of drugs inside the United States or into the United States, why would anyone think that a president of a foreign country would be able to stop the black-market exportation of drugs from that country? 7. Trump continues to claim that Venezuela stole oil from U.S. oil companies, but such is simply not the case. The oil was always owned by the Venezuelan government, which leased oil-extraction rights to American oil companies long ago on terms that were very favorable to the oil companies, possibly because of some bribes being paid. Later, the Venezuelan government broke those agreements by nationalizing all the oil rights. The oil companies were later granted monetary judgements in arbitration proceedings. But given the brutal sanctions (and Maduro’s socialism) that prevented Venezuela from prospering, the Venezuelan government has been unable to pay those judgments. 8. Since this was a military attack on the sovereign and independent nation, it required a congressional declaration of war under the U.S. Constitution. I fully realize that no U.S. president has complied with that constitution requirement ever since the federal government became a national-security state. Nonetheless, it’s important that we continue to point out the manifest illegality of these types of interventions. Martin Luther King pointed out that the U.S. government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. I don’t think that anyone really disputes that. But it’s also worth pointing out that it is also the greatest illegal purveyor of violence in the world. This first appeared on Hornberger’s Explore Freedom blog. The post A Lawless Regime appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jacob G. Hornberger.
In William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Mark Antony says the following at Caesar’s funeral: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. This suggests that, after a person dies, anything good they did in their life is forgotten, but their mistakes or ‘evil’ actions, are remembered. It More The post Shakespeare, Kissinger and Bardot appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-200x200.png" class="alignright wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-200x200.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="808" height="551" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396393" class="size-medium wp-image-396393" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png" alt="" width="680" height="464" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-680x464.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-768x524.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958-600x409.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Brigitte_Bardot_-_The_Sacramento_Union_1958.png 808w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> A US newspaper clipping, 9 February 1958 – Public Domain In William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Mark Antony says the following at Caesar’s funeral: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. This suggests that, after a person dies, anything good they did in their life is forgotten, but their mistakes or ‘evil’ actions, are remembered. It seems that, today, the opposite is true. U.S. politicians who, in office, are vilified for their wrongdoings, at least by the independent press, are lauded once they die, sometimes even by that same press. The same is true of film stars, it seems. Let us take, for example, Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, who is responsible for the deaths of millions of men, women and children. According to the National Security Archive, in an article entitled “Henry Kissinger, America’s Most Notorious War Criminal: “Even the most generous calculations suggest that the murderous regimes Kissinger supported and the conflicts they waged were responsible for millions of deaths and millions of other human rights abuses, during and after the eight years he served in the American government.” Yet when he finally died in 2023, this infamous legacy was not what was reported. We will review a few examples: • The Guardian: The headline of Kissinger’s obituary says this: “US secretary of state with peerless diplomatic skills, tireless energy and a ruthless desire to protect his country’s interests.” The article does discuss some of his murderous policies, but also lavishes praise on his dedication to the U.S., and his ‘abilities’. • FOX News: “Kissinger was praised by supporters as a brilliant strategist and condemned by critics as a master manipulator.” It is astounding that FOX couldn’t find any stronger criticism of a mass murderer than that he was a ‘master manipulator’. • TIME Magazine: Praising Kissinger for détente with the Soviet Union and improved relations with China, TIME does mention, seemingly almost in passing, that “…his critics have argued that his policies contributed to millions of deaths by permitting heavy bombing in Cambodia and Laos, blocking the ascension of a democratically elected leader in Chile, genocides in East Timor and Bangladesh and civil war in southern Africa.” Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? The magazine praised him for his realism in guiding U.S. foreign policy, and noted his continued influence long after he ceased to have any official position in government. These are just three examples, one each from an ostensibly ‘liberal’ publication, a conservative media outlet and a ‘middle-of-the-road’ magazine. Yet their evaluations of Kissinger do not differ much. Now, we will look to another personality, one without the murderous history of Kissinger, but one who’s earlier and dubious ‘accomplishments’ were heavily discussed in her obituaries, while the ugly reality of her later statements was basically ignored. French ‘actress’ Brigitte Bardot died in late December, 2025. She was known more for her beauty, which was often almost completely exposed on screen, than for any acting ability. After making nearly fifty movies, she retired at the age of 39 to focus on animal rights. So far, so good; nothing major to criticize about someone capitalizing on their looks to make a living, or protecting and supporting animal rights. However, the situation does seem to deteriorate from there. The ‘good’ – such as it was – does not seem, as the Bard suggests, to have been ‘interred with her bones’, although it seems that the evil was. We will again look at a few examples from her various obituaries. • The Guardian (yes, again): The headline for the obituary reads as follows: “Film star who shot to fame in ‘And God Created Woman’ in the 1950s and later became a campaigner against animal cruelty.” Later the article states that “…she was also an incorrigible social conservative about race, homosexuality and immigration.” The editors at The Guardian apparently did not deem it necessary to report, as LeMonde did, that “…Bardot, the political figure, embodied racial hatred. Convicted five times for inciting racial hatred, Bardot remained, for three decades, an exception in French culture – the only celebrity to openly defend the far right.” • FOX News (also again): The opening sentence of Bardot’s obituary is this: “Legendary French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has died at 91, her foundation announced Sunday.” Nary a word about her anti-Islam statements, like this one: “I am against the Islamisation of France! Our ancestors, our grandfathers, our fathers have for centuries given their lives to push out successive invaders.” • TIME Magazine (this writer is nothing if not consistent): TIME Magazine praised Bardot as a ‘bombshell’ and ‘activist’, but did mention, briefly at the conclusion of the obituary, that Bardot “… was also a vocal proponent of far-right politics in France. She decried Muslim immigration in public letters and in books, and she was repeatedly found guilty of provoking racial hatred.” This writer does not wish to give the impression that he equates Henry Kissinger’s war crimes and crimes against humanity to the unhinged statements of an ‘actress’ famous more for her body than for her mind. But it puzzles him how so many media outlets and publications – and he has only provided a small sampling here – seem to wish to minimize the ‘evil’, as Shakespeare expressed it, and just stress any good that some people have done. One might say that Bardot’s movies were entertaining (this writer has never seen one and plans to die with that statement remaining true), so that might be evaluated as ‘good’, but there is little on Kissinger’s resume that could be construed as ‘good’ (détente with Russia? U.S. official recognition of the People’s Republic of China? Possibly), but it’s all overshadowed by his monstrous crimes against humanity. But what’s a little genocide among friends? Kissinger was very popular, perplexingly, during the Nixon and Ford administrations, so why not let bygones be bygones, forget that he was responsible for the deaths of millions of people and unspeakable human-rights violations, and just focus on … well, anything else. And as for Bardot? So she spent fifty years maligning and railing against members of the LGBTQ+ population, Muslims and others. Wasn’t she impressive to look at on the silver screen? Why consider anything else about her? We have seen this same tendency with the deaths of any U.S. political figure, and will continue to do so. The press, after all, is a major tool of U.S. imperialism and domestic repression, and it will not bite the hands that feed it. But let us not forget that the evil that men and women do does, in fact, live after them. Fawning obituaries cannot cover the mass graves dug by the likes of Kissinger, any more than flattering words about Bardot can erase her hateful racism. Those ‘evils’ are not gone; they live on in people who still support Kissinger-style policies, and they are encouraged by Bardot’s statements. Let’s all try to look at people we constantly read about with a bit more objectivity than the press generally grants us. The post Shakespeare, Kissinger and Bardot appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Fantina.
Dear Americans, You Live in an Evil Empire
Since the Trump regime’s recent assault on Venezuela, a lot of Americans have been talking more about the nature of their country. This is significant because most Americans have been conditioned to see their nation as both a democracy and a superpower. But the two cannot exist simultaneously. These concepts are polar opposites. Yet, this More The post Dear Americans, You Live in an Evil Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-385962" class="size-medium wp-image-385962" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3934-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Since the Trump regime’s recent assault on Venezuela, a lot of Americans have been talking more about the nature of their country. This is significant because most Americans have been conditioned to see their nation as both a democracy and a superpower. But the two cannot exist simultaneously. These concepts are polar opposites. Yet, this is the contradiction most Americans still hold on to. Whether through media or Hollywood or branding or subtle messaging, Americans are inundated in the myth of its indispensable role in the world. This works so well because most Americans have never traveled abroad. It works because intellectual curiosity is stunted early. They are conditioned, from birth until death, to accept the concept of their exceptionalism. And this is not a phenomenon which is limited to conservative sensibilities. Liberals, by and large, are almost as brainwashed as their far-right counterparts in the sense that they see their country as essentially good. This is demonstrated by their overall disinterest in egregious and brutal foreign policies carried out by Democratic administrations, the genocide in Gaza being the most recent and glaring example. While unpopular, how many liberals vigorously opposed it when it was being funded and fueled by the Biden administration? How many insisted on supporting Kamala Harris, despite the fact that she intended to continue supporting Israel as it carried out its campaign of annihilation? Up until very recently, Americans never considered their nation to be a global empire. Even terms like “superpower” obscure the historic connotations of imperial violence. A superpower doesn’t colonize, rape natural resources, destabilize other nations or subvert democratic movements. It simply exists. As if it has always been there as a force of nature and not by ruthless intent and violence. But one thing that the Trump regime has done which differs from its predecessors is dismantling this myth, bit by bit. The attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president and first lady while Trump openly boasts about running the country and taking its oil has been a wake up call. His fever dream of doing the same to Greenland, Columbia, Nigeria, Iran, Cuba and Canada have added to this. Many who are coming to understand this now are falsely linking it to one man or to his regime. That this is just an aberration in the American project. That all will be returned to normal once he and his cohorts are removed from power. But this kind of toxic naivety is not only wrong, it is reckless. The history of the United States is one steeped in violent conquest and expansion. But this is seldom addressed by Americans as it relates to its nature today. The annexation of Hawaii and the imprisonment of its Queen. The possession of Puerto Rico while restricting it from statehood. Or the military occupation of the Philippines. These things are rarely, if ever, discussed in the mainstream. America was founded upon land stolen from Indigenous nations. It was built by enslaved Africans and indentured servants. Its belligerent foreign policies not only echo that of the great European empires, it expanded on them. It has interfered with, toppled, and installed proxy governments which have done its bidding or, more accurately the bidding of its ruling class. And it has 800+ military bases all over the planet. This is the very definition of empire. Yet, there are few Americans who would ever use that term to describe their nation. Outrage among liberal Americans over the Trump regime’s crude imperialistic rhetoric and actions is welcome. But if it stops there, it is useless. Americans need to face the painful truth that they are subjects of a deadly and brutal imperial power. One which is jostling with the other imperial houses of Russia and China for control over its “sphere of influence.” One which is now in a state of decline and decay, yet still powerful enough to destroy the biosphere and end all organized human civilization on earth. Trump did not create it, he has merely demolished the benevolent facade it has hidden behind for far too long. The post Dear Americans, You Live in an Evil Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kenn Orphan.
The Centrality of the Global South: A History
The recent military attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president and his wife make it clear once again that the people of what we currently call the Global South need a planetary anti-imperialist solidarity to live uncolonized in a capitalist world. Without that solidarity, their very lives are subject to the quest for More The post The Centrality of the Global South: A History appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM.png 2038w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-680x452.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-947x630.png 947w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-768x511.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-1536x1022.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-600x399.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2038px) 100vw, 2038px" /> <img loading="lazy" 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2038px) 100vw, 2038px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2038" height="1356" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM.png 2038w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-680x452.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-947x630.png 947w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-768x511.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-1536x1022.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-500x333.png 500w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-600x399.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2038px) 100vw, 2038px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="947" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-947x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-947x630.png 947w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-680x452.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-768x511.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-1536x1022.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-600x399.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM.png 2038w" sizes="(max-width: 947px) 100vw, 947px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396396" class="size-medium wp-image-396396" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-680x452.png" alt="" width="680" height="452" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-680x452.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-947x630.png 947w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-768x511.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-1536x1022.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM-600x399.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-2.38.47-PM.png 2038w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Zulfugar Karimov The recent military attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president and his wife make it clear once again that the people of what we currently call the Global South need a planetary anti-imperialist solidarity to live uncolonized in a capitalist world. Without that solidarity, their very lives are subject to the quest for profits that drive the nations seeking global empires. Without that solidarity, the formerly-colonized and the currently colonized peoples cannot thrive without fear of domination via economic domination and military invasion. Many have pointed out that the nature of the US attack and kidnapping was reminiscent of US actions in Latin America undertaken in the past, from the Spanish-American war to the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic and beyond. The attack’s blatant violation of sovereignty and military brutishness being the most obvious of those characteristics. Of course, the underlying politics and imperial illusions have never faltered, no matter what approach the US has taken. In other words, John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress was seeking the same relationship with the people of Latin America as Donald Trump is. In the first half of the twentieth century, an international organization founded and mostly located in the countries of Latin America worked toward achieving international solidarity against western (especially that of the United States) imperialism. The organization was socialist in its politics and revolutionary in its hopes. Its work used a revolutionary indigenous culture and an international network of labor, intellectual and cultural revolutionaries to raise consciousness and foment anti-capitalist social change, especially in the lands of its origin. Called the Liga Antiimperialista de Americas (LADLA), the organization was founded in January 1925 in Mexico City. Its documents and media referred to the nature of imperial extraction of local resources and situated its critique in one that emphasized anti-capitalism and western imperialism’s essential white supremacy. Using terms like “white terror” and “tropical fascism” to explain the difference between the oppression of the workers in the nations to the south of the United States in the western hemisphere. In short, these terms were understood as capsulizing the double oppression lived by indigenous and other non-white workers under the yoke of US capital. Over time, this understanding grew to include Black workers in the United States, also. Author Anne Garland Maher’s recently published book A Wide Net of Solidarity:Antiracism and Anti-Imperialism from the Americas to the Globe, relates and discusses the history of LADLA and its successors. She places the organization within the context of the international communist movement, its relationship to the Comintern before and after Stalin began to rule the USSR, and its importance to the tide of revolution and national liberation existing in the twentieth century. By beginning her text with an introduction to photographer, artist and revolutionary Tina Moldotti and her work—political and otherwise—Mahler sets a tone for her text. It’s a tone that includes a critical look at the international communist movement of the time, the roles of women in that movement, the assumptions of men, and the nature of the repression the movement faced. By establishing the fact of white supremacy and its role in western capitalism as foundational pillars of western (esp. US) colonialism and imperialism, she opens previous discussions of these topics well beyond their previous scope. In using Moldotti’s art as a foundation, Mahler does something one infrequently encounters in most contemporary histories from the Left: she places the role played by culture in revolutionary organizing in its rightful place. In other words, she acknowledges and champions its power to reach the unorganized and ideally encourage them to join the fight for liberation. The peak for LADLA in terms of numbers and support took place in the late 1920s when it decided to support the national liberation struggle in Nicaragua. Led by Augusto Sandino (who would be honored for his role by the Frente Sandino de Liberacion Nacional(FSLN or Sandinistas later in the century), their struggle would become a focus for anti-colonial struggles around the world. In her presentation of this history, the author raises questions regarding the role of the male revolutionary hero, the shortcomings of national liberation struggles organizing across classes and under the leadership of the petty bourgeoisie, and the roles of women in this context. Never dismissive, this text presents discussions still relevant today; discussions perhaps barely even considered at the time. We would be wise to consider them as we organize against US imperialism today. A current debate amongst some leftists centers around what’s being called Western Marxism, a Marxism that is accused of focusing primarily on the issues of the rich nations of the West while mostly relegating the relationship between nations and the peoples who suffer because of western imperialism to a lesser status, a lesser concern. Furthermore, in part because this western Marxism has its foundation in the academy its focus has become one that highlights oppressions suffered because of identities over those of class. A Wide Net of Solidarity’s emphasis on internationalism and the potentially revolutionary nature of culture injects an important piece of history into the struggle for a hopeful and socialist future, while simultaneously addressing issues of identity and class in a manner that prioritizes neither at the expense of the other. The post The Centrality of the Global South: A History appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ron Jacobs.
Years ago, when I used the words “colonialism” and “imperialism” in academia in the U.S., I was viewed as a communist. Now, in the wake of the US assault on Venezuela, I see that those two words are back again, along with “gunboat diplomacy” and “the Monroe Doctrine,” also known now as the “Donroe Doctrine.” More The post On the Language of Global Politics appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2040" height="1354" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2040" height="1354" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2040" height="1354" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2040" height="1354" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2040" height="1354" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2040" height="1354" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="949" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w" sizes="(max-width: 949px) 100vw, 949px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396431" class="size-medium wp-image-396431" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png" alt="" width="680" height="451" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-680x451.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-949x630.png 949w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-1536x1019.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-500x332.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM-600x398.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-6.42.40-PM.png 2040w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Greg Rosenke Years ago, when I used the words “colonialism” and “imperialism” in academia in the U.S., I was viewed as a communist. Now, in the wake of the US assault on Venezuela, I see that those two words are back again, along with “gunboat diplomacy” and “the Monroe Doctrine,” also known now as the “Donroe Doctrine.” What goes around comes around. Venezuela’s attorney general called what the U.S. did in his nation “state terrorism.” That’s spot on. In the New York Times, M. Gessen spoke about American colonialism. In an interview, she said, “We’re seeing colonization of an entire country. That’s beyond spheres of influence.” The New York Times noted that recent remarks by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, were meant to “justify imperialism.” Times’ reporter Chris Cameron wrote that “Mr. Miller’s language echoed a dark history of the United States’ governing weaker, smaller states in Latin America by flexing its military might.” Was Cameron channeling Howard Zinn? Maybe so! I was not the only one who was labeled a communist back in the day when I used the words imperialism and colonialism. Most Marxists were also targeted. It’s long past the time to bring back those words. They accurately described US actions around the world one hundred years ago and fifty years ago and they accurately describe what the US is doing today in Venezuela and elsewhere. M. Gessen also said of Trump, “When he compares the television images of the extraction of Maduro with the television coverage of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it inspires him to do more things like this.” Sadly so. Imperialism is in the saddle and rides humanity. In his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell attacked the left and condemned its use of words like “class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.” He added, “The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.” Orwell was wrong. We need words like “class,” “progressive,” “reactionary,” and “bourgeoisie,” and words like “equality,” “science,” and “totalitarian,” too.” Look to Trump, his cronies and the MAGA folks to see what Orwell had in mind when he wrote, “Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse.” Trump and cronies have corrupted the English language and become the voices for decadent American imperialism. The post On the Language of Global Politics appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jonah Raskin.
Bringing Gaza Home to Middle America’s Flyover Country
Will a jury in Middle America’s flyover country care enough about the genocide in Gaza to acquit 4 protesters arrested for nonviolent civil resistance? Will it matter once they’ve seen “Bringing Gaza Home?” That’s the question eight jurors will decide in Toledo a few weeks from now when they hear from four activists arrested October More The post Bringing Gaza Home to Middle America’s Flyover Country appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396427" class="wp-image-396427 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69-680x469.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="469" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69-680x469.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69-914x630.jpg 914w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69-768x529.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69-500x345.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69-600x413.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/af3302cd-4483-4200-a744-99eaefe38d69.jpg 1068w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> From left: Steve Masternak, Mike Ferner, Nancy Larson, and Al Compaan blocking the entrance to U.S. Senator John Husted’s Toledo office. 10/3/25 Photo: Sean Nestor Will a jury in Middle America’s flyover country care enough about the genocide in Gaza to acquit 4 protesters arrested for nonviolent civil resistance? Will it matter once they’ve seen “Bringing Gaza Home?” That’s the question eight jurors will decide in Toledo a few weeks from now when they hear from four activists arrested October 3 for blocking the entrance to the local office of U.S. Senator John Husted. They, along with the local peace movement had run out of patience with Husted because of his continuing support for Israel’s genocide. The final straw was when Husted refused to even make a statement supporting our friend and fellow Toledoan, Phil Tottenham, a former Marine, who was abducted in international waters by Israel during last fall’s Sumud Flotilla. That simply demanded the strongest nonviolent response we could make. We simply could not sit in comfort here in Toledo and watch this obscenity and simply hold a sign on a street corner to protest. We had to do more. The other three people arrested were Al Compaan, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Toledo; Nancy Larson, retired counselor-social worker; and Steve Masternak, retired industrial engineer. Two others were arrested but have since pled guilty and paid fines. Information we will show the jury is included in the extensively documented Veterans For Peace report, “Bringing Gaza Home.” The report is compiled from information published by international news outlets such as The Guardian, Al-Jazeera and Anadolu Agency, reporting on the effects of two years of Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine. What makes it local to Toledo, county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, is comparing the destruction in Gaza to what Lucas County would be like after similar bombardment. The methodology simply compares Gaza’s area and population to Lucas County’s and calculates the comparable numbers. We will hold up large photos and show videos of human casualties and physical destruction in Gaza, and describe to jurors what the effect would be in our own neighborhoods. We will tell the jury, “if this sounds utterly impossible or like a horror movie script, it’s neither. But for the grace of God this could be us instead of Gaza.” · 27,292 county residents would be dead, including 350 medical personnel, 528 people seeking food aid from official sites and 61 reporters and media workers · 93 people starved to death · 737 imprisoned without charges or trial · 450,170 tons of bombs dropped on our county in two years — four times what was dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, London, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined in WWII · Over 34,300 people wounded; over half are women and children · 324,520 people (75% of the county population) infected with disease from polluted water and open sewers · 384,500 people (90% of the population) endured severe lack of food · Over 90% of residential buildings are destroyed and 92% of all schools require complete reconstruction · 264,000 people (62% of the population) have lost legal documentation for property ownership · Over 340,000 unexploded bombs lie buried in Lucas County. Our hope at trial is that our fellow citizens and neighbors will be as abhorred by what Gazans have suffered as we are and decide it’s time to stand and be counted; that blocking the entrance to a Senator’s office is a minimal response to a genocide. The post Bringing Gaza Home to Middle America’s Flyover Country appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mike Ferner.
Establishment officials in Europe and the United States are shedding longstanding norms of empire denial by taking positions on what the Trump administration’s foreign policy means for the future of Pax Americana. Since former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and longtime architect of American empire Ivo Daalder declared “the end of Pax Americana” after the 2024 More The post Pax Americana, Trump-Style appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="496" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1866" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1866" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1866" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1866" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1866" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="864" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396433" class="size-medium wp-image-396433" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="496" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-680x496.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-864x630.jpg 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-768x560.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-2048x1493.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-500x364.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/10000_Miles_From_Tip_to_Tip_1899_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1133_01_enhanced-600x437.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> 1898 political cartoon: “Ten Thousand Miles From Tip to Tip” meaning the extension of U.S. domination (symbolized by a bald eagle) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines – Public Domain Establishment officials in Europe and the United States are shedding longstanding norms of empire denial by taking positions on what the Trump administration’s foreign policy means for the future of Pax Americana. Since former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and longtime architect of American empire Ivo Daalder declared “the end of Pax Americana” after the 2024 election of Donald Trump, deliberation over the fate of U.S. imperial power has intensified at the highest levels of government, where officials are trying to determine if the United States will continue to dominate the world. Although many establishment officials remain reluctant to speak of U.S. imperial power, the Trump administration’s foreign policy has grown so volatile, now including military aggression against Venezuela, that several establishment leaders have begun to reveal deep concerns over the implications for Pax Americana. In May of last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went so far as to propose a Pax Europaea as an alternative. “We cannot sit idly by as upheaval unfolds,” von der Leyen said. “We cannot allow ourselves to be thrown off course by the seismic changes that we are facing.” Establishment Concerns For over a decade, foreign policy elites have been deliberating over the future of Pax Americana, or the global imperium that the United States has led and dominated since the end of World War II. Since well before von der Leyen issued her call for a Pax Europaea, U.S. strategic analysts have been trying to discern the most consequential factors for Pax Americana. Driven by deep anxieties about challenges to U.S. imperial power, including the knowledge that all empires have fallen, they have come to focus on two major developments. One is rising powers. Concerned about China and Russia, U.S. strategic analysts began warning about a transition away from a unipolar world dominated by the United States to a multipolar world wracked by great-power competition. In 2012, the National Intelligence Council delivered a stark warning in its Global Trends report. “With the rapid rise of other countries, the ‘unipolar moment’ is over and Pax Americana—the era of American ascendancy in international politics that began in 1945—is fast winding down,” the National Intelligence Council reported. Although analysts agreed that the United States remained the world’s most powerful country, knowing it could still direct major attacks against countries such as Venezuela, they feared that the United States was losing its ability to impose its will on the world. Following Russia’s 2014 intervention in Ukraine, analysts increasingly asserted that global politics was entering a new era of great-power competition. Soon thereafter, analysts began to identify another major challenge to Pax Americana. As they pushed U.S. leaders to reframe U.S. foreign policy in terms of great-power competition, they raised alarms about the political rise of Donald Trump, especially his impulsive nature, disdain for allies, and cruder perspective on American empire. Over the course of Trump’s first term in office, the U.S. foreign policy establishment was one of his main critics, even working against him. Although Trump shared the establishment’s commitment to U.S. military dominance and his advisor Stephen Bannon spoke of Pax Americana, the U.S. foreign policy establishment remained convinced that Trump generated instability. Daalder began warning about the waning of Pax Americana. Since the start of the second Trump administration, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has grown more critical. Although it has reproduced many of the same warnings about Trump’s impulsive behavior, it has been warning more openly about the implications for U.S. imperial power. Leading the way, Daalder has made some of the most dramatic assertions. Not only did he announce “the end of Pax Americana” in an op-ed shortly after the 2024 election, but he and his colleague James Lindsay wrote a detailed obituary of Pax Americana for Foreign Affairs, the main journal of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. “Pax Americana is gone,” Daalder and Lindsay declared in the opening line of their article. “The U.S.-led international rules-based order died with the second inauguration of Donald J. Trump.” The Transatlantic Context Daalder’s dramatic pronouncements may have gained little attention beyond establishment circles, but they have created a basis for a more open discussion among establishment figures about U.S. imperial power, especially among Atlanticists. Since Daalder first declared the end of Pax Americana in the European edition of Politico, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has shown particular concern for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), one of the key pillars of Pax Americana. Unlike the Trump administration, which has displayed special interest in the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has maintained the position that strong transatlantic relations are foundational to U.S. global power. Alarmed by Trump’s criticisms of NATO, including his claims that its expansion provoked Russia into invading Ukraine, establishment figures have been scrambling to make the case that NATO remains critical to the United States. “NATO is one of our greatest strategic assets,” former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told Congress in June. Daalder, who is also a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, has gone to great lengths to advocate on behalf of NATO, even dropping the pretense that NATO is an alliance of equals. In a lecture on Pax Americana in July, Daalder openly acknowledged that the United States has historically directed NATO and used its power over the military alliance to control Europe and project U.S. military power into the Middle East. Daalder conceded that Trump has gotten European countries to increase their military spending and take more responsibility for their security, but he warned that the president’s tactics may weaken U.S. control over Europe. Several years from now, Daalder warned, the result may be that “they’re less dependent on us than they are now, which means we have less capacity to control.” The U.S. foreign policy establishment has remained determined that the United States continue to dominate both Europe and NATO, but it received a major shock in December, when the Trump administration seemed to move against Europe. Not only did the Trump administration express disdain for Europe in its National Security Strategy, but President Trump gave a highly provocative interview in which he called European leaders weak, alleging they are “destroying their countries.” Following the provocations, growing anxiety among Atlanticists then spilled into the open, with some of the highest-level officials on both sides of the Atlantic taking positions on the future of Pax Americana. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued some of the most dramatic remarks, declaring that transatlantic relations are undergoing a fundamental change and that Pax Americana is ending in Europe. “The decades of Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe, and for us in Germany as well,” Merz said. “It no longer exists as we knew it.” In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio then defended the Trump administration’s approach. Rather than denying any interest in Pax Americana, as several U.S. presidents have done in the past, Rubio indicated that there is no merit to the German chancellor’s claim about the end of Pax Americana in Europe. “I don’t know why he’s saying that,” Rubio said. To support his position, Rubio insisted that the United States wields extraordinary influence in Europe. He cited massive U.S. military spending and alluded to the fact that the United States maintains a sprawling military presence across the continent. “We have troops stationed there,” Rubio said. “We have capabilities there.” Elites and Empire Whatever the case may be for Pax Americana, major changes are taking place concerning how elites speak about American power. Breaking with longstanding norms of empire denial, high-level officials in both Europe and the United States are turning to imperial frameworks to explain U.S. foreign policy. In many ways, President Trump spurred the change. With fewer establishment advisors restraining him since the start of his second term, the president has openly embraced imperial ambitions, demanding the annexation of countries and threatening to conduct military interventions. Trump declared in a major address to the nation that he wants the United States to be the “most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.” The Trump administration presented imperial goals in its National Security Strategy, calling for economic dominance and military superiority. The strategy embraces the Monroe Doctrine and marks Latin America as a sphere of influence. It reads like a manifesto for American empire, even if providing a cruder imperial logic for a more volatile empire. Recently acting on its imperial threats, the Trump administration directed a military intervention in Venezuela, the country with the largest known oil reserves in the world. U.S. military forces captured the country’s president, forcibly removing him from Venezuela and taking him to the United States. Speaking at a press conference, Trump called the military operation “a spectacular assault,” declared that “we’re going to run the country,” and announced that he was handing over the country’s oil industry to U.S. oil companies. “Under our new National Security Strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said. At the same time, however, establishment officials in Europe and the United States are also thinking in imperial terms, even while criticizing Trump. Concerned about the implications of the Trump administration’s growing volatility, for both transatlantic relations and the world, they are openly deliberating over the future of Pax Americana. In other words, it is not only Trump who speaks the language of empire. Atlanticists harbor deep-seated imperial commitments as well. Whatever conclusions establishment officials may draw, their open talk of Pax Americana indicates that they conceptualize the United States as an imperial power and care deeply about its imperial future. This first appeared on FPIF. The post Pax Americana, Trump-Style appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Edward Hunt.
Walz Pulls Out: Score Another Another One for Racism, Coupled with Democratic Party and Media Ineptitude
Simple question folks: how much money was stolen in the fraud hyped by Republicans and media clown Nick Shirley? My guess is that if we did a poll of highly knowledgeable people, those who regularly follow the news closely, we would get a range of answers from less than $1 billion to $20 billion. Who More The post Walz Pulls Out: Score Another Another One for Racism, Coupled with Democratic Party and Media Ineptitude appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396434" class="size-medium wp-image-396434" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-680x454.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="454" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-680x454.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-943x630.jpg 943w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-768x513.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-1536x1027.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-500x334.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill-600x401.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Tim_Walz_Jesse_Ventura_cannabis_bill.jpg 1616w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan – Public Domain Simple question folks: how much money was stolen in the fraud hyped by Republicans and media clown Nick Shirley? My guess is that if we did a poll of highly knowledgeable people, those who regularly follow the news closely, we would get a range of answers from less than $1 billion to $20 billion. Who knows where we would end up with the larger public? Trump and some of the MAGA crew might even throw out numbers in the trillions. I’m not picking on people’s ignorance. The point is whether or not this should have been a career-ending scandal for Tim Walz absolutely depends on the number. There will always be fraud in any government social program, just like there is some level of fraud in everything in the private sector. The question must always be how much? Sometimes even high levels of fraud are apparently tolerated. As I noted previously, the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration (SBA) identified $200 billion of potentially fraudulent payments in the Paycheck Protection Program, an emergency pandemic started in Trump’s first term. This would have been more than 15 percent of the money that went out the door. That massive level and percentage of fraud proved not to be career ending for Donald Trump. In fact, it was not even career ending for Linda McMahon, the SBA administrator responsible for overseeing the program. Trump promoted her to Education Secretary in his current term. There were some consequences. Hannibal Ware, the Inspector General who uncovered the fraud, who is Black, was fired by Donald Trump at the start of his second term. But getting back to the issue of Walz being chased out of public life because of Republicans hysterically yelling fraud, it really is essential that we start demanding some context for these allegations. We need to know how large the fraud is relative to the size of the program. This is a drum I have been beating on pretty much forever. The point seems simple and obvious. Big numbers, in the millions, billions, and trillions, are virtually meaningless to almost everyone. News outlets are not providing their audiences with information when they tell us that $500 billion or $1 trillion will be spent on a program; especially since they often don’t even bother to tell us whether the spending is over one year, five years, or longer. I have never found any reporter who could tell me with a straight face that they are conveying information by just throwing out these really big numbers. The big victory on this score was getting then New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, along with Washington Editor David Leonhardt, to strongly agree on this point. I thought this was the beginning of a change in practice at the Times, which given its standing in the media hierarchy, likely would have led to a change in practice in the media more broadly. After all, it is essentially costless to take the five seconds to add that the $100 billion annual food stamp budget comes to 1.4 percent of the federal budget. But nothing changed at the Times or anywhere else, and now we have Tim Walz’s political corpse on our hands as result. While the need to express these numbers in some context might be too complicated for the great minds in the Democratic Party to understand, I can guarantee that it’s not too complicated for Republican political operatives. We can be absolutely certain that they will highlight every real or imagined incident of fraud in every government program that they don’t like. And in most of these cases they will be able to point to some REALLY BIG NUMBER, which will sound like a huge problem to the vast majority of people who hear it. Many people may still support the programs and the politicians who promote them, because they think it is important that children, the disabled, and the elderly get food and healthcare. But many people, including many very moderate centrist types, may turn against them, as apparently they have done with Walz, because they can’t tolerate large amounts of waste and fraud. The Republicans have massive amounts of money and most the media pushing their agenda 24-7. Progressives, and really anyone who supports democracy, can’t afford to be stupid. Our current line seems to be: “we have been losing for fifty years, why change now?” There are many serious practical and ideological issues that divide the non-fascists among us; but demanding that numbers be put in context should not be one of them. Unfortunately, the Republicans won’t agree to be as stupid as we are. They will constantly yell about massive fraud in public programs, especially when they involve Black and brown people, and point fingers at the politicians who support them. Tim Walz is an unfortunate victim of this crap, but we can be sure that he will not be the last. This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog. The post Walz Pulls Out: Score Another Another One for Racism, Coupled with Democratic Party and Media Ineptitude appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.
Humanitarianism is the Warmest Place to Hide
Zohran Mamdani’s promise to bring “the resurgent flame of hope” to “the January chill” as mayor of a literally frozen New York City during his January 1 inaugural address got the cold shoulder from conservative commentators. Despite his vow to move the city to unity past “a tale of two cities, the rich versus the More The post Humanitarianism is the Warmest Place to Hide appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-385925" class="size-medium wp-image-385925" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4581-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Zohran Mamdani’s promise to bring “the resurgent flame of hope” to “the January chill” as mayor of a literally frozen New York City during his January 1 inaugural address got the cold shoulder from conservative commentators. Despite his vow to move the city to unity past “a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor” and highlighting constituents “who supported President Trump a year before they voted for me,” some just aren’t buying Mamdani’s narrative. At most, reactions to lines such as the pledge to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism” in City Journal or the Wall Street Journal don’t go quite as far as National Review’s Noah Rothman in invoking “the warmth generated by torchlit marches, book burnings, and crematoria.” Yet those red-baiting Mamdani’s “Red Apple” could stand to scratch the surface and see how much the gilded apple of Trump Tower pokes through — and not just because he won’t be able to “deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few” if those fat cats pull up stakes. Mamdani at least acknowledges that Bill de Blasio took office via the same winning “tale of two cities” rhetoric in 2014 — and the precedents of David Dinkins and Fiorello La Guardia, both memory-holed by the subtitle of Run Zohran Run! Inside Zohran Mamdani’s Sensational Campaign to Become New York City’s First Democratic Socialist Mayor. The contrast to such predecessors as former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and election competitor Andrew Cuomo is left unsaid. Yet Mamdani’s assertion that subsidies for rents and rides are “not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom” parallels Giuliani’s infamous line about how “freedom is about authority.” Rudy’s concomitant qualms about using such authority to “solve problems that government in America was designed not to solve” are nullified by certitude that “there is no need too small to be met” by statism — itself an echo of Cuomo’s confidence that in the New York state he then governed “there is no small solution to big problems.” Mamdani assures us that his administration is one for which “no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power” in the face of “those who insist that the era of big government is over.” He doesn’t specify whether their ranks include the husband of former United States Senator Hillary Clinton who originated that phrase, but it’s not that far from William Jefferson Clinton’s anti-Jeffersonian claim to find “nothing patriotic about … pretending that you can love your country but despise your Government.” For New Yorkers who love their city despite its government, that’s not the result of what Mamdani dubs “decades of apathy” but of understanding reality. The post Humanitarianism is the Warmest Place to Hide appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joel Schlosberg.
“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer “In those years only the dead smiled, glad to be at rest.” – Anna Akhmatova “Requiem” Now the winds blow fair A wedding feast of blood Cities sacked, crops despoiled The endless drone of clever and evil men faceless and already dead A dawn More The post Threnody (for the people of Gaza) appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer “In those years only the dead smiled, glad to be at rest.” – Anna Akhmatova “Requiem” Now the winds blow fair A wedding feast of blood Cities sacked, crops despoiled The endless drone of clever and evil men faceless and already dead A dawn without light A blank sky, an indifferent sea The cries of mothers, always and only mothers Their cries freeze the air Children set aflame, walking towards us Embraces we scorn Quiet moments we explode Silencing the song of birds Invocations we ignore from the rising of the wind, the rivers, the forest A funeral pyre in all lands What words will answer for the children? The one torn to pieces The one starving The one beneath the rubble The one violated Who will say no? Who will cast the demons out? Blood will not wash away blood Where will the ashes fall? What days will become night? Cattle, children, sheep, infants Men, donkeys, camels, women Amalekites all What desperate tinkering will shape the final machine? The one to replace the forest and the sea Blind physicians, drunken priests, and mad prophets All conjuring augeries of stone Their ears stuffed with wax The world does not speak to us Who will place one stone upon another? And speak the name of a single child in the city where we dropped the sun? Who will let their words join the land efficacious and true? The post Threnody (for the people of Gaza) appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Snider.
Oh good. Now we have a war to focus on. Everyone’s tired of Epstein by now, and tired of the possibility that the bad guy may be, ho hum, our own national leader, a.k.a., the commander-in-chief. So the commander-in-chief has stepped in for the sake of the public good, bestowing on America a far more More The post Evolving Beyond cynicism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Oh good. Now we have a war to focus on. Everyone’s tired of Epstein by now, and tired of the possibility that the bad guy may be, ho hum, our own national leader, a.k.a., the commander-in-chief. So the commander-in-chief has stepped in for the sake of the public good, bestowing on America a far more traditional enemy to hate and fear and let dominate the headlines: narco-terrorists. I’m still trying to grasp the fact that Donald Trump has actually invaded Venezuela. He’s no longer simply bombing boats in the ocean. The U.S. military bombed Caracas on Jan. 3 and broke into the home of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores. They were kidnapped and extradited to the United States, where they are now on trial for drug trafficking – as though that was the moral purpose of the invasion. Obviously it wasn’t. As The Intercept notes: “This is a clear-cut act of military aggression, a brazen violation of international law, and a textbook example of unreconstructed 19th-century colonialism. “Donald Trump now says that the U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela and ‘take’ the country’s vast oil reserves.” I’m in sync with the enormous outrage over this invasion, both here in the U.S. and around the world. Where I back away slightly, however, is when a critic points out that Trump’s military action was “illegal,” because he invaded Venezuela without congressional approval. When I read this kind of criticism, I feel an inner alarm go off. Making a war “legal” doesn’t make it just or moral. Legal wars still kill and maim innocent people, still destroy communities, still create intense hatred that guarantees future wars. In other words, war itself is always the core of the wrong. In no way am I saying I oppose self-defense, or even retaliation. I’m saying, instead, that I believe we need to rethink what self-defense actually means. What, oh what, is power? We live in a world that is armed against itself with preposterous enormity – nuclear-armed against itself, for God’s sake. Violent response is embedded in the way we think, regarded as the nature of protection. Where’s my gun? And it’s likely to be the first response to a perceived threat, especially at the national level. And anyone who dares to question this is easily belittled as crying: “Gosh, can’t we all just get along?” I took aim, so to speak, at this cynicism in a poem I wrote some years ago, called “Can’t We All Just . . . Oh Forget It,” which begins: The cynics play with their sticks and knives, mocking the merciful, the naïve, the cheek turners. Can’t we all just . . . oh, forget it. But maybe the answer is yes, if we undo the language, the easy smirkwords that belittle our evolving . . . Belittle our evolving! Disagreement – conflict – is often incredibly complex. Simply “eliminating” it, shooting it out of existence, may be a tempting course of action, but it solves nothing. Instead, we have to understand it. And every time we understand the reasons for a conflict – and figure out how to rectify and transcend those reasons – we evolve. Consider these words about the Venezuela invasion by Jordan Liz: “Ultimately, whether it’s removing Maduro or invading Cuba, Mexico, or Colombia, none of these actions will solve the drug crisis because they fail to tackle the root cause: public suffering. While there are many reasons people turn to drugs, the lack of adequate healthcare, poverty, homelessness, social stigmas about drug use, and criminalization are the leading factors. People turn to drugs when their governments and communities turn their back on them. Drug cartels, like any other capitalist enterprise, exploit these people’s hopes and desires for their own gain. “. . . If Trump really cared about the drug crisis, he would be working tirelessly to solve the affordability crisis — not denying its existence or spending billions on battleships.” War is not the answer, even if it’s legal. The post Evolving Beyond cynicism appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Koehler.
Venezuela Is the Linchpin of a Radical Left
Palestine is the moral heart of global anti-colonial politics. It exposes the brutality of settler colonialism in its most naked form: land theft, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and white supremacist domination. For many on the left, solidarity with Palestine has become a defining ethical commitment. But while Palestine functions as a moral litmus test for More The post Venezuela Is the Linchpin of a Radical Left appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Palestine is the moral heart of global anti-colonial politics. It exposes the brutality of settler colonialism in its most naked form: land theft, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and white supremacist domination. For many on the left, solidarity with Palestine has become a defining ethical commitment. But while Palestine functions as a moral litmus test for individuals and organizations across the political terrain from left to right, Venezuela is a structural and political one. Recent events in Venezuela have dramatically escalated the stakes of anti-imperialist politics in a way that cannot be ignored. On January 3, 2026, the United States launched a large-scale military operation with the objective of kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and transporting them back to the United States to face federal charges. This marks a decisive escalation in the forms of subversion and interventionist tactics that have characterized U.S. interventions in recent decades. It also became a game-changer for radical politics inside the empire. The turn toward overt military force and the forcible removal of a sitting head of state signals a return to the raw practice of colonial domination — a form of power not seen so explicitly since the 2004 removal of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by the George W. Bush administration. The Empire has dropped the mask. The question now is whether the left will continue to speak in the language of “liberal critique” and “class collaboration,” or whether it will finally confront bipartisan-supported imperial power in its most direct and unapologetic form. Venezuela is the issue where anti-imperialism stops being a slogan and becomes a confrontation with one’s own state. It is therefore also the issue where U.S.-based radicals should unapologetically affirm Venezuela’s right to self-determination and openly oppose the U.S. imperial project in Venezuela. If they are not prepared to do this, it demonstrates unequivocally that their radicalism was never serious — that it was always symbolic and selective, which made it ultimately safe for the empire. The Venezuela situation also reveals another now-normalized feature of “left” politics: the divergence between a left that is formally anti-imperialist and a liberal/left that remains fundamentally U.S.-centric and social imperialist. When this current turns to international events — especially cases of U.S. intervention — its position is shaped less by opposition to imperialism than by its assessment of the internal character of the targeted state. The legitimacy of intervention is thus implicitly judged according to whether the society under attack conforms to what amounts to Western “liberal” expectations and not the conditions and imperatives of revolutionary social transformation. In practice, the actually existing efforts at socialist-oriented economic, social, and political development are almost always deemed inadequate, flawed, or authoritarian. This judgment then becomes the pretext for withholding solidarity. The predictable result is that these “left” forces find themselves aligned with U.S. imperialism in both analysis and effect, even as they insist that their position is informed by a “left” critique. This is not a minor theoretical error but a political failure. It subordinates the principle of self-determination to ideological gatekeeping, and it replaces solidarity with conditional approval. In doing so, it converts anti-imperialism into a posture rather than a commitment — a language that can coexist comfortably with empire so long as empire speaks in the idiom of liberal democratic reformism and white saviorism! Examples of this approach have emerged since the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife where sections of the collaborative left adopt the language and assumptions of U.S. policy makers about Venezuela — condemning Nicolás Maduro’s personality, legitimacy, or policies — but then attempt to separate those “left” condemnations from the brutal consequences of imperial intervention. The first example is the familiar move: “I oppose U.S. intervention, but Maduro is an authoritarian who brought this on himself.” This framing accepts Washington’s narrative that Venezuela’s crisis is primarily the product of internal leadership failure rather than external economic warfare, sanctions, and destabilization. By centering Maduro’s alleged illegitimacy, this position reproduces the moral logic that makes intervention appear reasonable, even if the speaker claims to oppose the intervention itself. This position turns anti-imperialism into a procedural objection rather than a principled one — objecting to methods while accepting the white supremacist, colonialist premise that the U.S. has the authority to judge and discipline other societies. The second example is the appeal to “human rights” as a neutral justification: “The U.S. shouldn’t intervene militarily, but something must be done about human rights abuses in Venezuela.” This treats human rights discourse as politically innocent, ignoring its long history as an imperial instrument used selectively against disobedient states and never against compliant ones. This framing erases the massive human rights violations produced by sanctions, economic strangulation, and political isolation — forms of violence that are invisible precisely because they are bureaucratic. In both cases, the liberal/left position preserves U.S. moral authority while disavowing U.S. violence. This is not a contradiction but a function: it allows empire to operate with legitimacy. By accepting imperial categories and merely disputing their execution, the liberal/left becomes not an opponent of empire but one of its most useful managers. The kidnapping of President Maduro is not simply another foreign-policy episode but a textbook case of imperial domination. In the present international context of imperial lawlessness — characterized by a form of global fascism led by the United States — it signals that these methods will be used again to attack and assert control over other sovereign nations. Venezuela thus remains the linchpin for an authentic radical left precisely because it tests whether anti-imperialism is a principle or merely a fashionable posture. This moment demands that those committed to justice confront not only the moral obscenity of settler colonialism in Palestine but also the raw mechanisms of material power deployed abroad and domestically by their own state. Opposing empire only when it is directed at states that meet the Western left’s criteria for deserving solidarity will always fail, because such “perfect” states do not exist in reality. This logic explains how the U.S. “left” can normalize anti-anti-imperialism while continuing to present itself as radical. “Actually existing,” concrete national projects of social transformation will always be imperfect. If the standard for solidarity is grounded in fantasies of Bernsteinian peaceful “democratic” transitions in a neocolonial context or even more idealist visions in core imperialist societies like the U.S., in which state power is seized on Friday and society becomes stateless and self-managed by local peoples’ assemblies by Monday, then no real struggle will ever qualify. These expectations function less as political standards than as mechanisms for disqualification. The birth of new societies and their development within a disintegrating global capitalist order — and in the face of an international bourgeoisie committed to violent state terrorism and subversion to maintain Western white supremacist imperial power — constitute the objective conditions that shape the politics of those societies and should inform anti-imperialist politics in the metropoles. Only by naming and opposing the full spectrum of imperial violence — from financial warfare to overt military conquest — can a radical left aspire to be consistent and consequential in the objective conditions we find ourselves in. Venezuela’s struggle today lays bare the essential question: Do we oppose oppression only as distant abstractions, or do we confront empire at its most aggressive and normalized expressions? Opposing empire in Venezuela is critical because the Venezuelan experiment at national survival with the lessons it has learned was beginning to expose the fact that even with “maximum pressure,” the possibility of an alternative political and economic trajectory outside neoliberal capitalism and U.S. hemispheric dominance was possible. Venezuela’s ability to sell its oil, even at a diminished level after years of sanctions that resulted in its inability to reinvest in critical infrastructure, represented a critical win for its people and for all states that possessed critical resources. Its successful attempts to trade oil outside the dollar system — including in Chinese currency or digital alternatives — are significant not mainly because they threaten U.S. energy security, but because they undermine U.S. financial and geopolitical control. The real concern is the precedent: that a major resource-holding state can defy U.S. authority, weaken dollar-based systems, and still survive. The issue is thus about maintaining hegemony, not just securing fuel. Palestine reveals the moral horror of settler-colonial domination, while Venezuela reveals the operational logic of contemporary empire abroad and in its’ domestic politics. If radical politics cannot confront that logic at its source — in the policies of the U.S. state itself — then it risks becoming a politics of outrage without consequence. Venezuela is the linchpin not because it is more important than Palestine, but because it tests whether the left is willing to oppose empire where it is most normalized, most respectable, and for some, most difficult to name. For many U.S. radicals, this will be very difficult because the price might be too high. Unequivocal support for Venezuelan self-determination means defending a state targeted by your own ruling class, being accused of supporting “authoritarianism,” a charge that functions as an ideological weapon to discipline dissent that will result in losing access to mainstream legitimacy. This is precisely why Venezuela is the site where left politics becomes dangerous, subversive and its practitioners materially punished — which is exactly why it is the real test of radicalism. The charge of repression coming from a state in the grip of neofascist consolidation and a liberal/left represented by “progressives” such as Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani – who will not only condemn the Bolivarian process but the revolutionary people and process of Cuba – illustrates perfectly the rightist convergence of the fascist state and the social democratic managerial “left.” Venezuela’s Bolivarian project cannot be explained by the simplistic focus on supposed internal dysfunction and authoritarianism but by its geopolitical disobedience — the refusal to submit to the U.S. assertion of the Monroe Doctrine and the global neoliberal order. For the imperialist white supremacist policymakers, that refusal had to be punished through economic suffocation and political destabilization. Yet, Venezuela’s ability to survive, to demonstrate that it could exist outside of the structures dominated by international capitalist financial institutions, ironically posed an existential threat to U.S. hegemony not only because it was uniquely dangerous, but because it could be contagious. The post Venezuela Is the Linchpin of a Radical Left appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ajamu Baraka.
Photos of attack on Palestine activist’s property ‘censored’ by Facebook
COMMENTARY: By Saige England What happened at New Zealand human rights campaigner John Minto’s home? Let me tell you. Let me tell you that he wrote about it and Facebook took it down. Yep. Wrong after wrong. Minto, national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) advocacy and protest group, has been arrested at
COMMENTARY: By Saige England What happened at New Zealand human rights campaigner John Minto’s home? Let me tell you. Let me tell you that he wrote about it and Facebook took it down. Yep. Wrong after wrong. Minto, national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) advocacy and protest group, has been arrested at least 23 times for standing against racism. READ MORE: Prominent activist targeted in ‘pathetic’ attack on property Facebook censorship on West Papua – then deafening silence Other reports on the Gaza genocide A couple of nights ago two Palestinian flags were stolen from the Christchurch Ōtautahi home of John and his partner, Bronwen. “Nazi scum” was spray-painted in large letters on his footpath. The sign “make poverty history” ripped off the fence and the Te Tiriti sign spray-painted. But John, who has been a leader in New Zealand protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza which has killed at least 71,000 people since October 2023, has been unable to report this because Facebook removed his original post about this crime. Why? Because white supremacists and their allies want to win this round, their complaints are supported by oppressive social media mechanisms. Human rights are under threat. A genocide in Gaza is supported by our New Zealand government. Propaganda is rife. And the Treaty that represents partnership, that should uphold the rights of the tangata whenua is being pushed to the gutter. And speaking of gutter. Here you see it. People who feel entitled to storm private property and tear down signs that stand against extermination and exile. Facebook is blocking shares about the details about the vandalism. Censorship! To thwart the censorship, share this commentary if you wish to share the truth and disempower those who want supreme power. Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. Republished from a social media post with the author’s permission. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
AS BATUCADEIRAS DAS OLAIAS (Lisbon, 2025)
This content originally appeared on Vincent Moon / Petites Planètes and was authored by Vincent Moon / Petites Planètes.
This Isn’t the First Killing By ICE — And It Won’t Be the Last #politics #trump
‘Straight-up piracy and extortion’: Trump says he will control money from sale of Venezuelan oil
By Jake Johnson US President Donald Trump has claimed that Venezuela’s interim leadership will turn over to the United States as many as 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to be sold at market price, part of a broader, unlawful administration effort to seize the South American nation’s natural resources. Trump, who authorised the illegal
By Jake Johnson US President Donald Trump has claimed that Venezuela’s interim leadership will turn over to the United States as many as 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to be sold at market price, part of a broader, unlawful administration effort to seize the South American nation’s natural resources. Trump, who authorised the illegal US bombing of Venezuela and abduction of its president this past weekend, said he would control the proceeds of the sale — which could amount to $3 billion. “Just straight-up piracy and extortion from the US president,” Zeteo journalist and publisher Mehdi Hasan wrote in response. READ MORE: Sanctioned oil tanker falsely using Cook Islands flag, authority says ‘Anywhere in the world’: US seizes Venezuela-linked Russian oil tanker Other Venezuela invasion reports Consistent with his administration’s conduct since the weekend attack that killed at least 75 people in Venezuela, Trump provided few details on how his scheme would work or how it would comply with domestic and international law, both of which the president has repeatedly disregarded and treated with contempt. Where are our humane profiles of the families of these murder victims? Where are the calls being amplified in the media to “Free the Hostages”? As we all know by now, not all lives matter. “State funeral in Venezuela to bury the 80 people murdered by American troops who… https://t.co/FXSyujFdcx — Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) January 7, 2026 It is also not clear that Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president and an ally of Nicolás Maduro, has agreed to Trump’s plan, which he announced on social media as his administration worked to entice US oil giants to take part in its effort to exploit the South American nation’s vast reserves. Ahead of the US attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration imposed a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers approaching or leaving Venezuela, pushing the country closer to economic collapse. The New York Times noted yesterday that Trump’s decision to “begin targeting tankers carrying Venezuelan crude to Asian markets had paralysed the state oil company’s exports.” Floating storage facilities “To keep the wells pumping, the state oil company, known as PDVSA, had been redirecting crude oil into storage tanks and turning tankers idling in ports into floating storage facilities,” the Times reported. During Trump’s first White House term, he banned US companies from working with PDVSA. Trump wrote in his social media post yesterday that the tens of millions of barrels of oil “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.” “I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately,” Trump wrote. The Trump administration is also pushing Venezuela’s interim leadership to meet a series of US demands before it can pump more oil, ABC News reported. Trump has illegally threatened to launch another attack on Venezuela, and target more of its politicians, if the country’s leadership does not follow his administration’s orders. According to ABC, the Trump administration has instructed Venezuela to “kick out China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba and sever economic ties.” “Second, Venezuela must agree to partner exclusively with the US on oil production and favour America when selling heavy crude oil,” ABC added, citing unnamed sources. “According to one person, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a private briefing on Monday that he believed the US can force Venezuela’s hand because its existing oil tankers are full. Rubio also told lawmakers that the US estimated that Caracas has only a couple of weeks before it would become financially insolvent without the sale of its oil reserves.” Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. Republished from Common Dreams. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
‘Is It Worth Running a Race Where the Prize Is Some Dystopian Future?’: CounterSpin interview with Mitch Jones on AI vs. environment
"All of the changes that happen economically that are going to harm the most of us and enrich a few of the others are sold to us as inevitable."
Janine Jackson interviewed Food and Water Watch’s Mitch Jones about artificial intelligence versus the environment for the December 19, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219Jones.mp3 Common Dreams (12/8/25) Janine Jackson: Imagine that a nascent industry says they’re going to take wide swaths of local communities to build production sites—even if that means commandeering tremendous amounts of natural resources, and even if it means working against the communities involved that have explicitly said they don’t want it. Oh, but wait—what if the product is AI, or crypto? Would that make it somehow different, and future-y? That sort of confusion seems to be what proponents of data centers across the country are counting on, with an assist from corporate news media susceptible to a “gee whiz” approach to any new (corporate-induced) technology that tends to push precautionary principles to the back pages—or, at best, below the fold. A range of environmental and economic justice groups are speaking out right now. A letter signed by more than 200 groups was delivered to Congress, calling for an end to what is described as “one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation.” The coalition is spearheaded by Food and Water Watch, and we’re joined now by Mitch Jones, deputy director at Food and Water Watch, as well as their managing director of policy and litigation. He joins us now by phone from Baltimore. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Mitch Jones. Mitch Jones: Thank you, Janine. It’s always great to be with you. JJ: I know that many people have long had critical eyes on this, but I still believe that, for a lot of people, “data center” is kind of a vague, science-y thing that happens in a lab, and however you might think about it existentially, it’s not bread and butter. So it seems important to make clear we aren’t talking about computer chips in a vacuum-sealed factory somewhere. This is land and water and air and your monthly electricity bill. Data Center Map MJ: Yeah. If you’ve worked in an office before and if you’ve worked in offices a few decades ago, you may have had a closet that had a couple of computer servers in it, and that was your “data center.” That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about massive industrial complexes that are essentially large black boxes, housing thousands of computer servers all at once. They take up hundreds of acres of land, the large hyperscale ones. They use thousands of gallons of water, an enormous amount of electricity, and have a variety of impacts in your local community. But, as you indicated earlier, they’re really just the physical underlying aspect of the AI/ crypto craze, which is what’s driving this desire for these data centers, which are popping up across the country in communities that oftentimes have very little warning that one is even being proposed for their community. And it’s becoming a growing problem, which is why we were able to find over 230 organizations across the country—some national, some state, many local—pulling together these communities that are fighting data centers from coast to coast. Washington Post (9/18/24) JJ: Talk a little about it concretely, in terms of—and I still think people are not ignorant; they just don’t understand that the thing that seems like an ephemeral thing out in space can still involve water consumption, can still involve electricity consumption. Those dots are not connected day by day for folks. So talk a little more about that. MJ: Yeah. People aren’t aware that when they’re looking at a cat meme that their friend sends them, if it’s made with generative AI, it was using the equivalent of one to three bottles of water. So people don’t realize that. That’s just an AI-generated cat meme. Think about how many thousands of those are generated every day, plus all of the other AI generation that is taking place. It’s using enormous amounts of water to cool these facilities, because if you were to reach out to your computer after you’ve had it on for several hours and you touch it, it’s warm. We all know that. We’ve all had that experience. You can feel the battery heating. Imagine thousands of these in an enclosed building, needing to be cooled. That’s what a lot of the water that’s being used for data centers is being used for. But people don’t make that connection between the meme that they’re looking at on their phone, or the deep fake video that’s being produced by a political operation to tar their opponent, and these industrial sites that are popping up in suburban and rural communities, in red states, blue states, all states across the country. Bloomberg (9/29/25) JJ: What folks do notice, though, is their electricity bill going up. And so, maybe, is that the place where the connection is starting to be made, where people are like, “Wait, what’s happening here? And what does that have to do with this data center that’s being grown in my neighborhood?” MJ: Yeah, I do believe that electricity bill prices are a really strong entry point for people to realize what’s happening with data centers, because you don’t actually even have to be living that near to data centers to see your electricity bills go up. I live in Baltimore, as we mentioned at the top of the show. The data center growth in our area is taking place actually about 50 miles from here, in Northern Virginia, but electricity bills in Baltimore are going up because of that data center growth in Virginia. So it’s not just even the ones in your local community that are driving up your electricity bill, it’s the growth in the general area. JJ: Is it irrelevant to mention that many profit-minded, capitalistic-minded people, think that this is a bubble? Like, whatever you build now is not going to have value in ten or maybe five years? The harms will persist, but the profit might not, right? World Economic Forum (10/7/25) MJ: Right. There is a lot of speculation right now that AI itself is experiencing a bubble, that a lot of the stock market growth that we’ve seen over the year has been shown to be down, basically, to seven companies, big tech companies that are going all in on AI, either developing the algorithms themselves or providing the computer chips or building the data centers. So a lot of the apparent economic growth and activity that’s happening is dependent on projections of investment in an industry where many people are beginning to say, “Wait a minute, this could really be a bubble. They’re going to overbuild and end up not needing all of the capacity that is being built, even for the brightest of projections that the industry puts out for themselves.” And I think it’s completely relevant to recognize that this bubble will, when it pops, cause economic pain across the country. Of course, those who are profiting the most from the build-out of the data centers, the billionaires in Silicon Valley and their financiers on Wall Street, aren’t going to feel that pain. It’s the communities where these data centers are being built that are going to feel the pain. NPR (9/23/25) They’re going to feel it in the meantime because of the increased electricity costs, because of the water usage, because of the land use and the noise pollution and the other issues that come with having these industrial facilities built in your community. But then they’re going to feel it economically, too, when the promise doesn’t pan out and the bubble pops. It’s going to be those communities that are going to end up feeling the effects of the economic fallout. So I don’t think it’s irrelevant. I think it’s extremely relevant to point out that we’re building this on a fantasy being sold to us by billionaires who control our media, and people are slopping it up. But I believe we are seeing, and I think that the attention that this letter that we led, is showing that in communities—and again, it’s red and blue, it’s across the political spectrum—people are seeing that they’re being sold a promise that doesn’t deliver anything for them. We’re told that we’re in this AI race. This is the way the Trump administration and the industry likes to put it. We’re in this AI race against China, but is it even really worth running a race where the prize is some dystopian future, which is going to bring misery to most of us and enrich just a handful? Personally, I don’t believe that’s a race we’re running, let alone trying to win. JJ: Absolutely. Any final thoughts, Mitch Jones, in terms of the way that media could or shouldn’t or might talk about this? Mitch Jones: “All of the changes that happen economically that are going to harm the most of us and enrich a few of the others are sold to us as inevitable.” MJ: I think it’s important for media to stop cheerleading—obviously, present company is excluded—and presenting their projections as though it’s reality. It’s not, it’s what they’re hoping will happen. It’s what they’re trying to force us to believe is inevitable. And if you think back, all of the changes that happen economically that are going to harm the most of us and enrich a few of the others are sold to us as inevitable, so that we believe that it’s just an economic force that we can’t do anything about. And I think what is important for people to hear is that these are political decisions that are being made by our elected leaders, and we need them to listen to us, and stand in between us and the tech bros and the Silicon Valley billionaires and Wall Street, and say stop. Stop building these data centers until we can figure out if—and I emphasize “if” —they can be built in such a way that they are not going to be harming the communities that they’re being put into, and any benefits, if there are any that come from AI, are actually shared out to all of us, and not just hoarded by a few. JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Mitch Jones, deputy director at Food and Water Watch. They’re online at FoodAndWaterWatch.org. Mitch Jones, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin. MJ: Thank you, Janine. It’s always great to be with you. This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.
Sanctioned oil tanker falsely using Cook Islands flag, authority says
By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist The Cook Islands Maritime Authority says a US-sanctioned oil tanker is falsely using Cook Islands identifiers to evade capture. The Bertha, which flew under the Cooks flag for almost nine months in 2024, is among at least 16 vessels that have reportedly attempted to evade US blockades in Venezuela.
By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist The Cook Islands Maritime Authority says a US-sanctioned oil tanker is falsely using Cook Islands identifiers to evade capture. The Bertha, which flew under the Cooks flag for almost nine months in 2024, is among at least 16 vessels that have reportedly attempted to evade US blockades in Venezuela. The New York Times reported the Bertha, under the false name of Ekta, had reportedly been located by US authorities in the Caribbean, but had yet to be captured. READ MORE: ‘Anywhere in the world’: US seizes Venezuela-linked Russian oil tanker Others have either been captured, or have “spoofed” (turned off) their signals to evade tracking, The NYT reported. A major American naval blockade on Venezuela’s energy exports was introduced last month. The Bertha was sanctioned for transportation of Iranian crude oil in December 2024, less than a month after it was deregistered by Maritime Cook Islands in November. “It appears that Bertha is continuing to use Cook Islands identifiers (MMSI 518999103 and Call Sign E5U5084) in her Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmissions.” the authority said in a statement today. Deceptive practice This deceptive practice enables the vessel to show falsely as being registered with the Cook Islands on commercial tracking platforms.” Numerous Cooks-flagged ships have been identified with Russia’s “shadow fleet” of vessels illicitly trading in Russian and Iranian crude oil. Maritime Cook Islands said vessels within the “shadow fleet” are usually deceptive in their location signalling through Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmissions. This typically includes spoofing locations and broadcasting false vessel identities. MarineTraffic.com, which lists the Bertha under the Cooks flag, reported the vessels last location near the Gulf of Guinea on December 23. The Cook Islands Maritime Authority has been approached for further comment. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
De-ICEing the Big Easy (documentary report)
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER ​6: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino, and other agents conduct an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025, in Kenner, Louisiana. Federal agents are conducting 'Operation Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro." data-attachment-id="340088" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-new-orleans-catahoula-crunch/n-12062025__p6a8274ice-nola-bovino-neighborhood_nigro_" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1708" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="N 12062025__P6A8274ICE NOLA BOVINO Neighborhood_NIGRO_" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​6: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino, and other agents conduct an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025, in Kenner, Louisiana. Federal agents are conducting ‘Operation Catahoula Crunch,’ launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> “Children are skipping school because they’re afraid of ICE. Parents are unable to go to the grocery store because they’re afraid of ICE. Workers are losing their jobs… because they’re afraid of ICE.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER ​6: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino, and other agents conduct an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025, in Kenner, Louisiana. Federal agents are conducting 'Operation Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro." decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1025&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340088" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-new-orleans-catahoula-crunch/n-12062025__p6a8274ice-nola-bovino-neighborhood_nigro_" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1708" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="N 12062025__P6A8274ICE NOLA BOVINO Neighborhood_NIGRO_" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​6: U.S. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Gregory Bovino, and other agents conduct an immigration enforcement operation in a neighborhood on December 6, 2025, in Kenner, Louisiana. Federal agents are conducting ‘Operation Catahoula Crunch,’ launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/N-12062025__P6A8274ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> It is performative bullying at best. Domestic terrorism at its core. “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” President Donald Trump’s bloated immigration enforcement action in New Orleans, is named after Louisiana hunting dogs that roam swamps. The operation, led by CBP commander Greg Bovino, began prowling through neighborhoods in New Orleans on Dec. 3, 2025. Filming and Production, Post-Production: Michael Nigro Additional Post-Production: TRNN Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Speaker 1: My name’s Jose Castillo. We’re here in New Orleans. In my family business, it’s a little Norma Sweets Bakery. Been here since 2011. And this is the first time that we’ve been affected from our government really so much. I mean, people are afraid to go out, people are afraid to spend money. I have a family member, I have friends, American citizens walking around with a passport, American passport, because they’re afraid. Afraid that they’re going to be profiled. They’re afraid if they can’t speak English, good enough to explain who they are. Speaker 2: Children are skipping school because they’re afraid of ice. Parents are unable to go to the grocery store because they’re afraid of ice. Workers are losing their jobs and risking their businesses because they’re afraid of ice. And our city counselors haven’t even put ice on the agenda for their meeting today. City council must stop ignoring immigrant rights groups who are asking to take a stand. We’re not going to wait for city council to say that they’re going to do something. We Speaker 3: Are here today to demand that city council takes action. These people are planning to stay here for two months and take as many as 5,000 of the people who live in the greatest city of New Orleans. And now it’s a humanitarian crisis. It’s going to be an economic crisis. Please believe this will affect you. This will affect every business in New Orleans because if people don’t pay rent, which is what’s happening, they can’t go to work because they’re living in hiding because they’re afraid of being snatched up in sense of torture centers of which we have nine in this state. And guess what’s going to happen? I’m not doing this to disrupt you. I promise you, I’m not doing this to attack you. I’m begging you to listen to me. If these people don’t pay rent, those landlords don’t get their money. 5,000 people, they don’t get their money, then those landlords. People will not buy groceries right now. The grocery stores will suffer. The businesses will suffer. This city lives on hospitality. Who do you think washes all the dishes in those restaurants and drugs? So I’m not doing this. I promise you. Speaker 4: Save. Save. Let the people speak. Do your job. Go ahead. No side hand. Speaker 5: We’re in Kenner, Louisiana, and I just heard a bunch of chaos, so I come outside and I see everyone coming down the street, I guess, warning others about immigration being in the area. And it’s honestly just very sad to see. It had me crying. It broke my heart. Speaker 4: You know what? Nothing to fear if you’re an American citizen. If you’re not an American citizen, then look out. What about legal? Speaker 5: I don’t know. Seeing families ripped apart like that, our kids got off the bus crying, saying that some of their friends, moms were taken. It’s just really heartbreaking and it’s not okay what they’re doing. That’s my Speaker 6: Question. Why taking guns on our people, throwing them on the floor? Acting like they killing people. We not. I hope and I pray that another hurricane comes to the United States and hits everybody home. Everyone hopes to see who’s going to kick their room. I want to see that. I really do. Speaker 5: Hopefully they come to some kind of conclusion that helps them, because I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s right at all. And it’s still an ongoing federal Speaker 4: Investigation here that stemmed from an earlier incident. Speaker 5: This community is … This is a good area. It’s a good area. It’s quiet. No one bothers anyone. It’s going to take away probably 90% of our community over here. And it’s so sad. It is. And it’s game on guys. Speaker 6: Look at their face. We got this. We got this. Speaker 5: I think it’s very, very, very messed up what they’re doing. And I have no words for what I’m witnessing in front of me. Hey, fuck you. Seeing it firsthand in front of you, it hits very different versus seeing it online on social media or hearing about it, but seeing it’s not okay. It’s not. DHS has several hundred agents working Operation Catahoula Crunch, and has said repeatedly that it plans to make at least 5,000 arrests across the region. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents drive tinted-window SUVs and profile people of color. Activist groups, citizen collectives, and a clique of photographers post up in areas around the city, profiling SUVs that have tinted windows, after-market antennas, and license plates on vehicles that had been previously documented as occupied by federal agents. In a city, however, where seemingly half the population drives brawny SUVs or pickups, everything begins to look like a federal caravan streaking through the city. Finding the proverbial needle in a haystack is one thing, but not knowing where the haystack is located makes the exercise feel futile. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339192" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-patrols-new-orleans-neighborhoods-for-undocumented-immigrants-5" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?fit=1499%2C1000&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1499,1000" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"3.2","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER 3: Members of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) detain a immigrant landscaper in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 3, 2025. The US Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday it has launched a federal immigration enforcement operation, named \"Operation Catahoula Crunch,\" in the New Orleans area.(Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1764811500","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"35","iso":"200","shutter_speed":"0.0004","title":"ICE Patrols \u200bNew Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ICE Patrols ​New Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER 3: Members of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) detain a immigrant landscaper in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 3, 2025. The US Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday it has launched a federal immigration enforcement operation, named “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” in the New Orleans area. Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="Members of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) detain a immigrant landscaper in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 3, 2025. The US Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday it has launched a federal immigration enforcement operation, named "Operation Catahoula Crunch," in the New Orleans area. Photo by Michael Nigro." class="wp-image-339192" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=1200%2C801&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_.jpg?w=1499&ssl=1 1499w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/I-12032025__P6A6890_NOLA-ICE_DAY-1-NIGR0_-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER 3: Members of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) detain a immigrant landscaper in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 3, 2025. The US Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday it has launched a federal immigration enforcement operation, named “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” in the New Orleans area. Photo by Michael Nigro. Given that the people and the areas that the agents are patrolling are predominantly Black and Hispanic, the search area shrinks–a bit. If you find a raid, it’s usually in progress. You’ll hear whistles and horns—activists warning the community that ICE is nearby. Frightened people peer out a cracked-open door or behind a half-drawn shade. U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino will climb out of the back seat of his gold Suburban, wait for masked agents in tactical gear to converge around him, and then begin to prowl the sidewalks and streets. They all have cameras. Most of the agents have GoPros attached to their body armor or ballistic helmets, but Bovino always travels with at least one agent who carries professional video equipment, usually trained on Bovino. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339193" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-patrols-new-orleans-neighborhoods-for-undocumented-immigrants-6" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1708" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER \u200b5: U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino leads an immigration enforcement operation on December \u200b5, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in 'Catahoula Crunch,' patrol through \u200bNew Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. (Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1764987362","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"16","iso":"200","shutter_speed":"0.002","title":"ICE Patrols \u200bNew Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ICE Patrols ​New Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​5: U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino leads an immigration enforcement operation on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in ‘Catahoula Crunch,’ patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino leads an immigration enforcement operation on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in 'Catahoula Crunch,' patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro." class="wp-image-339193" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1025&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/J-12052025__P6A8157_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​5: U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino leads an immigration enforcement operation on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in ‘Catahoula Crunch,’ patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339184" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-patrols-new-orleans-neighborhoods-for-undocumented-immigrants" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1708" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER \u200b5: A U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent films community members and the press during immigration enforcement operations on December \u200b5, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in 'Catahoula Crunch,' patrol through \u200bNew Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. (Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1764987679","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"31","iso":"320","shutter_speed":"0.00025","title":"ICE Patrols \u200bNew Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ICE Patrols ​New Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​5: A U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent films community members and the press during immigration enforcement operations on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in ‘Catahoula Crunch,’ patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="A U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent films community members and the press during immigration enforcement operations on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in 'Catahoula Crunch,' patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants." class="wp-image-339184" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1025&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/A-12052025__P6A8235_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​5: A U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent films community members and the press during immigration enforcement operations on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in ‘Catahoula Crunch,’ patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro. CBP’s movement, sometimes targeted and sometimes aimless, through heavily Hispanic and immigrant neighborhoods reminds one of the intentional terror spread by “night riders” in the Reconstruction South. Both wanted to torment and terrorize a populace into submission. The whole operation, like others in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Charlotte, is a mix of a rolling photo-op, a recruiting film, and blunt terrorism. The political and communications strategist Sawyer Hackett recently called Trump’s immigration agenda ethnic cleansing: “the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to a particular ethnic group.” <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339195" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/federal-agents-patrol-new-orleans-neighborhoods-for-undocumented-immigrants-2" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1708" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER \u200b6: Residents come out of thier homes as US Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and fellow agents conduct operations in Kenner, Louisiana, on December 6, 2025. Federal agents are conducting 'Operation Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. \u200b(Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1765074425","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"35","iso":"250","shutter_speed":"0.0008","title":"\u200bFederal Agents Patrol New Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="​Federal Agents Patrol New Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​6: Residents come out of their homes as US Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and fellow agents conduct operations in Kenner, Louisiana, on December 6, 2025. Federal agents are conducting ‘Operation Catahoula Crunch,’ launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="Residents come out of their homes as US Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and fellow agents conduct operations in Kenner, Louisiana, on December 6, 2025. Federal agents are conducting 'Operation Catahoula Crunch,' launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro." class="wp-image-339195" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1025&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/L-12062025__P6A8300ICE-NOLA-BOVINO-Neighborhood_NIGRO_-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​6: Residents come out of their homes as US Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and fellow agents conduct operations in Kenner, Louisiana, on December 6, 2025. Federal agents are conducting ‘Operation Catahoula Crunch,’ launched by the Department of Homeland Security as a part of an immigration crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. ​Photo by Michael Nigro. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339194" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-patrols-new-orleans-neighborhoods-for-undocumented-immigrants-7" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1708" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER \u200b5: A women blows a whistle alerting community members of the presence of U.S. Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officers sweeping the streets on December \u200b5, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in 'Catahoula Crunch,' patrol through \u200bNew Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. (Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1764986913","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"15","iso":"200","shutter_speed":"0.0025","title":"ICE Patrols \u200bNew Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ICE Patrols ​New Orleans Neighborhoods For Undocumented Immigrants" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​5: A women blows a whistle alerting community members of the presence of U.S. Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officers sweeping the streets on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in ‘Catahoula Crunch,’ patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="A women blows a whistle alerting community members of the presence of U.S. Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officers sweeping the streets on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in 'Catahoula Crunch,' patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro." class="wp-image-339194" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1025&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/K-12052025__P6A8051_ICE-NOLA-ICE-BOVINO_-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER ​5: A women blows a whistle alerting community members of the presence of U.S. Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officers sweeping the streets on December ​5, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Federal agents participating in ‘Catahoula Crunch,’ patrol through ​New Orleans neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants. Photo by Michael Nigro. The administration’s unabashed use of the words “remigration” or “reverse migration,” terms for involuntary mass expulsion, along with other language appropriated by far-right groups, has ramped up in recent weeks, including Trump’s referring to Somalis as ‘garbage,’ and saying “I don’t want them in our country.” Now, in Minnesota, where 83% of the Somali population is composed of naturalized citizens, DHS has launched an enforcement operation focused on arresting and deporting Somali immigrants. While the U.S. Constitution and federal law prohibit law enforcement from using race as the sole basis for stops, a recent Supreme Court order temporarily permits ICE agents to use factors such as Hispanic appearance or speaking English poorly, which critics argue amounts to racial profiling. Journalists and photojournalists saw this at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, where masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents skulked in the hallways, waiting to harvest Black and Brown human beings, immigrants, who were attending their mandatory check-in hearings and who were then given future court dates by a judge. According to the publication The City, data obtained from U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement via Deportation Data Project shows that of the 3,212 people ICE arrested across New York City’s five boroughs this year, 2,250—or 70%—of them have neither a criminal conviction nor charge. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339190" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/protestors-demand-the-city-of-new-orleans-to-take-action-against-ice-and-boreder-patrol-2" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?fit=1499%2C1000&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1499,1000" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER 4, 2025: Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the \u201cCatahoula Crunch\u201d sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump's orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. (Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1764885881","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"18","iso":"2500","shutter_speed":"0.004","title":"Protestors Demand the City of New Orleans to Take Action Against ICE and Boreder Patrol","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Protestors Demand the City of New Orleans to Take Action Against ICE and Boreder Patrol" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER 4, 2025: Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the “Catahoula Crunch” sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump’s orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the “Catahoula Crunch” sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump's orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Photo by Michael Nigro." class="wp-image-339190" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=1200%2C801&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?w=1499&ssl=1 1499w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/G-12042025__P6A7277NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER 4, 2025: Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the “Catahoula Crunch” sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump’s orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Photo by Michael Nigro. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="520" data-attachment-id="339191" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/protestors-demand-the-city-of-new-orleans-to-take-action-against-ice-and-boreder-patrol-3" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?fit=1499%2C1000&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1499,1000" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Michael Nigro","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - DECEMBER 4, 2025: Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the \u201cCatahoula Crunch\u201d sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump's orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. (Photo by Michael Nigro)","created_timestamp":"1764886601","copyright":"\u00a9nigrotime2025","focal_length":"35","iso":"5000","shutter_speed":"0.004","title":"Protestors Demand the City of New Orleans to Take Action Against ICE and Boreder Patrol","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Protestors Demand the City of New Orleans to Take Action Against ICE and Boreder Patrol" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER 4, 2025: Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the “Catahoula Crunch” sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump’s orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Photo by Michael Nigro. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1" alt="Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the “Catahoula Crunch” sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump's orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Photo by Michael Nigro." class="wp-image-339191" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=1200%2C801&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0.jpg?w=1499&ssl=1 1499w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/H-12042025__P6A7434NOLA-ICE-CITY-HALL_-NIGR0-1024x683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – DECEMBER 4, 2025: Scuffles erupt at a New Orleans City Council delaying the meeting as demonstrators demand action to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detail and disappears thousands of migrants on December 4, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has moved hundreds of agents to Louisiana in the “Catahoula Crunch” sweep to detain and deport thousands of persons, following Donald Trump’s orders to deport a million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Photo by Michael Nigro. In the first two days of Operation Catahoula Crunch, CBP apprehended 38 people, and less than a third of those detained had a criminal history. The act of being undocumented in the United States is not a crime. The act of being undocumented in the United States is a civil violation, just like a speeding ticket, littering, or public intoxication. This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Nigro.
"Greenland is not for sale": Inuit activist says Greenland must be independent
Video Shows ICE Agent’s Fatal Shooting of Civilian in Minneapolis
‘ICE should leave now’: Community fury in Minneapolis after deadly shooting by federal agent
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt='Protesters march through a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the "MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors - ICE Out of MN!" rally. Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images' data-attachment-id="340100" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-minneapolis-deadly-shooting-federal-agent/us-politics-immigration-4" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"Protesters march through frigid conditions, with temperatures near 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 Celsius), in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the "MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors - ICE Out of MN!" rally calling for the removal of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Minnesota. (Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1766266140","copyright":"AFP or licensors","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Protesters march through a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the “MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors – ICE Out of MN!” rally. Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> Rep. Ilhan Omar demanded that ICE agents “stop terrorizing our communities.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Protesters march through a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the "MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors - ICE Out of MN!" rally. Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340100" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/ice-minneapolis-deadly-shooting-federal-agent/us-politics-immigration-4" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"Protesters march through frigid conditions, with temperatures near 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 Celsius), in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the \"MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors - ICE Out of MN!\" rally calling for the removal of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Minnesota. (Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1766266140","copyright":"AFP or licensors","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Protesters march through a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the “MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors – ICE Out of MN!” rally. Photo by Kerem YUCEL / AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2252256702-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="600" height="150" data-attachment-id="268291" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/this-is-why-deregulation-is-deadly/cd_stacked_white_600" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" data-orig-size="600,150" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Common Dreams Logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=300%2C75&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=600%2C150&ssl=1" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=300%2C75&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=400&ssl=1 400w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 07, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license. This a developing story… Please check back for possible updates… WARNING: This post includes graphic footage of the shooting which some people may find disturbing… Residents of Minneapolis reacted with fury on Wednesday after a woman was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent. Emily Heller, a Minneapolis resident who witnessed the shooting, told Minnesota Public Radio that she saw a federal agent confronting a woman who was sitting in her car and telling her to leave the area during an immigration enforcement operation in the neighborhood. “She was trying to turn around, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in,” Heller told MPR. “And he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times.” The identity of the woman shot by the agent has not yet been released, but US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) wrote in a social media post that the woman was a US citizen. The senator also said that “ICE should leave now for everyone’s safety.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is also demanding that ICE leave the city, according to a post from the city’s official X account. US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) echoed Smith and Frey’s calls for ICE to get out of Minneapolis. “ICE must stop terrorizing our communities and leave our city,” she wrote in a social media post. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz released a statement saying that his public safety team “is working to gather information on an ICE related shooting this morning,” while vowing to “share information as we learn more.” “In the meantime, I ask folks to remain calm,” Walz added. One witness, who was in the neighborhood to act as a legal observer, described horrifying scenes to local reporters: This is what an eyewitness said pic.twitter.com/vQrLkMFpdS — Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) January 7, 2026 The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, put out a statement acknowledging that an ICE officer had fatally shot the woman and accused her of engaging in “domestic terrorism.” “ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism,” the agency claimed, without providing any evidence. “An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement, and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.” Video footage from scene as well as testimony from witnesses, however, betrayed the agency’s version of events. As one social media user said, posting the following video, “Does this look like what you’re claiming?” Does this look like what you’re claiming pic.twitter.com/4rV8n4LuSd — Mogana (@MoganaPhilips) January 7, 2026 A separate video from a different angle (Warning: graphic footage), also shows that the individual in the car was trying to turn the vehicle away from officers, not harm anyone: Here's the video for those who don't have Bluesky pic.twitter.com/vM3Bsfk8Uc — Hussain (@huspsa) January 7, 2026 Federal officials in the past have made statements about incidents involving protesters that have been flatly contradicted by officers’ own body camera footage. In November, federal prosecutors dropped assault charges against Marimar Martinez, a woman who was shot multiple times by a US Border Patrol agent in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, weeks after her attorney claimed to have seen body camera footage that completely undercut officers’ claims. This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Brad Reed.
“Step in the Right Direction”: Connecticut DMV Commissioner Calls for More Reforms to State Towing Law to Protect Drivers
The post “Step in the Right Direction”: Connecticut DMV Commissioner Calls for More Reforms to State Towing Law to Protect Drivers appeared first on ProPublica.
Despite a slew of reforms enacted last year to rein in the practices of towing companies, more needs to be done to protect consumers whose cars face removal and possible sale, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles said Tuesday. DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera laid out five recommendations he plans to make for the legislature to consider during its session that begins in February. The recommendations follow a Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica investigation that exposed how state law for decades favored towing companies at the expense of low-income consumers. They also follow months of meetings with a group of industry and consumer representatives. The recommendations would require towing companies to make more effort to notify owners that their cars have been towed and streamline the process by which the firms can sell unclaimed vehicles. The commissioner announced his proposal at the last scheduled meeting of a working group of towing and consumer representatives. The group was created as part of a towing reform law passed last year after the news organizations showed how towing companies were seeking the DMV’s permission to sell some cars after as little as 15 days, one of the shortest time frames in the country. Many low-income residents were towed for minor violations, sometimes from their own apartment complexes, only to lose their cars when they couldn’t afford to get them back before they were sold. If the legislature adopts the recommendations, towing companies would no longer place values on vehicles that they tow, which now determines whether a tower can start the sales process in 15 days or 45 days. Instead, all cars would be sold at a public auction after 30 days, Guerrera said. Other recommendations include requiring towing companies to send two letters to the registered owner of the vehicle after it’s towed, one certified and one not. If the car isn’t claimed, towers would have to send a third letter to the owner after 30 days to inform them when and where the auction will be held. The towing companies would be required to either advertise the auction on their websites or publish legal advertisements in local newspapers. The DMV would also be required to set up a portal on its website listing every towed car so that people can find out which tower has their vehicle, when it was towed and when the auction will be. If a vehicle receives no bids and the car owner shows up, the towing company would be required to offer the car back to them at whatever their costs are before selling it for scrap. There was little pushback from industry leaders or consumer advocates on Tuesday even though towing representatives had previously complained that the changes would add costs and consumer lawyers had objected that the recommendations didn’t go far enough to protect drivers. The proposal also didn’t address the initial task the legislature assigned to the group: how to handle the profits from the sales of towed cars. Currently, towing companies are supposed to hold onto proceeds for a year so owners or lenders can claim them. After that, any unclaimed funds, minus towing fees, are required to be turned over to the state. But CT Mirror and ProPublica found that hasn’t happened in part because the DMV never set up a system to collect the money. Guerrera said after the meeting that the DMV has set up a process to monitor whether towing companies are turning funds over to the state. He said they won’t know if the system is working until October because the money from sales of towed cars must be held for a year. After Guerrera finished outlining his proposal, Eileen Colonese, secretary of the industry group Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, said Guerrera’s plan doesn’t address a key issue: The last registered owner of the vehicle is not necessarily the owner when it’s towed. “I still believe that until the state of Connecticut comes up with a process to figure out who really owns the vehicles, all of this stuff that we’re doing is pretty much nonsensical because we’re still not notifying the current owner of the vehicle,” Colonese said. Consumer advocate and attorney Raphael Podolsky said Guerrera’s recommendations are a “step in the right direction, but there’s still a lot of issues that need to be addressed until the system is fixed.” Guerrera said his plan was “inspired” by the discussions during the previous four committee meetings. He said he hopes the portal on the state’s website will also help DMV personnel better track what towing companies are doing with vehicles. Under the revised law, which went into effect on Oct. 1, towing companies must now give people warning before removing vehicles from apartment parking lots unless there’s a safety issue. They also must accept credit cards, let people retrieve their belongings and be available on weekends for people to pick up their cars. And although the sales process can begin after 15 days for vehicles worth less than $1,500, towers must wait 30 days before selling them. Guerrera said he expects that the working group will keep meeting. “I want to have continuous meetings, whether it’s quarterly or twice a quarter, to try and narrow down any issues that come up or that need to be fixed so that we can create a system that works for everybody,” Guerrera said. The post “Step in the Right Direction”: Connecticut DMV Commissioner Calls for More Reforms to State Towing Law to Protect Drivers appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Dave Altimari.
ICE officer fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis; US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tankers, including Russia-flagged vessel – January 7, 2026
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. Deck of oil tanker, image by Hervé Cozanet ICE officer fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis, Trump administration claims domestic terrorism, Mayor Frey calls justification “garbage”; US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tankers, calls plan to sell seized oil “leverage”, Dems call it “insanity”; On 1-year anniversary of LA wildfires, survivors still awaiting federal aid as they deal with toxic contamination; Protesters in Lafayette gather to mark 5th anniversary of January 6th capitol insurrection The post ICE officer fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis; US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tankers, including Russia-flagged vessel – January 7, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. ICE officer fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis, Trump administration claims domestic terrorism, Mayor Frey calls justification “garbage”; US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tankers, calls plan to sell seized oil “leverage”, Dems call it “insanity”; On 1-year anniversary of LA wildfires, survivors still awaiting federal aid as they deal with toxic contamination; Protesters in Lafayette gather to mark 5th anniversary of January 6th capitol insurrection The post ICE officer fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis; US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tankers, including Russia-flagged vessel – January 7, 2026 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
2025’s L.A. fires are preview of the future: Jacob Soboroff
The Zionist billionaire behind Venezuelan oil theft
Alarming Statistics Reveal High Rates of Illiteracy Among US Adults
In 2024, the National Literacy Institute found that 79 percent of US adults were literate, but only 46 percent could read above a sixth-grade level. Literacy is the ability to read and write, and generally also involves critical thinking and analysis s...
In 2024, the National Literacy Institute found that 79 percent of US adults were literate, but only 46 percent could read above a sixth-grade level. Literacy is the ability to read and write, and generally also involves critical thinking and analysis skills, understanding complex concepts, and forming broader conclusions. Researchers… The post Alarming Statistics Reveal High Rates of Illiteracy Among US Adults appeared first on Project Censored. This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.
Pornography a Primary Sex-Information Source for Many Young Britons, Study Finds
Although many people think of pornography consumption as a harmless form of entertainment, research shows that regular consumption can have negative impacts on the brain. The conclusions of this research become all the more concerning in light of a new...
Although many people think of pornography consumption as a harmless form of entertainment, research shows that regular consumption can have negative impacts on the brain. The conclusions of this research become all the more concerning in light of a new finding about the prevalence and influence of pornography consumption. In… The post Pornography a Primary Sex-Information Source for Many Young Britons, Study Finds appeared first on Project Censored. This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.
West Bank emergency: Israeli must end ‘apartheid’-like system, says UN Human Rights chief Volker TürkUkraine: The deadly reality of delivering aid in a war zoneUganda elections must be free and fair, insist independent rights experts
West Bank emergency: Israeli must end ‘apartheid’-like system, says UN Human Rights chief Volker TürkUkraine: The deadly reality of delivering aid in a war zoneUganda elections must be free and fair, insist independent rights experts This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Daniel Johnson.
"Firestorm": MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff on Anniversary of L.A. Fires & "America’s New Age of Disaster"
Trump’s Plan to Seize Greenland Would "Militarize the Arctic," Trample Indigenous Rights
"This Is Our Hemisphere": Report from Colombia on Trump’s Escalating Threats to the Region
Top U.S. & World Headlines — January 7, 2026
DV coeditor Faramarz Farbod joined AnewZ.tv (Baku, Azerbaijan) on the 9th day of protests in Iran to discuss the evolving situation. The post Day 9 of Protests in Iran first appeared on Dissident Voice.
DV coeditor Faramarz Farbod joined AnewZ.tv (Baku, Azerbaijan) on the 9th day of protests in Iran to discuss the evolving situation. The post Day 9 of Protests in Iran first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Faramarz Farbod.
Canada Cites Democracy to Support Trump’s Coup in Venezuela
As part of justifying Donald Trump’s crass imperial aggression in Venezuela, Canadian officials have taken up the mantra of “democracy”. In one post on the weekend Mark Carney opined about “the democratic will of the Venezuelan people” while in a follow-up statement the prime minister boasted that “Canada has not recognised the illegitimate regime of […] The post Canada Cites Democracy to Support Trump’s Coup in Venezuela first appeared on Dissident Voice.
As part of justifying Donald Trump’s crass imperial aggression in Venezuela, Canadian officials have taken up the mantra of “democracy”. In one post on the weekend Mark Carney opined about “the democratic will of the Venezuelan people” while in a follow-up statement the prime minister boasted that “Canada has not recognised the illegitimate regime of Maduro since it stole the 2018 election.” But Canadian hostility to the independent, socialist minded government dates to a time when no credible observer questioned the government’s electoral legitimacy. Ottawa has been hostile to the Venezuelan government for over two decades. The Jean Chretien government wasn’t overly concerned about democracy in April 2002 when the military took President Hugo Chavez prisoner and imposed an unelected government. Ottawa passively supported a coup, which lasted only 48 hours before popular demonstrations, a split within the army and international condemnation returned Chavez. While most Latin American leaders condemned the coup, Canadian diplomats were silent. “In the Venezuelan coup in 2002, Canada maintained a low profile, probably because it was sensitive to the United States ambivalence towards Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez,” writes Flavie Major in Promoting Democracy in the Americas. Taking up his post three months after the coup, Canada’s ambassador to Venezuela, Allan Culham was hostile to Chávez. According to a WikiLeaks publication of US diplomatic messages, “Canadian Ambassador Culham expressed surprise at the tone of Chavez’s statements during his weekly television and radio show ‘Hello President’ on February 15 [2004]. Culham observed that Chavez’s rhetoric was as tough as he had ever heard him. ‘He sounded like a bully,’ said Culham, more intransigent and more aggressive.” The US cable quoted Culham criticizing the national electoral council and speaking positively about the group overseeing a presidential recall referendum targeting Chavez. “Culham added that Súmate is impressive, transparent, and run entirely by volunteers,” it noted. The name of then head of Súmate, Maria Corina Machado, was on a list of people who endorsed the coup against Chavez, for which she faced charges of treason. Machado signed the now-infamous Carmona Decree that dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and suspended the elected government, the attorney general, comptroller general, and governors as well as mayors elected during Chavez’s administration. It also annulled land reforms and reversed increases in royalties paid by oil companies. In January 2005, Global Affairs invited Machado to Ottawa. Machado oversaw Súmate, an organization at the forefront of efforts to remove Chavez as president. Just prior to this invitation, Súmate led an unsuccessful campaign to recall Chavez through a referendum in August 2004. Canada also financed Súmate. According to disclosures made in response to a question by NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough, Canada gave Súmate $22,000 in 2005. Minister of International Cooperation José Verner explained that “Canada considered Súmate to be an experienced NGO with the capability to promote respect for democracy, particularly a free and fair electoral process in Venezuela.” In fact, alongside <a id="m_100894605138916142OWA9a77d5b9-ae83-2e0f-5ad9-655dd34ec263" href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5441?fbclid=IwAR1jH5J_iFa0GgBUJT2deXrd5mYfufw5NhkQw7CwtQmu2fIe9xfI_HnzH38" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5441?fbclid%3DIwAR1jH5J_iFa0GgBUJT2deXrd5mYfufw5NhkQw7CwtQmu2fIe9xfI_HnzH38&source=gmail&ust=1767837820447000&usg=AOvVaw3MRe95VTXkgOSv0i7VIgcD">large sums from Washington, Canada has provided millions of dollars to groups opposed to the Venezuelan government over the past two decades. According to a 2010 report from Spanish NGO Fride, “Canada is the third most important provider of democracy assistance” to Venezuela after the U.S. and Spain. In a 2011 International Journal article Neil A. Burron describes an interview with a Canadian “official [who] repeatedly expressed concerns about the quality of democracy in Venezuela, noting that the [federal government’s] Glyn Berry program provided funds to a ‘get out the vote’ campaign in the last round of elections in that country.” You can bet it wasn’t designed to get Chavez supporters to the polls. The Stephen Harper government didn’t hide its hostility to Chavez. When Chavez was re-elected president with 63 per cent of the vote in December 2006, 32 members of the Organization of American States — which monitored the election — supported a resolution to congratulate him. Canada was the only member to join the U.S. in opposing the message. Just after Chavez’s re-election, Harper toured South America to help stunt the region’s rejection of neoliberalism and U.S. dependence or as a Global Affairs official told Le Devoir “to show [the region] that Canada functions and that it can be a better model than Venezuela.” During the trip, Harper and his entourage made several comments critical of the Chavez government. Afterwards the prime minister continued to demonize a government that had massively expanded the population’s access to health and education services. In April 2009 Harper responded to a question regarding Venezuela by saying, “I don’t take any of these rogue states lightly.” A month earlier, the prime minister referred to the far-right Colombian government as a valuable “ally” in a hemisphere full of “serious enemies and opponents.” After meeting opposition figures in January 2010, Minister for the Americas Peter Kent told the media, “Democratic space within Venezuela has been shrinking and in this election year, Canada is very concerned about the rights of all Venezuelans to participate in the democratic process.” The head of Canada’s military joined the onslaught of condemnation. After a tour of South America in early 2010, Walter Natynczyk wrote: “Regrettably, some countries, such as Venezuela, are experiencing the politicization of their armed forces.” (A Canadian general criticizing another country’s military is, of course, not political.) After Chavez died in 2013, Harper declared that Venezuelans “can now build for themselves a better, brighter future based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.” But when Maduro won the presidential election later that year Ottawa called for a recount, refusing at first to recognize the results. In response to Venezuela’s economic troubles, the rightward shift in the region and Donald Trump’s hawkishness, Canada ramped up its bid to oust Venezuela’s elected president in 2017. Under Chrystia Freeland’s direction, Canada helped create the Lima Group, imposed sanctions, broke off diplomatic relations, took Venezuela to the International Criminal Court and recognized a marginal opposition figure as president in January 2019. None of this had anything to do with an equal voice for every Venezuelan. Rather it was about trying to keep a country trying to go its own way in line with the US empire. Canadian support for the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro has nothing to do with “democracy”. The post Canada Cites Democracy to Support Trump’s Coup in Venezuela first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.
This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.
Why Silicon Valley Is Backing Away from UBI
“Firestorm”: MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff on Anniversary of L.A. Fires & “America’s New Age of Disaster”
We speak with journalist Jacob Soboroff about his new book and ongoing reporting about the Los Angeles fires one year ago, when destructive infernos razed entire neighborhoods, killing 30 people and displacing over 100,000 more. The book Fires...
We speak with journalist Jacob Soboroff about his new book and ongoing reporting about the Los Angeles fires one year ago, when destructive infernos razed entire neighborhoods, killing 30 people and displacing over 100,000 more. The book Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster provides a detailed look at how the fires unfolded, the emergency efforts and the political response. Soboroff, who grew up in the area, describes seeing the charred remains of his own childhood home while misinformation from Donald Trump, Elon Musk and other powerful figures was “pouring rhetorical fuel on the flames of the very real fire.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Trump’s Plan to Seize Greenland Would “Militarize the Arctic,” Trample Indigenous Rights
Following the U.S. attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration has renewed its campaign to take over Greenland, which has been controlled by Denmark for more than 300 years. The White House says it’s considering “a range of optio...
Following the U.S. attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration has renewed its campaign to take over Greenland, which has been controlled by Denmark for more than 300 years. The White House says it’s considering “a range of options,” including the use of military force. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that if the U.S. were to attack Greenland, it would spell the end of NATO. “Greenland is not up for sale,” says Aaju Peter, a Greenlandic Inuit activist and attorney, who says Indigenous Greenlanders want their independence from both the U.S. and Denmark. We also speak with analyst Pavel Devyatkin, who says the U.S. is “acting like a rogue state” and enacting a policy of “pure imperialism.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“This Is Our Hemisphere”: Report from Colombia on Trump’s Escalating Threats to the Region
Following his attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump has escalated his threats against Colombia and claimed without evidence that President Gustavo Petro is involved in cocaine trafficking. Trump and ot...
Following his attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump has escalated his threats against Colombia and claimed without evidence that President Gustavo Petro is involved in cocaine trafficking. Trump and others in his administration have also threatened military action against Cuba, Greenland, Iran and Mexico in recent days. Manuel Rozental, a Colombian physician and activist with more than 40 years of involvement in grassroots political organizing, tells Democracy Now! that Trump’s attacks on Petro are lies. The former guerrilla “has seized more cocaine than any other government in the past,” says Rozental. “President Petro is not a drug trafficker. President Petro has been a victim of drug mafias and their allies.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Venezuela’s Military Announces 24 Security Officers Were Killed in U.S. Attack, Trump: Venezuela Will Give the U.S. Up to 50 Million Barrels of Oil, Secretary of State Rubio Tells Lawmakers Trump Wants to Buy Greenland, U.S. Pledges to Provide Ukraine with Security Guarantees for the First Time, Qatar Accuses Israel of “Political Blackmail” for Refusing to Reopen Rafah Crossing, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar Visits Somaliland, At Least 34 People Killed During Protests in Iran, ICE Arrests 150 People After DHS Surges 2,000 Agents to Minnesota, Trump Admin Slashes $10 Billion in Funding for Social Programs in Five Democratic-Led States, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Dissolve Itself, American Federation of Teachers Sues Texas Education Department for Probing Teachers’ Speech After Charlie Kirk’s Death, GOP Congressmember Doug LaMalfa of California Dies at 65, Trump Warns Democrats Will Impeach Him If Republicans Don’t Win Midterm Elections
Venezuela's Military Announces 24 Security Officers Were Killed in U.S. Attack Trump: Venezuela Will Give the U.S. Up to 50 Million Barrels of Oil Secretary of State Rubio Tells Lawmakers Trump Wants to Buy Greenland U.S. Pledges to Provide Ukraine with Security Guarantees for the First Time Qatar Accuses Israel of "Political Blackmail" for Refusing to Reopen Rafah Crossing Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar Visits Somaliland At Least 34 People Killed During Protests in Iran ICE Arrests 150 People After DHS Surges 2,000 Agents to Minnesota Trump Admin Slashes $10 Billion in Funding for Social Programs in Five Democratic-Led States The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Dissolve Itself American Federation of Teachers Sues Texas Education Department for Probing Teachers' Speech After Charlie Kirk's Death GOP Congressmember Doug LaMalfa of California Dies at 65 Trump Warns Democrats Will Impeach Him If Republicans Don't Win Midterm Elections This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Democracy Now! Wednesday, January 7, 2026 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Mobilizing Communities, Plant by Plant with Braiding Sweetgrass’ Robin Wall Kimmerer [episode cut]
This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.
In Iran, 27+ protesters and bystanders, including children, have been k_lled in just over a week
Trump’s EPA Could Limit Its Own Ability to Use New Science to Strengthen Air Pollution Rules
The post Trump’s EPA Could Limit Its Own Ability to Use New Science to Strengthen Air Pollution Rules appeared first on ProPublica.
Ethylene oxide was once considered an unremarkable pollutant. The colorless gas seeped from relatively few industrial facilities and commanded little public attention. All that changed in 2016, when the Environmental Protection Agency completed a study that found the chemical is 30 times more carcinogenic than previously thought. The agency then spent years updating regulations that protect millions of people who are most exposed to the compound. In 2024, the EPA approved stricter rules that require commercial sterilizers for medical equipment and large chemical plants to slash emissions of ethylene oxide, which causes lymphoma and breast cancer. It was doing what the EPA has done countless times: revising rules based on new scientific knowledge. Now, its ability to do that for many air pollutants is under threat. In government records that have flown under the radar, President Donald Trump’s EPA said it is reconsidering whether the agency had the legal authority to update those rules. Chemical companies and their trade organizations have argued that the EPA cannot reevaluate hazardous air pollution rules to account for newly discovered harms if it has revised them once already. It doesn’t matter if decades have passed or new information has emerged. If the EPA agrees, environmentalists fear that the decision could have wide implications, significantly curbing the EPA’s ability to limit nearly 200 pollutants from thousands of industrial plants. The next time new science reveals that a chemical is much more toxic, or that the amount of pollution released from a factory had been underestimated and would cause legally unacceptable health risks, the agency would not be able to react. “It’s a poor reflection on this administration’s claim that they are actually interested in clean air,” said Ana Baptista, a professor of environmental policy and sustainability management at The New School. “By saying we’re no longer going to consider science, it’s abdicating your mission.” The EPA didn’t address ProPublica’s questions about the ethylene oxide reevaluation or its broader implications. Instead, the agency pointed to a March press release about how it was reconsidering multiple air pollution rules issued by President Joe Biden’s administration, including the ones for chemical plants and commercial sterilizers. “EPA is committed to using the gold standard of science during these reviews,” a spokesperson said in an email. “Since day one, EPA has been clear that providing clean air, water, and land for all Americans is a top priority.” The EPA’s reconsideration focuses on the Clean Air Act, the country’s most powerful air quality law, which regulates hazardous air pollutants for different types of industrial operations. There’s a specific rule for oil refineries, for instance, and another for steel mills. Within eight years after each rule is published, the EPA is required to conduct an assessment, called a residual risk review, to decide if an update is necessary. These assessments use detailed data on the quantity of emissions coming from each facility, the toxicity of each chemical and other information on how the chemicals are released and dispersed in the air. The combined data reveals how the emissions put local residents at risk of cancer, respiratory diseases, reproductive harm and other health problems. If the EPA determines the overall risks exceed what’s allowed under the law, the agency must tighten the rules. The Clean Air Act doesn’t say whether the EPA is required to conduct additional residual risk reviews after the first one. Nor does it specifically prohibit the agency from doing so. As far back as 2006, the EPA under President George W. Bush asserted that the agency had the right to revisit and revise the rules based on risk. The issue became newly relevant in 2021, when the EPA’s Office of Inspector General cited the new conclusions about the toxicity of ethylene oxide. The office estimated that nearly half a million Americans were exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from industrial emissions by chemical plants, commercial sterilizers and other facilities pumping out ethylene oxide. In its report, the inspector general’s office advised the agency to “exercise its discretionary authority to conduct new residual risk reviews” as needed when “new data or information indicates an air pollutant is more toxic than previously determined.” (The inspector general was a Trump appointee.) The EPA had already conducted the first, mandatory risk reviews for large chemical plants and commercial sterilizers in the early 2000s. In response to the inspector general report, the agency launched additional reviews using the updated science on ethylene oxide. Ultimately, the EPA determined the health risks were unacceptable and revised the rules to lower them. The agency asserted that the Clean Air Act “does not limit our discretion or authority to conduct another risk review should we consider that such review is warranted.” According to the EPA’s estimates, the new regulations for chemical plants under the 2024 revised rule would cut the number of nearby residents who are exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from 90,000 to 3,000. But the chemical industry opposed the stricter rules. Industry representatives disagreed with the EPA’s new assessment of ethylene oxide, contending that it overestimated the risk the chemical posed, and argued the agency didn’t have the authority to conduct those risk reviews. In a 2023 letter, the American Chemistry Council said “the Agency has erred in conducting a new risk review,” as “the plain text” of the Clean Air Act “indicates that EPA actually lacks this authority.” Similarly, the Louisiana Chemical Association submitted public comments on the chemical plant rule stating the “EPA has no statutory authority to conduct a second risk review” and that doing so was “arbitrary and capricious.” David Cresson, president and CEO of the association, told ProPublica that the trade group supports “protecting the public’s health through regulatory frameworks that are lawful, while remaining based in sound science.” Brendan Bradley, a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, said the organization had no further comment on the issue. After Trump was inaugurated, one of his appointees to the EPA let the industry know the agency was conducting a “reconsideration” of the two rules focused on ethylene oxide emissions. Last spring, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator Abigale Tardif, a former oil and gas lobbyist, hinted at how the EPA might challenge those rules. In letters addressed to trade groups representing commercial sterilizers and chemical plants, Tardif said the agency was reconsidering multiple issues related to the rules, including the “EPA’s authority and decision to undertake a second residual risk review” under the Clean Air Act, as well as “the analysis and determinations made in that review, and the resulting risk standards.” Tardif didn’t respond to requests for comment. The agency also filed a regulatory notice about its plans to revise the 2024 chemical plant rule. Citing the part of the Clean Air Act that deals with the updated rule assessments, the notice said the EPA had “identified items for reconsideration around its CAA section 112(f)(2) residual risk review authority.” While the stricter ethylene oxide rules are technically still in effect, the Trump administration has exempted dozens of large chemical plants and sterilizer facilities from following them as the agency works through a formal process that is widely expected to result in watered-down standards. If the Trump EPA does decide it lacks the legal authority to conduct multiple risk reviews, the agency might still have the authority to strengthen hazardous air pollution rules by using a separate part of the Clean Air Act, said Abel Russ, a senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group. That section of the act allows the EPA to update a rule if agency scientists conclude that better pollution-control technology is affordable and available. But limiting the agency’s ability to conduct residual risk reviews would be a serious blow to the act, Russ said, “kneecapping” the agency’s authority over these toxic pollutants. Environmental groups will almost certainly sue if the EPA concludes it does not have the legal authority to revise hazardous air pollution rules more than once based on risk. Russ called industry’s comments absurd and said they don’t account for the reality that our knowledge of industrial pollution is changing all the time. As ProPublica reported in October, the agency recently received clear evidence that many industrial facilities are leaking far more pollution than the companies that own them previously reported. In 2023, researchers who conducted their own air monitoring in the industrial corridor of Louisiana known as Cancer Alley found much higher concentrations of ethylene oxide than expected. For more than half the areas they sampled, the local cancer risk from ethylene oxide would be unacceptable if residents were exposed to these concentrations over a lifetime. If the EPA decides it lacks the legal authority to conduct multiple risk reviews, it would find itself in the position of not being able to take action even if the agency confirmed similar results. “The whole premise of risk assessment is that it’s based on the best available science,” said Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist at the Environmental Integrity Project. As our knowledge grows, researchers tend to find that chemicals are linked to additional health effects, she added, so blocking these updates “pretty much ensures” the EPA is underestimating the risks. The post Trump’s EPA Could Limit Its Own Ability to Use New Science to Strengthen Air Pollution Rules appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Lisa Song.
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Wednesday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4.
Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks
Public Health Watch chronicles a fossil-fuel infrastructure boom that could worsen air pollution in some areas and exacerbate climate change.
Let’s establish some baselines. Texas is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than Saudi Arabia or the global maritime industry. Its oil, gas and petrochemical operations discharge tens of millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into the air each year, comprising almost one-fifth of such releases in the United States. It is the nation’s top emitter of the carcinogens benzene, ethylene oxide and 1,3-butadiene. It accounts for 75 percent of the petrochemicals made in the U.S. It is an engine of the world’s plastics industry, whose products clog oceans and landfills and, upon breaking down, infuse human bodies with potentially dangerous microplastics. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=2048 2048w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-1.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A map of Texas petrochemical plants" data-caption="" data-credit=""/> Despite all of this, the state’s commitment to fossil-fuel infrastructure is unwavering, driven by economics. Oil and gas extraction, transportation and processing contributed $249 billion to the state’s gross domestic product and supported 661,000 jobs in 2021, according to the most recent reports from the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office. An industrial construction spurt is well into its second decade, with little sign of slowing. Since 2013, 57 petrochemical facilities have been built or expanded in the state, according to the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project’s Oil & Gas Watch, which tracks these activities. Over half are in majority-minority neighborhoods, the group’s data show. Over the next five years, 18 new plants and 23 expansions are planned or are already under construction. Twelve of these projects collectively will be allowed to release the same amount of greenhouse gases as 41 natural gas-fired power plants, according to the companies’ filings with the state. Emissions estimates for the other projects were not available. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=2048 2048w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-2.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="" data-caption="" data-credit=""/> All 41 petrochemical projects will also be permitted to release 38.6 million pounds of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s highest-priority pollutants, including carcinogens and respiratory irritants, according to company filings. Places like Jefferson County, in far southeastern Texas, and Harris County, which includes Houston, could see their air quality deteriorate, putting the public at increased risk of cancer, respiratory illness, reproductive effects and other life-altering conditions. Five projects are to be sited within a five-mile radius of Channelview, an unincorporated part of Harris County plagued by extremely high levels of cancer-causing benzene and a surge in barge traffic – an underappreciated cause of air pollution – on the San Jacinto River. Companies have announced dozens more projects, including seven near Channelview, but haven’t begun the process of obtaining permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, which will allow them to construct facilities that release pollutants into the air. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-StoryMap-Chart.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A chart of announced petrochemical plants in Texas" data-caption="" data-credit=""/> The odds are in their favor: In the past quarter-century, the TCEQ has denied less than 0.5 percent of new air permits and amendments, often required for plant expansions. For six months, Public Health Watch has been reviewing TCEQ permits, analyzing air-quality and census data and talking to scientific experts, advocates, elected officials, industry representatives and residents of Harris and Jefferson counties to try to capture the scope and potential health consequences of the petrochemical buildout. Here are three out of 13 scenes from that buildout. View the full interactive feature at publichealthwatch.org. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="" data-caption="" data-credit="Andy Morris-Ruiz"/> Andy Morris-Ruiz Home of Spindletop booms again: Jefferson County Jefferson County has a quarter-million residents and stretches from Beaumont in the northeast to McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf of Mexico. Its Spindletop field birthed Texas’s first full-scale oil boom in 1901; today it is once again an axis of industry zeal. Just off Twin City Highway, where Nederland meets Beaumont, cranes are assembling a plant that will produce anhydrous ammonia and other chemicals used to make fertilizer and alternative fuels. According to state permits issued to owner Woodside Energy, the facility is authorized to annually add almost 80,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which can cause acute and chronic respiratory distress, to Nederland’s air. Nitrogen oxides also contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, the primary component in smog. Uncontained, ammonia can sear the lungs and kill in sufficient concentrations. Four people formally objected to the facility’s expansion last summer but were unable to stop it. Officials in Jefferson County embraced the plant, granting Woodside a 10-year property-tax exemption, and a $209 million tax abatement from the Beaumont Independent School District. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-JeffersonCounty-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A map of Beaumont complexes" data-caption="" data-credit=""/> About two miles to the southeast of Woodside, Energy Transfer wants to erect a large ethane cracker on the Neches River. The hulking plant will heat ethane, a component of natural gas, to extremely high temperatures, “cracking” the molecules to make ethylene, a building block for plastics. According to Energy Transfer’s permit application, the cracker would be allowed to release nearly 10 million of pounds of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which contribute to ozone and can cause effects ranging from throat and eye irritation to cancer, along with nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, another smog-forming chemical that interferes with the body’s oxygen supply. The TCEQ told Public Health Watch in an email that the project “is protective of human health and the environment and no adverse effects are expected to occur.” There were seven formal objectors to the ethane cracker, among them Reanna Panelo, a lifelong Nederland resident who was 23 when she wrote to the TCEQ two years ago. “It is not fair nor is it morally right to build such a monstrous and horrendous plant designed to kill the surrounding area, residents and environment, for company gain,” wrote Panelo, who said generations of her family had been tormented by cancer. The TCEQ executive director is processing Energy Transfer’s permit application, despite comments submitted in October by the Environmental Integrity Project alleging the project could violate ambient air-quality standards for particulate matter — fine particles that can exacerbate asthma, cause heart disease and contribute to cognitive decline. The Nederland Independent School District authorized a $121 million tax break for Energy Transfer. Nine miles south of Nederland, in Port Arthur, two ethane crackers are poised for expansion and three new petrochemical facilities are planned, according to Oil & Gas Watch. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="An illustration of the Oxbow refinery" class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 3413w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=2048%2C1152&quality=75&strip=all 2048w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/oxbow-feature-illustration.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="1920" width="3413" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> How a Koch-owned chemical plant in Texas gamed the Clean Air Act Naveena Sadasivam & Clayton Aldern “It’s the worst possible situation you can imagine,” said John Beard, a Port Arthur native and founder of Port Arthur Community Action Network, an environmental advocacy group. “You’re living in a toxic atmosphere that with every breath is potentially killing you.” Air quality in Jefferson County has improved over the years — mostly a product of stricter regulation — but is still far from pristine. The American Lung Association gave the county an “F” for ozone pollution in its 2025 State of the Air Report Card. A pungent haze occasionally envelops the county, portions of which have some of the highest cancer risks from air toxics in the nation, according to the Environmental Defense Fund’s Petrochemical Air Pollution Map. Indorama Ventures in Port Neches is one of the main drivers of risk — it makes the potent carcinogen ethylene oxide and releases more of the gas into the air than any other facility in the U.S., federal data show. Peter DeCarlo, an atmospheric chemist and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and a team of fellow scientists recently drove an air-monitoring van through neighborhoods bordering Indorama. They measured levels of ethylene oxide “greatly exceeding what is acceptable for long-term exposure,” DeCarlo told Public Health Watch. The county’s level of particulate matter already exceeds national air-quality standards. Jefferson County spent 18 years in violation of the standard for ground-level ozone, but improved after 2009. Now, the county’s ozone levels are creeping upward again. DeCarlo said that the new sources of pollution slated for the region could push the county over the limit again — subjecting it to tougher oversight — and worsen its fine-particle problem. In a statement to Public Health Watch, Woodside said its ammonia plant is 97 percent complete and represents “a $2.35 billion investment in American energy, supporting approximately 2,000 construction jobs and hundreds of permanent ongoing jobs . . . Once operational [it] is expected to increase US ammonia production by more than 7 percent, strengthening domestic agriculture, food production and manufacturing, while potentially doubling US ammonia exports.” The company said it met with four residents who filed comments with the TCEQ and appreciated “the strong community support for the project.” Energy Transfer and Indorama Ventures did not respond to requests for comment. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ChrisJones-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="An illustration of a bald Black man" data-caption="" data-credit="Andy Morris-Ruiz"/> Andy Morris-Ruiz Historic Black neighborhood threatened with extinction: Beaumont, Jefferson County The Charlton-Pollard neighborhood, on Beaumont’s south side, was established in 1869 by freed slave and school founder Charles Pole Charlton. In the mid-20th century it was a cultural hub — home to Beaumont’s “Black Main Street” and some of the oldest Black churches and schools in the city. It was part of the Chitlin’ Circuit, a group of performance venues during the Jim Crow era, which hosted James Brown, Ray Charles and other luminaries. Segregation, disinvestment and expanding industrial operations — railways, an international seaport and a petrochemical complex — gradually eroded Charlton-Pollard’s rich culture and institutions. Stores, schools and a hospital have closed, and now the buffer between the north end of the neighborhood and advancing industrial development is thinning. The Port of Beaumont has acquired 78 parcels in Charlton-Pollard’s sparsely populated northeastern corner since 2016, property records show. This year it paved a lot the size of 18 football fields in their place, where it plans to store cargo, including building materials for new and expanding petrochemical plants. The lot lies across the street from the 97-year-old Starlight Missionary Baptist Church and two blocks from Charlton-Pollard Elementary School. “The port recognizes the deep history of Charlton-Pollard and remains committed to operating responsibly and respectfully within that framework,” said Chris Fisher, the port’s director and CEO. He said he and his team have been transparent with the Charlton-Pollard Neighborhood Association, only developing in a specially zoned “transitional area” in the northeastern corner. In the 1990s and early 2000s, some residents asked the port to buy their properties, Fisher said. Later, after plans for the paved lot were solidified, the port began offering property owners 50 percent to 100 percent above appraised value and, in some cases, $15,000 relocation allowances, he said. “We kind of made sure that everybody that we dealt with was better off than before we did anything,” Fisher said. The port condemned properties when owners couldn’t be located or had unpaid taxes, he said. The neighborhood association’s president, Chris Jones, a 45-year-old former Beaumont mayoral candidate, said the port’s acquisitions are “the continuation of a long pattern. One where Black neighborhoods were first under-documented, then under-invested, and ultimately treated as expendable in the path of industry.” When residents sold their properties, they “were navigating declining property values, loss of services, and the clear signal that the area was being prioritized for industrial use,” Jones said. “In that context, selling is often less about choice and more about survival.” <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-CharltonPollard-LocatorMap.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="Petrochemical facilities near Beaumont" data-caption="" data-credit=""/> He worries that the removal of trees and the addition of pavement will intensify heat and worsen noise pollution for those left in the neighborhood. Rail traffic supporting local industry has already increased, he said, and his status as an Army veteran makes him “vexed at the sound of a horn.” Jones and some allies hope to win historical designations for several churches in Charlton-Pollard to stave off further industrial encroachment. Environmental hazards are not new to Charlton-Pollard. A refinery now owned by Exxon Mobil was built less than a mile away in 1903. Almost a century later, residents filed a complaint with the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights, accusing the TCEQ of allowing the company to pollute above safe levels, increase emissions without public input and exceed permitted limits without penalty. The case was settled in 2017 after the TCEQ agreed to install an air monitor near the site and hold two public meetings. Charlton-Pollard still lies within the 99th percentile nationwide for cancer risk from air pollution, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. In addition to the refinery, Exxon Mobil now operates a chemical plant, a polyethylene plant and a lubricant plant within the complex; last year the company said it plans to build a chemical-recycling facility there as well. Six more petrochemical projects are planned by other companies within five miles of Charlton-Pollard. In short, anyone who hasn’t been bought out by the port may breathe increasingly dirty air. Jefferson County is already violating the EPA’s standard for particulate matter, and diesel-burning trains and maritime vessels accommodating the industry expansion are large emitters of fine particles, as well as smog-forming nitrogen oxides. Most infuriating, Jones said, is the idea that industrial development in Jefferson County is being underwritten in part by tax breaks even as Beaumont’s basic infrastructure — roads, sewage treatment — crumbles. Not long ago, he said, he saw “fecal waste” collecting in the Irving Avenue underpass. “The shit just rolled onto the street.” (Voters approved a $264 million bond package in November to improve streets and drainage) <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PHW-ParticulateOzone-AndyMorrisRuiz.png?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="An illustration of a set of lungs pumping smoke" data-caption="" data-credit="Andy Morris-Ruiz"/> Andy Morris-Ruiz Fine particles, ozone and the body In addition to spewing carcinogens like benzene and 1,3-butadiene, petrochemical plants release large amounts of “criteria pollutants” — the six common airborne substances the EPA regulates most closely. Regions across the country struggle to meet federal air-quality standards for two of these in particular: ground-level ozone and particulate matter. Dr. John Balmes, a professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, is a physician advisor to both the EPA and the California Air Resources Board, which regulates air quality in a state that’s had serious ozone and particulate-matter problems for years. He’s researched the effects of both pollutants on the body and helped craft EPA standards for them. Balmes said plant emissions will represent only a portion of particulate and ozone pollution from the petrochemical expansion in Texas. Transportation — diesel trucks, trains and ships — will add to the burden, he said. (Railyards and ports are often located in low-income and minority neighborhoods, like Charlton-Pollard.) Particulate matter and ozone can wreak havoc on the body, Balmes said. Fine particles, known as PM2.5, are about 20 times smaller than a human hair. When they’re inhaled, they don’t break down, and the body’s immune cells remain in a heightened state of response. Their ability to fight off infection is weakened. Fine particles often make their way into the bloodstream and trigger cardiovascular problems, such as heart attacks and congestive heart failure. They can also accumulate in the brain, contributing to cognitive decline and strokes. A 2023 analysis conducted for Public Health Watch by two researchers estimated that 8,405 Texans died from fine-particle pollution in 2016. Exposure to the particles also led to thousands of new cases of Alzheimer’s, asthma and strokes, the researchers found. Last year, an EPA advisory board, on which Balmes served, recommended tightening the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5. The EPA said the new standard would prevent 4,500 premature deaths and yield $46 billion in net health benefits over more than a decade. According to federal data, 16 Texas counties, including Jefferson, violate the new standard, which the Trump administration has vowed to abandon. Environmental groups and regulators have been fighting ozone pollution for more than 70 years. Ozone gas is formed when two pollutants — VOCs and nitrogen oxides — are released from stacks and tailpipes and react in the presence of sunlight. When ozone enters the body, it chemically burns the respiratory system, leading to inflammation. It’s so caustic that it can break down synthetic rubber. Acute exposure can worsen asthma; chronic, high-level exposure can cause permanent lung damage. The eight-county Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area, with roughly 7.2 million people, has been under continual threat from ozone for two decades. It spent over half of that time classified as being in “serious” or “severe” violation of the EPA’s eight-hour standards. Still, 35 petrochemical projects in the region have been announced or permitted by the TCEQ. “Adding 35 petrochemical plants to a region that is already in serious ozone [violation] is the wrong way to go in terms of public health,” Balmes said. Explore all 13 scenes from Texas’s petrochemical expansion at publichealthwatch.org. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks on Jan 7, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Shelby Jouppi.
Bryce Edwards: NZ’s craven stance on the US invasion of Venezuela
ANALYSIS: By Bryce Edwards When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, New Zealand responded with unusual speed. Sanctions followed. Condemnations were issued. The language was unambiguous. We were told this was about defending the “rules-based international order” — a phrase our politicians have grown remarkably fond of. Winston Peters has deployed it frequently in his time
ANALYSIS: By Bryce Edwards When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, New Zealand responded with unusual speed. Sanctions followed. Condemnations were issued. The language was unambiguous. We were told this was about defending the “rules-based international order” — a phrase our politicians have grown remarkably fond of. Winston Peters has deployed it frequently in his time as Foreign Minister. So where is that principled clarity now? READ MORE: Malcolm Evans: What have we become that we accept such brigandry? Trump says Venezuela to hand over up to 50m barrels of oil to US Fact-checking Trump on promised US oil company investment in Venezuela US says military ‘always an option’ in Greenland as Europe rejects threats ‘I am still president of my country,’ kidnapped Nicolas Maduro tells US court On Saturday, the United States attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and spirited them away to face charges in New York. President Donald Trump then declared that America would “run” Venezuela — including, he made abundantly clear, its oil reserves. He threatened the acting president with a fate “probably worse than Maduro” if she failed to cooperate. This is, by any reasonable definition, an invasion. An act of aggression against a sovereign state. A violation of Article Two of the UN Charter. The kind of thing New Zealand normally objects to, or used to. Peters’ response? After about 24 hours, he made a brief statement on social media: “New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law.” That’s it. “Concerned”. “Monitoring”. Expecting all parties to behave. One party has just bombed a capital city, kidnapped a head of state, and announced it will control the country’s resources. But sure, let’s urge “all parties” to play by the rules. The Prime Minister’s Office, when asked for a response at the highest level, simply referred journalists back to Peters’ tweet. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon himself has said nothing. As Geoffrey Miller, the independent geopolitical analyst, observed: “Luxon will probably be grateful to escape the media spotlight by virtue of the weekend’s events falling in the depths of New Zealand’s typically elongated summer holidays.” The language tells you everything Pay attention to the words politicians choose and the words they avoid. Peters didn’t name the United States. He didn’t describe what happened as an invasion, an attack, or even an intervention. The carefully crafted statement avoids assigning responsibility to anyone. It’s diplomatic jelly. Compare this to how other countries have responded. Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay issued a joint statement expressing “deep concern and rejection of the military actions carried out unilaterally in the territory of Venezuela, which contravene fundamental principles of international law.” They warned that “such actions set an extremely dangerous precedent for regional peace and security and for the rules-based international order.” Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was equally direct: “Spain did not recognise the Maduro regime. But neither will it recognise an intervention that violates international law and pushes the region toward a horizon of uncertainty and belligerence.” Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide put it simply: “International law is universal and binding for all states. The American intervention in Venezuela is not in accordance with international law.” Even Singapore, which is hardly known for picking diplomatic fights, issued a statement saying it was “gravely concerned” and “strongly condemned any unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country under any pretext.” That echoes the language Singapore used after Russia invaded Ukraine. New Zealand? “Concerned” and “monitoring”. The vested interests behind timidity Maduro is no martyr; he is a dictator who ran his country into the ground. He lost the 2024 election by an enormous margin and then stole it. His regime was corrupt, authoritarian, and responsible for the flight of eight million Venezuelans from their own country. No tears should be shed for him personally. But that’s not the point. The question isn’t whether Maduro deserved power. He didn’t. The question is whether the United States can bomb sovereign nations, kidnap their leaders, and declare control of their natural resources whenever it feels like it. The answer, if you believe in national sovereignty or the rules-based order our government claims to defend, should be an emphatic no. Why can’t New Zealand say so? The answer lies in vested interests: both American and our own. Start with Washington. Trump’s intervention is not primarily about narcotics or democracy. As Professor Robert Patman of Otago University has noted, Venezuela is not at the centre of America’s drug problems. Fentanyl and other drugs mainly come from places like China and Mexico. Trump’s announcement that America would “run” Venezuela and take its oil reserves revealed the true motivation. At his news conference, Trump made clear his major objective was securing Venezuela’s oil resources, which he claims the United States “owns”. This from the man who once said America made a mistake in not grabbing Iraq’s oil reserves after the 2003 invasion. The vested interests of American corporations are driving this policy, dressed up in the language of law enforcement and regional security. The military is simply being used to secure assets for private corporations. And what about New Zealand’s own vested interests in staying quiet? Here the picture becomes clearer. Our farming and export sectors have already been hit by Trump’s tariff regime. An initial 10 percent rate in April was raised to 15 percent. A November decision to roll back tariffs on food imports provided some relief, but American trade policy remains a constant threat. India has been hit with 50 percent tariffs for buying Russian oil. Brazil was targeted because of its prosecution of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. Our agricultural and export lobby groups watch these retaliatory tariffs nervously. Any government criticism of Trump risks placing New Zealand next on the punishment list. This explains why Peters has been so careful not to name the United States in his statement. The economic interests of New Zealand’s export sector — farmers, meat processors, dairy companies — are being prioritised over principles. It’s the politics of fear, wrapped in the language of diplomacy. Stephen Nagy, a professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, put it bluntly when explaining why America’s Asian allies have been so reluctant to criticise Trump: “You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” This is what happens when a country’s foreign policy becomes subordinate to its immediate economic interests. The double standard is breathtaking Consider how this would play out if the roles were reversed. Imagine China had just bombed Taipei, sent special forces to capture Taiwan’s leader, and declared it would “run” the island. Would Winston Peters be tweeting about how New Zealand “expects all parties” to respect international law? Would Chris Luxon be hiding behind his summer holiday? Of course not. The response would be immediate, forceful, and unambiguous. We would be told that Chinese aggression cannot be tolerated. Gordon Campbell made this point sharply: “If the Chinese military were blowing up merchant shipping in the South China Sea, bombing Taipei and sending in special forces to kidnap Taiwan’s leader . . . New Zealand wouldn’t be meekly asking both sides to show restrained respect for international law. We would be outraged.” The same double standard has been on display over Gaza. Peters’ line about expecting “all parties” to respect international law has been the government’s exact position there too, as if both sides in that conflict have been equally responsible for bombing hospitals and blocking humanitarian aid. Only last week, New Zealand opted not to join a joint statement by foreign ministers from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom calling for Israel to abide by ceasefire terms. Peters sat that one out. Opposition voices show what’s possible Not everyone in New Zealand politics has been so timid. Phil Twyford of the Labour Party issued a stronger statement, actually naming the United States and describing the action as a violation of international law. It’s not revolutionary language (more like stating the obvious) but in the context of the government’s mealy-mouthed response, it stands out. Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins should be speaking out likewise. Helen Clark has been characteristically direct, telling RNZ that the US attack was “clearly illegal under the UN Charter.” When former prime ministers speak more clearly than current foreign ministers, something has gone badly wrong. Professor Patman told RNZ that New Zealand’s response should be “firm and robust” and noted that the days of “softly, softly diplomacy” with Trump are over. Patman says: “New Zealand has persisted for the last 12 months in what I call softly, softly diplomacy towards Trump. The idea is if we keep our heads beneath the radar, we say nice things, we have photo opportunities with the great men at international meetings, he will soften and we’ll be able to nudge him in a more moderate direction. I’m afraid that’s over.” He labelled Peters’ statement as “limp”. The credibility at stake The consequences of this craven approach go beyond the immediate crisis. Geoffrey Miller warned that the inconsistency between how Western allies responded to Russia and how they’re responding to America “may come back to haunt them, particularly when it comes to their credibility with the Global South.” He’s right. Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are watching. They’ve heard endless lectures from Western nations about the importance of the rules-based order, about sovereignty, about international law. Now they’re watching those same nations stay quiet — or worse, make excuses — when the violator is the United States. Beijing and Moscow will exploit this at every opportunity. They’ll point to Venezuela whenever anyone raises Ukraine or Taiwan. And they’ll have a point. As Nathalie Tocci wrote in The Guardian, the European failure to condemn Trump’s action “embodies the law of the jungle so dear to dictators such as Putin. For Europeans to silently condone such a vision is not just unethical. It is plain stupid.” After all, Trump is now speaking out loud about annexing Greenland too. And increasingly, the concept of “Spheres of Influence” seems to be rising, whereby military superpowers such as the US, Russia, China, etc can operate on a “might is right” basis to intervene however they want in their own regions. If the world reverts to such “Spheres of Influence”, New Zealand is left exposed. If the US can claim the Americas, what is to stop a superpower from claiming the Pacific? New Zealand has spent years positioning itself as “a good international citizen”. It has sought seats on the UN Security Council. It has championed multilateralism. It has talked endlessly about the importance of small states having a voice in international affairs. How does that square with staying silent when a great power simply ignores international law because it can? The integrity test New Zealand is failing This is ultimately a question of integrity — the kind of integrity New Zealand claims to stand for on the world stage. Either international law applies to everyone, or it doesn’t. Either sovereignty matters, or it’s just a convenient talking point when it suits politicians. Either New Zealand is willing to call out violations regardless of who commits them, or else the politicians are just selective critics who only speak up when the target is someone they already dislike. Winston Peters once prided himself on being willing to speak uncomfortable truths. New Zealand First has long positioned itself as independent-minded, unwilling to simply follow the crowd. Where is that independence now? What we’re seeing instead is a government so afraid of offending Trump, and so captured by the economic interests of our export sector, that it can’t even name the United States in a statement about an American military attack. As Professor Patman observed: “Foreign policy in this country has been traditionally bipartisan. We have stood up for the rule of law internationally.” If that’s true, then it’s certainly time to show some element of independence from the US and Five Eyes. But doing so requires the New Zealand government to put principles ahead of the vested interests of farmers and exporters, and ahead of the political calculation that offending Trump carries too high a price. Murray McCully, not exactly a darling of the left, showed more backbone when he championed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on Israeli settlements in 2016. As Gordon Campbell observed, the current situation almost makes you yearn for the days when McCully was foreign minister. That’s a damning indictment of how far New Zealand has fallen. So, as we head towards an election year, foreign policy needs to be made a major issue. Voters now deserve to know whether New Zealand will continue to subordinate its principles to its perceived economic interests. Dr Bruce Edwards is a political commentator and analyst. He is director of the Integrity Institute, a campaigning and research organisation dedicated to strengthening New Zealand democratic institutions through transparency, accountability, and robust policy reform. Republished with the author’s permission. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The US Justice Department, Fake Cartels, and Maduro
The Trump administration is increasingly resembling a government previously abominated by the current US president as entangling, bumbling, and prone to fantasies. President George W. Bush was well versed in baseless existential threats stemming from Mesopotamia, supposedly directed by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. There was a critical problem in this assessment: in his dry […] The post The US Justice Department, Fake Cartels, and Maduro first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The Trump administration is increasingly resembling a government previously abominated by the current US president as entangling, bumbling, and prone to fantasies. President George W. Bush was well versed in baseless existential threats stemming from Mesopotamia, supposedly directed by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. There was a critical problem in this assessment: in his dry drunk state, Bush was criminally wrong, proposing a doctrine in response to the attack by al-Qaeda on the United States on September 11, 2001 heavy on violence and slim on evidence. The patchy formulation came to be known as the Bush Doctrine, permitting the United States to unilaterally and pre-emptively attack any country allegedly posing a threat to its security despite never evincing any genuine means of doing so. There would also be, Bush stated in his address to the nation, “no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts [of 9/11] and those who harbor them.” Such streaky reasoning eventually fastened upon Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), apparently at the ready to strike the US and its allies. If not Baghdad, then certainly an opportunistic terrorist proxy would be more than willing to deploy them. In his 2003 State of the Union Address, Bush solemnly stated that “the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.” Such weapons might be used “for blackmail, terror, and mass murder” or provided or sold “to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.” As the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq proceeded with its increasingly bloody bill of sale, there were no WMDs to be found. Saddam, foolishly as things would have it, destroyed or disarmed those weapons he had made free use of in the Iran-Iraq War. This hardly mattered. There was shoddy intelligence aplenty, including false claims that Iraq had tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium powder from Niger, and cloudy lines of cooperation between Baghdad and al-Qaeda. With school boyish enthusiasm being shown by the evangelical UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the Saddam threat ballooned for Bush. Neoconservatives rejoiced at this chance of cratering, erasing and reforming the Middle East. The Donroe Doctrine, childishly envisaged and clumsily applied, has an unmistakable analogue with that of Bush. In repurposing the Monroe Doctrine for the Western Hemisphere, excluding threatening foreign interests in Latin America and extinguishing governments adversarial or unsympathetic to the United States, Trump scorns the evidence. A fundamental reason for abducting President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, by way of example, was accusing him of being a narco-terrorist amenable to nasty foreign interests. Elevating his stature as a threat, he was accused of being a figure of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns). This pattern stretches back to the first Trump administration, when a grand jury indictment alleged that Maduro, along with other officials, “participated in a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy between the Venezuelan Cártel de Los Soles and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia”. Five years later, when the Treasury Department retrieved the initial text, the Cartel was designated a “terrorist organization”. Come November 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed the State Department to do the same. With an eerie sense of the past cantering into the present, we find the US Justice Department conceding that there was no link between Maduro and this sinister cartel. This stands to reason, given that the group does not exist as a tangible organisation. The allegation has long been contentious, but those close to Trump were not willing to be swayed by that dullest compendium of subject matter unfashionably called “the facts”. Believers in virgin births, tooth fairies and Sky Gods sometimes intrude into the making of American foreign policy, and Rubio, in justifying extrajudicial killings of those on board alleged narco-vessels in the Caribbean Sea by US military forces had this to say: “We will continue to reserve the right to take strikes against drug boats that are bringing drugs toward the United States that are being operated by transnational criminal organisations, including the Cartel de los Soles.” The 2020 indictment mentioned the cartel no fewer than 32 times. The new indictment makes a mere two references to a term that has ceased to be an entity and become a concept, revised as a “patronage system run by those at the top.” It does not feature as an organisation along with the list of alleged “narco-terrorists” outlined in the fourth paragraph. Those versed in the slippery argot of drug trafficking in Latin America have concluded that the Cartel de los Soles is a colloquialism minted by Venezuelan media to out despoiled officials sporting the sun insignia on their uniforms. It became a matter of usage in the 1990s, making it less a description of organisational reality than identifying a broader system of corruption. From the outset, Venezuelan figures such as interior and justice minister Diosdado Cabello dismissed the cartel as the product of a fevered imagination. In August last year, he coolly remarked that US officials, when bothered, would name the target of their indignation “the head of the Cartel de los Soles”. The organisation makes no appearance in the United Nations’ annual World Drug Report, preferring to reference Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and Brazil’s Primeiro Comando Capital (PPC) and Comando Vermelho (CV). The US Drug Enforcement Agency’s annual National Drug Threat Assessment makes reference to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua, “a violent criminal organization founded between 2012 and 2013” that “mainly operates within Venezuelan migrant communities” in the United States. No favours are done naming the Cartel de los Soles, however. The rewritten indictment against Maduro reveals how presidential doctrines can be used to force evidence upon a Procrustean bed, sawing or extending it to fit the set dimensions of a dogma. The crime of aggression against Iraq in 2003 was based upon forged evidence, implausible links and flimsy assumptions. The crime of aggression against Venezuela on January 3 reprised the performance. Instead of a uranium hoax, we got the Cartel of the Suns. The post The US Justice Department, Fake Cartels, and Maduro first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
We have always lived in a society that hinders mental health care instead of enabling it. Now, this writer is surely not a psychiatrist, but I did spend a night in a Holiday Inn Express. My experiences as a patient of Freudian psychoanalysis 40 years ago taught me, among many things, that ‘The child is […] The post The Anger that Masks the Sadness first appeared on Dissident Voice.
We have always lived in a society that hinders mental health care instead of enabling it. Now, this writer is surely not a psychiatrist, but I did spend a night in a Holiday Inn Express. My experiences as a patient of Freudian psychoanalysis 40 years ago taught me, among many things, that ‘The child is father of the man’. What happened to us as little baby boys and girls from birth to the age of six can influence who we become as adults. Keep that in mind folks as you watch the car crash this Trump Cabal is causing. Mary, his niece who has seen more than 99% of us regarding her dictatorial uncle, and happens herself to be a psychologist, relates much about him. She recently stated in an interview that ‘Donald was an unloved child in his formative years’. She notes that, as with most children at a very young age, Trump had that nurturing withheld from him. He became more and more demanding as he grew. By the time he became an adult, Trump the bully sought the most important prize of all: Power and control. There is a documentary on Netflix, made in the 1970s, called Hitler: A Career. Go and watch it to see just how closely this Trump MAGA Cabal has emulated Hitler and his National Socialists, AKA Nazi Party. Hitler made countless speeches at countless rallies (just as Donald has done). He and his minions set their sights on ‘The stab in the back’ by the Deep State of that era. The Jews and Slavs were singled out for deportation (and ultimate death) while the Trump Cabal chooses the undocumented who usually happen to be brown or black skinned. Hitler had his dream of Lebensraum, or the ‘Need for land for the German people’. The Trump Cabal has gone just as far as Adolf, if not further, by demanding the need for control or actual ownership of sovereign nations — and of course their natural resources. When I first heard and saw what this cabal had just done in Venezuela, I was so outraged, which quickly turned to tears. Tears not only for the Venezuelan people who reject this overt act of imperialism. Tears for what has become of my native country, controlled by this fascism. The post The Anger that Masks the Sadness first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Philip A. Farruggio.
Musician Courtney Marie Andrews on starting now and learning later
Where are you right now? I’m driving back to Nashville from New York. I did a listening party for my new album Valentine at the National Arts Club, alongside some of my paintings, so I figured I had to drive them up. Because your album isn’t officially out yet, I’m wondering how you’re feeling pre-release? It’s only been three years since I released a record, which feels long for some people and short for others. For me, it felt long simply because it seems like the entire music world has changed in that time. I feel like it’s a completely new landscape. Mostly, I feel so excited and grateful to be able to continue to release music. I was reading some of your other interviews, and you once said, “Being in a room amongst active listeners suddenly feels radical.” As music continues to move into the digital space, I sometimes worry that live shows might become less of a gathering point. Can you talk about that? When I started touring, live was everything. It was the beginning of the social media era, with MySpace becoming popular, but it had not yet become a climate in which everyone was completely living online. For me, live shows and touring were how I learned to perform and how I imagined sustaining a career. Now, it feels almost like the opposite. The goal often seems to be creating a viral moment, even within a live performance. If I’m being honest, I’m finding it really hard to connect with this. I feel like artists should be lauded for their time, their bodies of work, their depth, and the journeys that they go on. I don’t think that is the era we’re living in. I’m sure that there are exceptions to that statement, but overall, it seems very flaccid, and that makes me really sad. I feel like there’s this added layer now where you walk off stage, and the show has already been reviewed within seconds. When you’re immediately tagged in videos post-show, does it shift how you perceive your performance? I’m guilty of engaging in that instant feedback loop. But on my last tour in Europe and the UK, I went back to the merch table, talked to people, and sold my own merch, which was something I hadn’t done in a while. I was really taken aback by how different it felt to meet people again. It hit me in a really profound way. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t toured in about a year and a half, but I just felt very pure to it. When you’re not trying to gain or capture anything, but simply feel what you feel in the moment in a room full of people while really interacting, there is nothing like it. I’m not saying it’s dying or anything, but there does seem to be a certain scarcity in underground music, a sense of fear, and venues being bought up. How do you strike a balance between playing the game and doing what actually feels good to you? Trying not to take any of it for granted is really important. It’s never lost on me how incredible it is that I get to do this for a living. As a poor kid from Arizona, I know there are people in my life who would love to have this lifestyle. I think the way I stay grounded is by remembering where I came from and remembering that these people bought a ticket to come hear me. If I give them any sort of healing, I am grateful for that. Sometimes you lose sight of these things when you’re touring a lot and get tired. But it’s a luxury to be able to play music. I walk a lot before a show. I wish I could say I just put my phone away and didn’t engage with it, but there’s also this difficult balance of wanting to be a part of the world as it exists now. It’s really confusing. I know you’re both a painter and a poet, and you recently released your second book of poetry, Love is a Dog That Bites When It’s Scared. I’m curious, how do you differentiate a song from a poem? I know right away. Poems feel kind of like a bird’s-eye view, like I’m up above in the third person. It’s as if another part of me is talking to myself, whereas songs feel more conversational, like something I might say to a friend. The two voices seem to have different accents. Both your new book of poetry and your latest record explore the theme of love. You’ve mentioned that Valentine is about the “pursuit of love.” How does that search play out across the album and in your other creative work? Do you see a throughline connecting the different mediums? I created a series of paintings, this collection of poetry, and this album, all during a very tumultuous, intense time in my life. I was caretaking a family member who was terminal, and I was also navigating the confusing beginnings of a relationship. I just felt very hollow. I think the only way I could really come back to myself and find my center was to write or to create something. I found myself writing the same song over and over because I was feeling the same emotions, and they weren’t changing. I probably have twenty B-sides from Valentine that all explore the same idea, just with a different guitar part or melody. It was really important for me to use these other mediums to tell the the same story. A theme on the record is feeling older and defiant in what I want, while my inner child remains wounded, despite my defiance. The songs “Best Friend” and “Outsiders” explore these inner child feelings. I am both strong and striving to be strong, but also vulnerable, weak, and wounded. To me, the record feels like a complete narrative arc. It opens with “Pendulum Swing” and that striking first line, “Man, I love a heart with one foot out the door. One that leaves you hungry, coming back for more.” Right away, it feels like we’re being introduced to a character who will carry this story. Then the line, “If I get what I want, gotta let the pendulum swing, can’t be good for too long,” lands almost like a foreshadowing of what’s to come. Did you sequence the songs with this narrative flow in mind? We spent a lot of time sequencing this record because I love records that have an arc, that take you on a journey and feel like a story from beginning to end. All my favourite records do that, so yes, it was definitely intentional. With “Pendulum Swing,” I wanted to capture how love, at the beginning, always feels like this impossible beauty that could never cease to exist. Life is kind of like a pendulum—it always swings the other way, often when you least expect it. The foreshadowing was exactly intentional, so thank you for picking up on that. I’ve really been listening to this album non-stop. In preparing for this interview, I’ve also been dipping into your catalogue. I was listening to “No One’s Slate Is Clean” from 2010 and noticed your intonation sounded slightly different, though I could still hear your signature vibrato. How has your voice changed over time, and how has it stayed the same? I started recording, I think, too young. I was a punk kid thinking, “I’ll just throw it down and see what happens,” without really knowing anything. I dove in like most things in my life that way, not being afraid to make art. I think everyone, unless you’re some kind of savant, makes bad art in the beginning. Back then, you could hide it or conceal it because there wasn’t the internet. As far as singing goes, I wasn’t trained. I didn’t go to college or study it formally. When I listen to those early records, I hear a girl who didn’t know how to sing yet, someone who was still developing. I can hear so much of myself trying to discover what I wanted to be, what resonated with me, or even what I liked. I was developing my taste. I grew up with a cowboy and a mom who listened to country radio, so I obviously went the opposite route. I listened to punk, the Velvet Underground, and that sort of thing, and got really into DIY music. I feel like the texture of your voice has been present since the beginning. On this new record, your voice feels so elastic and untethered. At the same time, I notice that you exercise a lot of restraint. You’re really skilled at expanding and contracting. It sounds like you could sing anything, but you’re also very selective about the moments when you push your voice. Well, it’s interesting you say that because that’s exactly how I felt. Back then, I thought the louder I sang, the more passionate I sounded. I actually had a conversation once with a gospel singer, and she said, “You know, I’m not singing that loud, but it sounds like I am.” That statement completely blew my world open when it came to learning how to sing. I read that you made this in just ten days on a 16-track. I’d love to hear you talk about how recording that way brings performance to the forefront. When you record in a modern way, the longest part of the process is cutting up every vocal take to find the perfect line. With a 16-track, the longest part is just getting the right take. But once you have it, everything starts to flow and it actually becomes fun. That’s the exciting part of the process. At least for me, the pressure of landing that take can feel pretty daunting. It is a completely live vocal for the entire record. There is no vocal comping except for the very end of the song “Only the Best for Baby,” where we did a tape comp, which was really difficult. The engineer had to punch me in right at the end. What was going on with that line? My thumb hit the string wrong and it created this crazy sound that was not cute. Sometimes those moments can be magical, but this one was not a good accident. But the rest of the take was so great that we said, “We’re going to punch the last chorus, and if we don’t get it, we have to do it again.” High stakes. Yeah, it was high stakes, but our engineer was a master. But that’s what happens when you’re playing in real time. You can’t just fix something, it has to be fixed by you doing it well, not by trickery. I feel like it makes cooler records when you do it that way. There are so many great singers I know who comp every line, and it feels like every time you do that, the energy of the room gets taken out. The energy of the performance changes too. When you’re cutting up syllables, it’s hard to have the emotion behind it. Was there ever a moment when you thought, “Yes, we got it,” but then later changed your mind? When you have it, you have it. We recorded “Cons and Clowns” fifteen times. We really fought it. Hilariously, when we went back, the engineer said, “I think there was something in take two.” And of course, it ended up being take two. It was very imperfect, but it was the take. Did you do a lot of rehearsal time before? I did about ten days of pre-production. During that time, we worked out the general idea of what we’d do so that once we were in the studio, we could just lay it down. Was it a song per day? Yeah, it was actually. That became our rhythm. How did you prepare emotionally for the time in the studio? I imagine there was a lot riding on things going well. Yeah, that’s very real. I think all you can do is go for it and hope for the best. And if you don’t get it, you figure it out. Oh, you got it! I would be lying if I said it was a smooth, easy ride the whole way. I would say it was ten really intense days. We worked far longer hours than are probably humanly allowed. But everyone was really invested in getting the record done, so it worked out. Once you get the take of everything, you’re just throwing paint. But those first five days, when you’re not sure if you’re going to get the take or not, that’s actually the scariest part. Well, it sounds incredible. I’m so excited for people to hear this record. It’s a whole world. There’s one song I want to focus on before we wrap up. “Best Friend” was, to me, the saddest song on the album. I found it so heartbreaking to hear you talk about not having a best friend, and I hadn’t heard a song like that before. Just the words, “I wish I had somebody to talk to, tell my deepest thoughts to,” felt like an outlier, a perspective I hadn’t really encountered in a song before. Can you talk about this song? Well, you hit the nail on the head. After I wrote it, I thought that’s the saddest song I’ve ever written. I wrote it about my seven-year-old self. I asked myself, “What’s the saddest part of you?” And for most people, I think it’s childhood. Even if you had a happy childhood, the things that happened to you, the sadnesses, are so profound because you were so pure. It’s the hardest kind of sadness in a way. You don’t feel there’s an end to it. It’s your first sadness. I was an only child and I had imaginary friends. I thought, “What was the hardest thing for me as a kid?” And it was the loneliness I felt. I spent a lot of time alone. I was a latchkey kid. My mom worked two jobs, so I felt profoundly alone. I read some old journals at some point, and that’s where the song came from. I hope you find a moment to celebrate this record. I know on your birthday you posted about doing a big hike for your 35th. I’m wondering if you’re planning to do something on January 16th when it’s released. Hikes are a great way to celebrate. They help ground you in the moment a bit more. I hope I’m able to do something like that. Courtney Marie Andrews Recommends: Blossom Dearie Sings. A hidden gem of songs written by the incredible jazz singer, Blossom Dearie. All Fours by Miranda July. I loved this book. I’ve never read anything like it. The new Richard Linklater film, Blue Moon, which is a film based off a night in the life of the great American songbook lyricist Lorenz Hart, who was a drunken romantic barfly. Ethan Hawke’s performance was outstanding, and this historical character deserves the spotlight. What a film. Reading one poem before bed. Japanese incense! They smell amazing. Way subtler than your typical hippie store variety. This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Anna DeNelsky.
On the anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot that almost toppled democracy (more quickly than now), the hacks and crackpots in power concocted a deranged, revised history of the event so "evil," "pathological" and deeply "Stalin-level propaganda" it's someho...
On the anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot that almost toppled democracy (more quickly than now), the hacks and crackpots in power concocted a deranged, revised history of the event so "evil," "pathological" and deeply "Stalin-level propaganda" it's somehow dragged us ever further through the looking glass. In its telling, "orderly patriots" marched to the Capitol, Democrats who "masterfully reversed reality" "staged the real rebellion," and Trump "triumphed over tyranny." Up is down. Orwell lives. A few days ago, Robert Reich described the Jan. 6 insurrection as "the most shameful day in American history." Then he wisely upped the ante to draw a direct line from that crime to all the rest, including his capture of Maduro, arguing they're all based on the same disturbing premise: "The hubris of omnipotence." Many have made the same connection, calling Jan. 6 a stark "fork in the road" whose moral implications - supremacy of political loyalty over the rule of law - poisoned all that followed. It became "a riot that never ended," a turning point that was not "the final, violent death spasms of the cult of Trump" as we thought but "the dawn of Trump’s total liberation." Today, amidst all the gaslighting, denial, lies, the ongoing, well-fed hubris, we pay the price. A few weeks ago, former special counsel Jack Smith appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, testifying that his team had "proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power." We all know Trump should be behind bars. Tragically, he isn't, because he inexplicably weaseled his way into getting elected, a complicit, lawless SCOTUS gave him an unconscionable lifeline, Merrick Garland was a dud, Biden got old, and Smith was forced to drop the case. Since then, Trump has blasted ahead with his revenge tour, his toadies have gutted the DOJ, the far-right, fueled by Charlie Kirk's death, has soared, and truth has lost at every mournful turn. And so to Trump's "day of love” as framed by a demented J6 website, widely deemed "disgusting lies," "an absolute disgrace," and "a despicable, shameful distortion of reality by a lawless, rogue White House." With a stark black and white banner portraying a supposed gallery of villains composed of - surprise! - Democrats, along with traitorous Cheney and Kinzinger, it opens with the florid claim, "President Trump took decisive action to pardon January 6 defendants who were unfairly targeted, overcharged, and used as political examples... They were punished to cover incompetence." It boasts Trump, on his first day in office, pardoned nearly 1,600 "patriotic Americans...treated as insurrectionists by a weaponized Biden DOJ" for "exercising their First Amendment rights." Blasting Nancy Pelosi for creating "a scripted TV spectacle to fabricate an 'insurrection' narrative and pin blame on President Trump" and flaunting contextless quotes - "We have totally failed" - it claims Pelosi "repeatedly" acknowledged responsibility for “catastrophic security failures" after refusing Trump's gracious offer of 10,000 National Guard troops for protection (not, all of it). Thus did wily Dems reverse reality: "In truth it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters. This gaslighting narrative allowed them to persecute innocent Americans, silence opposition, and distract from their own role in undermining democracy.” Then, a timeline of fictional events: Trump "invites patriotic Americans" to DC for "a peaceful and historic protest against certifying the stolen 2020 election." He "speaks to hundreds of thousands of supporters." The crowd "responds with massive enthusiasm." The march "is orderly and spirited." Capitol Police "fire tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber munitions, deliberately escalating tensions." The "stolen election is certified" despite "hidden suitcases of ballots," also "exploding water pipes"? Trump is "silenced," "weaponized prosecutions," "FBI entrapment," "fabricated indictments," "rigged show trials," "Trump prevails despite relentless Deep State efforts to imprison, bankrupt, and assassinate him," and of course "God’s unmistakable grace." Whew. The triumphant finale: Trump "corrected a historic wrong - freeing Americans who were unjustly punished in one of the darkest wrongs in modern American history" - reportedly, when faced with the task, saying fuck it and giving all 1,600, even the most vile, a free ride 'cause he was too lazy to go through each case. He pardoned "patriotic citizens viciously overcharged, denied due process and held as political hostages by a vengeful regime." Those victims of "merciless persecution (for) the simple act of peacefully walking through the Capitol" were "finally freed from years of cruel imprisonment" as he "ended the nightmare of weaponized justice and delivered long-overdue vindication to those betrayed by those leaders sworn to protect them." Speaking of: Since then, Republicans have spinelessly toed the line. To date, unholy Mike Johnson's even refused to install a legally mandated plaque at the US Capitol honoring the brave and still damaged souls in law enforcement who tried to stop the mayhem; challenged, he argues the plaque is "not implementable" as written, and that alternatives offered by Democrats "do not comply with the statute." On Tuesday's anniversary, dozens of Dem lawmakers held a forum to recount their experiences of the traumatic event and honor those who fought to protect them and uphold the law; they gathered in the basement where many had hidden that day after the Speaker's office declined their requests for a hearing room or larger auditorium upstairs. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Also on Tuesday, a twisted, ragtag "family reunion" of several dozen rioters came to D.C. to march again, ostensibly to commemorate Ashli Babbitt, who was killed as she tried to breach the Capitol; the administration paid $5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit with her family. The pardoned rioters, many of whom are similarly seeking millions in damages, marched draped in MAGA gear. "This is about redemption," said one. "This is the life force of MAGA." Some tangled with a handful of counter-protesters - "Eat Shit Donald Trump" - and a small fight began when one thug tried to seize the bullhorn from a protester’s hands. She was handcuffed by the police. Color us shocked. Since Trump's sweeping pardons, even of the worst of the worst, at least 33 rioters have been re-arrested for other crimes. The charges include plotting the murder of FBI agents who investigated Jan. 6 cases, and violent assault - punched a woman in the throat, stomped on a man’s chest at a bar. Three have been arrested for rape, and six have been charged with child-sex crimes, including child rape and child pornography, because only the best. The DOJ has also indicted the guy accused of planting pipe bombs outside the DNC and RNC headquarters the night before Jan. 6, 2021; he is now detained pending trial, but it turns out the stable genius may have already pardoned him. Others pop up in a sordid "Where Are They Now" round-up. Former Proud Boys leader and self-proclaimed “Western chauvinist" Enrique Tarrio, who formed a militia-like Ministry of Self-Defense unit,” got a 22-year-sentence, with terrorism charges included, before being pardoned. He joined Tuesday's march; before that, he was last seen getting charged with another assault, but feds declined to prosecute him. Jan. 6 shaman Jacob Chansley last made the news when he filed an unhinged $40 trillion lawsuit against Trump, declaring himself "the first legal President of the New Constitutional Republic of the United States." In that capacity, he ordered the printing of a $40 trillion coin, and gave himself $1 trillion "for my years worth of pain and suffering." Of other Jan. 6 heroes, one was arrested on a felony charge after his off-leash dogs viciously attacked multiple people, sending four to the hospital. One was arrested for driving a van loaded with weapons near Barack Obama's home; he also livestreamed threats against Jamie Raskin, threatened to blow up a federal building, and was convicted on a weapons and hoax bomb threat charge. One was arrested for making a “terroristic threat" against Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. One, Jared Wise - "Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em!” - works at the DOJ under Ed Martin, who represented Jan. 6 defendants. And one, the still- babbling Instigator-In-Chief, just overthrew the president of Venezuela in violation of the U.N. Charter and international law, among many, many other crimes. Despite the attempts at revisionist history, "Americans remember that day for a simple reason – we watched it happen." - Gregory Rosen, former DOJ prosecutor of Jan. 6 defendants. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.
Malcolm Evans: What have we become that we accept such brigandry?
COMMENTARY: By Malcolm Evans What have we become if to survive in our so-called “free world” we must turn a blind eye to cold-blooded genocide, must arm ourselves to oppose our major trading partner, must support a contrived war to defeat an adversary that no longer exists, (lest its new form otherwise achieves its potential)
COMMENTARY: By Malcolm Evans What have we become if to survive in our so-called “free world” we must turn a blind eye to cold-blooded genocide, must arm ourselves to oppose our major trading partner, must support a contrived war to defeat an adversary that no longer exists, (lest its new form otherwise achieves its potential) must sanction some and not others, trade with some and not others — and now must, yet again, be silent as another sovereign nation is brazenly plundered for its wealth. US President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela is not a “police operation” against a criminal “fugitive,” nor is it part of an “escalating pressure campaign” against a hostile regime. It’s none of the things that the White House and our media claims, faithfully copying and pasting stories supplied by The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post. READ MORE: Trump says Venezuela to hand over up to 50m barrels of oil to US Fact-checking Trump on promised US oil company investment in Venezuela US says military ‘always an option’ in Greenland as Europe rejects threats ‘I am still president of my country,’ kidnapped Nicolas Maduro tells US court Blithely asserting the right to “run” Venezuela and “take” the country’s vast oil reserves, in a textbook example of the 19th century colonialism, Trump’s actions brazenly violate international law and numerous entrenched conventions. And all of it whitewashed by our media in euphemistic pseudo-legalese, to impress those gullible enough. With Trump not only flouting the US Constitution but no longer even pretending that this is about anything other than the theft of another country’s resources, bragging that US oil companies will begin “taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” what does it say about us that we accept such brigandry? How, in God’s name, have we allowed ourselves to be swayed by the dribblings of a scurrilous misogynist, the associate of a convicted paedophile and a creature so altogether odious that, in any other context, we wouldn’t be seen dead with him? Brandishing his big black marker, Trump, the unabashed narcissist, has changed the US Constitution from; “We the People . . . ” to now read: “ME the People”! When can we expect those we have entrusted to defend the principles we claim to represent, to stand up and say something? Or is it simply a matter of us being too gutless ourselves, too intimidated, too craven, to break ranks, step forward and say: “The Emperor has no clothes!” Malcolm Evans is an independent New Zealand award-winning cartoonist and commentator. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-122014" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/01022026-Zionism-680wide-.jpg" alt=""Why must we turn a blind eye to cold-blooded genocide?" " width="680" height="452" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/01022026-Zionism-680wide-.jpg 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/01022026-Zionism-680wide--300x199.jpg 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/01022026-Zionism-680wide--632x420.jpg 632w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> “Why must we turn a blind eye to cold-blooded genocide?” Cartoon: © Malcolm Evans This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Kleptocracy, crony capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, carbon politics or Kissinger-style politics. Call it what you wish. But the Trump semi coup in Venezuela is another example of the retro politics of the Trump administration, and it is destined to pull the US into yet another quagmire, reminiscent of Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps even Vietnam. More The post Trump and Pump: Another Oil Quagmire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30.jpg 1599w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396293" class="size-medium wp-image-396293" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No_Kings_NYC_October_2025_30.jpg 1599w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Joe Mabel – CC BY-SA 4.0 Kleptocracy, crony capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, carbon politics or Kissinger-style politics. Call it what you wish. But the Trump semi coup in Venezuela is another example of the retro politics of the Trump administration, and it is destined to pull the US into yet another quagmire, reminiscent of Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps even Vietnam. There is an adage that states always prepared to fight the last war. Trump’s incoherent views of the US were always backward looking, thus to make America great again has always been retro, looking at the US through Halcyon, rose colored glasses, seeing a time when the US dominated the world. Yet as Karl Marx once observed in The Eighteenth Brumaire, the first time history repeats itself it is a tragedy, the second time it is a farce. What is unfolding in Venezuela fits neatly into that second category. It is not merely repetition, but repetition stripped of strategic seriousness. What remains is spectacle masquerading as statecraft. From the beginning, it has been obvious that Venezuela was never about drugs. The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy made that clear. Rather than focusing on narcotics, governance, or humanitarian concerns, it resurrected an explicitly imperial vision of hemispheric dominance. Venezuela was framed as a problem of control, not law enforcement. That document called for an update to the Monroe Doctrine, which some critics quickly dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine.” The premise was blunt: the United States should dominate the Western Hemisphere. Europe would be left to Europe, Asia to Asia, and Africa barely merited mention. This was not realism so much as nostalgia dressed up as strategy. Yet the 2025 National Security Strategy was hardly a strategy at all. It read like a campaign speech extended into foreign policy form. It offered slogans, not plans, and branding rather than analysis. Venezuela appeared less as a case study than as a marketing opportunity. The document foreshadowed what soon became clear: Venezuela was never about drugs, but about domination. That domination draws on an older historical memory, one rooted in the early twentieth century. During that period, the United States treated much of South America as an economic extension of its own industrial needs. Venezuela’s oil was extracted, exported, and monetized with little regard for Venezuelan sovereignty. The semi-coup Trump orchestrated is an attempt to recapture that lost era. It is a bid to reclaim oil that the United States once took openly and unapologetically. The logic is strikingly familiar. As was once said during debates over the Panama Canal, what was stolen “fair and square” should be kept. That same logic now underwrites U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Trump’s decision to charge Nicolás Maduro with drug crimes is similarly retro. It echoes the Bush administration’s justification for arresting Manuel Noriega decades earlier. In both cases, criminal charges substituted for political legitimacy. Law enforcement became a fig leaf for regime change. This backward-looking politics is also about reviving carbon politics at a time when it is rapidly losing relevance. Daniel Yergin’s trilogy—The Prize, The Quest, and The New Map—documents how the twentieth century revolved around oil and energy dominance. But the economic logic that once favored fossil fuels is eroding. Renewable energy is no longer speculative; it is increasingly cheaper, faster, and more scalable. China understands this shift and is acting accordingly. It is investing heavily in solar, wind, batteries, and electric infrastructure. The United States, by contrast, under Trump sought to double down on oil and gas. Venezuela thus becomes a symbolic battleground between past and future energy regimes. Even by the standards of regime change, this effort is oddly incomplete. Henry Kissinger, for all his moral failures, at least understood how to execute a coup decisively. Chile under Allende stands as grim evidence of that competence. What Trump has engineered instead is a semi-coup, lacking both legitimacy and control. Trump has declared that the United States will run Venezuela, but not necessarily directly. Instead, it will rely on sanctions, embargoes, financial pressure, and the seizure of oil revenues. The opposition has not been empowered but marginalized. Maduro’s vice president remains in charge, and there is little evidence that the military has defected. The result is a dangerous stalemate. It creates the conditions for civil conflict rather than political transition. As instability grows, U.S. involvement will deepen by necessity rather than design. Oil infrastructure will need protection, and protection will require troops. When that moment comes, the justification will change. It will be framed as security, stability, or humanitarian necessity. But the underlying motive will remain the same. Control of resources will once again be dressed up as national interest. The final stage of this episode will likely involve personal enrichment. Trump has consistently blurred the line between public power and private gain. Venezuela offers another opportunity for branding and profit. This would mirror how earlier American elites, including the Rockefellers, benefited from Venezuelan oil a century ago. Welcome to Trump-and-Pump America. The more we pump, the more we are told we grow. It is an old story with a new logo. And like so many times before, it is likely to end badly. The post Trump and Pump: Another Oil Quagmire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Schultz.
Net Zero: Fantasy, Red Herring, or Reality?
Ten years after the 2015 Paris Agreement provided a framework to keep average global temperatures from rising 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above pre-industrial levels, the world continues to advance towards climate breakdown. Time is running out on a human-induced Anthropocene: a decade of record high temperatures, more disastrous climate events per year, 428.2 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (up 3 ppm in 2025). Why can’t we improve our lot rather than making things worse? We have the technology. “Net Zero” is a fundamental concept for good clean living. More The post Net Zero: Fantasy, Red Herring, or Reality? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-768x542.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-600x423.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1352px) 100vw, 1352px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="893" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-893x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-893x630.png 893w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-680x480.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-768x542.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-500x353.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM-600x423.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.55.06-PM.png 1352w" sizes="(max-width: 893px) 100vw, 893px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395968" class="wp-image-395968 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-680x486.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="486" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-680x486.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-882x630.jpeg 882w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-768x548.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-1536x1097.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-2048x1462.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-500x357.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3319-1-600x428.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Wind farm near Tehachapi Pass, California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Ten years after the 2015 Paris Agreement provided a framework to keep average global temperatures from rising 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above pre-industrial levels, the world continues to advance towards climate breakdown. Time is running out on a human-induced Anthropocene: a decade of record high temperatures, more disastrous climate events per year, 428.2 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (up 3 ppm in 2025). Why can’t we improve our lot rather than making things worse? We have the technology. “Net Zero” is a fundamental concept for good clean living. Falsehoods abound as vested interests distract from the growing dangers, encouraging business as usual to keep oil sales in the black: Ronald Reagan claiming that trees cause more pollution than cars, George W. Bush rebranding “global warming” as “climate change,” and Donald Trump’s ongoing nonsense about clean coal, cancerous wind mills, and electric vehicle “mandates.” Instead of a change from dirty to clean, the energy transition is becoming an add-on, keeping the cash registers whirling on a 165-year-old petroleum-run world that burns over 80 million barrels each day. The assault on truth goes unchecked, ensuring that a lucrative hydrocarbon-based economy continues to pay out, rather than providing clean green energy for industry, transportation, and buildings. Others have even done an about-turn, such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose 2021 book How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have And The Breakthroughs We Need sounded promising, but has shown himself to be more interested in making money than stopping an increasingly warming world. On the nasty issue of transportation emissions (28% in the US), Gates did note, “It’s rare that you can boil the solution for such a complex subject down into a single sentence. But with transportation, the zero-carbon future is basically this: Use electricity to run all the vehicles we can, and get cheap alternative fuels for the rest.” He also added that natural gas cannot act as a bridge fuel if we are serious about net zero by 2050, stating that such “gradualism” throws good money after bad and locks us into a mistaken direction by providing short-term gain yet long-term failure. Gates had supported all-out zero-carbon electricity and wide-scale electrification, “everything from vehicles to industrial processes and heat pumps” and for greenhouse gas emissions to reach net zero by 2050 to avoid the “catastrophic” impact of man-made global warming. But the world’s formerly richest person now thinks our “doomsday outlook” on global climate is too focussed on reducing emissions, oddly stating that more spending on health is needed to combat the warming world. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also plays both sides as the progenitor of a clean electric-vehicle future, starting with the 2008 all-electric Lotus Elise inspired Roadster, stuffed full of lithium-ion batteries. Despite having gone off the rails with his anti-government rants (standard billionaire libertarian policy to avoid paying for shared infrastructure) and far-right support (smoke-screen for small, no-regulation government), Musk will be remembered for kick-starting the twenty-first century revolution revolution as well as the global market for chemical battery storage (another potential trillion-dollar industry that conditions power for an intermittent grid). The Ford Motor Co. may have ditched its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup for now, but is banking on the rapidly expanding electric storage market to the tune of $2 billion (lithium iron phosphate cells, 5 MWh packs). Musk is also exploring ways to block the sun in an ill-conceived solar radiation management geo-engineering project, literally pie-in-the-sky madness, rather than selling solar for all on hundreds of millions of roofs and thousands of Tesla charging stations. Gates also called for similar, high-investment, centrally controlled solutions, as unworkable as they are unfeasible. Musk’s idea is a satellite array to block the sun, while Gates supports sun-reflecting aerosols. Trump’s fire-fuel thinking is retrograde in the extreme, including increased oil subsidies, resurrecting dead coal plants (more than 2 times as expensive as solar), and laughable “national security risks” as the reason to “pause” five east-coast offshore wind projects, one of which was almost 70% complete, policies that raise energy costs for consumers and make everyday living less affordable. Commodore Trump is even putting the United States on a collision course with Venezuela – a founding OPEC member that first called for a 50-50 agreement with foreign oil companies to make a return on its own natural resources – as the assembling American “Armada” aims to control the world’s largest petroleum reserves (300 billion barrels, 18%). War used to be the last resort, but is now being touted as an answer to socialism in the Western Hemisphere by a politically renegade US that calls on foreign citizens to rise up against their governments under the threat of attack. The quaint cover story is to stop fentanyl from destroying American lives, more slimy and brazen than any past US-led coup. The Russia-Ukraine war has lasted almost four years, refashioned from an EU/NATO bulwark “special military operation” into a natural gas turf war between the United States and Russia (who together control more than one-third of the natural gas export market), driven by American sanctions and tariffs in an old-fashioned, mob-style protection racket. Trump’s simplistic petroleum-centred view hinders American dominance in the growing trillion-dollar green economy, now led by China and Europe. Relishing his role as a green Grinch and Big Oil bagman, Trump even had a bike-sharing hub removed from outside the White House. Not all free-marketers think green energy is a “scam.” In a 1989 speech to the United Nations, UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher noted that environmental issues had “grown clearer than any other in both urgency and importance.” Berkeley physics professor and former climate skeptic Richard A. Muller did his own global warming study, calculating that average temperatures were increasing because of human activity despite decreasing at a third of the 36,866 test locations, highlighting how weather does not equal climate. Commercial artist Damien Hirst, famous for pickling large animals, fingered waste as a symbol of our times, ever more petroleum-based plastic garbage entering the environment abetted by uncaring and unregulated packaging companies – more than 400 million tons per year! Unfortunately, the transition is being slowed by private interests and a lunatic American idea that the past is somehow the way forward. Affordability is no longer an issue as electric vehicles (EVs) have already achieved parity with and now undercut internal combustion engine (ICE) gasmobiles. Nor is efficiency a problem with EVs at 95% (conversion of input energy to mobility) compared to a maximum 50% in an ICE gasmobile (mostly lost heat). The efficiency (or inefficiency) of a gasmobile is in fact negative when all externalities are included (extraction, shipping, refining, storage, delivery, pumping, with millions of miles of piping along the way). The same is true for LEDs versus incandescent bulbs (5 times less efficient) – direct conversion of energy to light without heat loss. What customers and manufacturers want (“letting the market decide”) can’t be the only factor without including all externalities, such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Repealing long-standing fuel-economy standards that increased a woeful miles-per-gallon inefficiency of combustion engines (more completely burning higher-octane gasoline) means more pollution on the streets – more deaths, disease, and dementia from particulate matter, carbon monoxide, NOx, volatile organic compounds, lead, arsenic, …. Pretending plug-in hybrids are a solution is a red herring that postpones the switch to EVs, doing little to counter toxic pollution and global warming. Hybrids are almost as bad as gasmobiles, while an EV is better for the environment after only two years. While the US goes backwards, Europe is also slowing the transition, calling for a delay in a mandated rollout of 100% EVs by 2035 to 90%. The delayed EU EV transition pleases European carmakers, yet will make manufacturing less competitive with China as does the Trump-backed US about-face on electric vehicles. The EV growth curve is still positive, but manufacturing uncertainty hurts competitiveness and hampers the growth of new supply chains. The 2024 EU Critical Raw Materials Act is of little use if China remains in charge, while supply chains based on old oil routes also increases the likelihood of future conflicts, chiefly with energy-rich Russia. The rapid increase in the sales of battery-only trucks in China over diesel and natural gas is already impacting oil revenues (9% of sales in the first half of 2024, 22% in 2025, and an expected 60% in 2026), continuing the downward pressure on an uncertain market, while increasing China’s leadership in the green economy. As the post-war rise of Japanese electronics undermined Western dominance in technology, so too will Chinese EVs surpass Western car manufacturing as new sales move from Detroit, Wolfsburg, and Yokohama to Shanghai. Global EV sales in 2025 were 25% (90% in China, 16% EU, and 10% US). In “Net Zero by 2050,” the International Energy Agency called for “a rapid shift away from fossil fuels” and “huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas,” while the goals to achieve net zero included “halting sales of new internal combustion engine passenger cars by 2035, and phasing out all unabated coal and oil power plants by 2040.” Of course, the ongoing pushback keeps fossil-fuel industry assets from becoming stranded as more oil investments are curtailed that reduce profitability and increase the financial risk to Big Oil. According to a 2025 Nature Sustainability report on power plants stranded by climate mitigation, “The top 25 most-exposed firms hold $770 billion in stranded assets under a 1.5°C scenario and $224 billion under a 2°C scenario. Together they emit 4.0 Gt CO2 annually, equivalent to 11% of global emissions. State-owned enterprises dominate the list, with China’s Big Five power producers accounting for $79–134 billion in at-risk coal assets alone.” The fire-fuel industry isn’t ready to trade away the world’s most lucrative commodity. Happily, there is a viable and profitable future for green energy – new installations in 2025 were 85% renewables and only 5% oil. Although oil still powers more than 50% of all installations, the green count grows year on year. A number of countries recorded 100% renewable days in 2025, including Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands are all more than 40% renewables. Ditto 100% renewable days in California, the world’s fifth-largest economy (after the US, China, Germany, and Japan), while Texas is more than 40% green (mostly wind-powered). Soon, one will talk about varying shades of green states instead of blue and red. A disruptive design revolution is also helping to reshape a century of oil-centred living in our overcrowded and underfunded urban environments. More people-oriented communal green street spaces (“parklets”) and cycle lanes are cropping up in newly remodelled city landscapes, redefining the idea of street property within the old commons. Noise, exhaust fumes, and me-first living are being challenged as more green space helps us to de-stress amid a fast-pace commuter culture that puts cars before people. Once considered a luxury, the garage may need to be refashioned – workshop, studio, person-cave. The sharing economy is also growing as drivers look for new ways to get from A to B. Reduced ownership is upsetting mobility trends as high prices impact new sales. Gen Z and Millennial buyers don’t need to spend $50,000 on a lifestyle option that sits in a garage nor the $10,000 associated annual costs, standing a long-established sales model on its head and reducing gasoline demand. Free electrified public transit also helps lower toxic pollution, global warming, and urban congestion as started in 2020 in the city of Luxembourg. “Paris 1.5” is dead (now +1.55 over 1890 levels), but clear objectives and achievable targets are needed to keep industry from lagging behind the technical competence and needed goals: green transportation, buildings, cement, and steel. As the US slows the transition, EVs remain at a disadvantage, upsetting design to road time, but we can all work together on a green economy that limits the damage of the petroleum era. “Paris 2.0” may be the last gasp. Why is the concept of “net zero” hard to understand? The two main issues are pollution and warming. Possibly because it is hard to see a slow rise in average temperature within seasonal ups and downs and our own childhood nostalgia. The signal is there (as in any data fit to the temperature record since the start of the Industrial Revolution), but is thought of as noise. Atmospheric warming is also a two-stage concept, where carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere that then absorbs outgoing infrared radiation and raises temperatures. Pollution is an easier concept to understand as burnt fossil fuels release a witches brew of toxins directly into the atmosphere (as well as heat-absorbing carbon dioxide and methane) that kills 9 million people per year and contributes to respiratory problems, cancer, dementia, and numerous health issues (90% of the global population are exposed to excessive levels). The atmosphere is also very large and 3 parts per million may seem small. Think of that once-happy frog in a pot of slowly warming water. Carbon capture and sequester (CCS) also seems like a simple solution, but allows the polluters and warmers to continue polluting and warming. Direct-air-capture CCS could be a solution if it was easy and cheap, but is hard and expensive. One underappreciated possibility is a two-stage CCS process using the oceans and seas. It is easier to remove carbon from water that then reabsorbs carbon from air. Sadly, the oceans are also high in carbon. Changing from polluting and warming gasmobiles to electric vehicles is simple. The technology and economies of scales exist. Parity has been achieved. And only two years to see the environmental benefit. There is much opposition from the established oil industry supported by beholden politicians. Hence the rise of the hybrid, sold as a solution to keep the refineries and gasoline companies in business. 100 million cars worldwide sold per year ($3 trillion), 20 million barrels of oil a day ($1.2 billion/day). Change was never going to be easy. The pace of change is always uneven. In the US, widespread adoption of urban electrification took 50 years and another 25 years for American farms to reach 90%. What we take for granted today took decades to achieve after the opening of Thomas Edison’s groundbreaking 1882 Pearl Street Power Station. Same for the personal computer, internet, and cellphone as luxury turns to everyday: affordable, efficient, and reliable. We can also do our own bit. Less is more, helping define the rebellion against the constant selling of things – the greenest dollar is the one not spent. We must all find a way to net zero. No more denial or delay. The post Net Zero: Fantasy, Red Herring, or Reality? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John K. White.
Mayor Mamdani and the Roots of Islamic Democratic Socialism
On a hot September day in 1976, Mohammad Nakhshab, an Iranian political figure, died of a heart attack on a New York subway car. He was 53. His death happened not far from the abandoned subway station under the City Hall in which Mayor Mamdani took the oath of office in the early hours of More The post Mayor Mamdani and the Roots of Islamic Democratic Socialism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-966x630.png 966w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-680x443.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-768x501.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-1536x1001.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-500x326.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-600x391.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026.png 1724w" sizes="(max-width: 966px) 100vw, 966px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396297" class="size-medium wp-image-396297" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-680x443.png" alt="" width="680" height="443" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-680x443.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-966x630.png 966w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-768x501.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-1536x1001.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-500x326.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026-600x391.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Zohran_Mamdani_swearing_in_2026.png 1724w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: NYC Mayor’s Office – CC BY 4.0 On a hot September day in 1976, Mohammad Nakhshab, an Iranian political figure, died of a heart attack on a New York subway car. He was 53. His death happened not far from the abandoned subway station under the City Hall in which Mayor Mamdani took the oath of office in the early hours of January 1, 2026. Nakhshab worked at the United Nations but was not just an ordinary employee. He was one of the founders of an influential movement in Iran in the 1940s known as the Movement of God-Worshiping Socialists. I write this to propose that one need not to view Mayor Mamdani’s Muslimhood incidental to his democratic socialist politics. Nakhshab and his companions belonged to a generation of Iranian intellectuals who believed that democratic socialism defines the social, political, and economic language of Shi‘ism in the contemporary world. Iran was occupied by Allied forces in 1941. They ousted Reza Shah, who had Nazi inclinations, and installed his young son, Mohammad Reza, to the throne. By the end of the war, a period of civil liberties emerged. Members of the Iranian Communist Party, the first communist party in Asia, reemerged after more than a decade of persecution under Reza Shah and formed a new anti-Fascist coalition called the Tudeh Party (party of the people). Socialist ideas and movements had a presence in Iran since the 1890s. But with the triumph of the 1917 revolution in Russia, socialism became intrinsically associated with Bolshevism and communism. The Tudeh party was no exception. It became a communist party in-line with positions and demands of the Soviet Union. Concerned about the growing identification of socialism with Soviet communism, a group of young students in the holy city of Mashad with anti-colonial aspirations who remained committed to socialist i deas laid the foundation of a movement called God-Worshipping Socialists. In choosing the name of their movement they emphasized that despite their Shi‘i convictions, they did not regard the undertaking an exclusively Muslim affair. Rather, they thought that belief in God needs to be translated in general terms into a spiritual force that propels modernity toward socialist ideals of justice and dignity. Nakhshab and his movement understood the notion of Towhid (oneness of God, monotheism) as a spiritual directive for the promotion of oneness of all beings as the extension of God, against exploitation of all kinds of lifeforms. They stayed clear of the Sharia and the juridical debates on Islamic law. They saw their movement as an outlook, a weltanschauung, a worldview that finds its realization through collective decision-making in particular situations. Those ideas became an engine that shaped the ideology of the 1979 revolution in Iran. Similar movements in Catholicism gave rise to the idea of Liberation Theology with lasting influences in Peru, Nicaragua, El Salvador and other Central and South American countries. Thinkers such as the Sorbonne educated theologian and social critic Ali Shariati rearticulated the basic principles of the Movement of God-Worshipping Socialists into a full-scale emancipatory ideology. Shariati warned that movements are always at risk of becoming bureaucratized and losing their spirit of creativity and novelty. He believed that once a movement realizes itself with access to the institutions of power, saving the institutions of power takes precedence over perpetuating the spirit of the movement. We have seen this repeatedly in so many different places. I wonder how much Mayor Mamdani knows about Mohammad Nakhshab and his movement, or whether he has heard of Ali Shariati. But there is a lesson here to cherish and principles to live by. God-Worshipping Socialists believed in social justice not only in material terms but justice as a principle of full human dignity and spiritual fulfillment. Mamdani faces a herculean task, to sustain a movement while governing the city. Here, I believe, lies the core of the kind of socialism that Mamdani needs to remain committed to. A form of socialism that refuses to worship the instruments of power and sustains the spirit of a movement that has given rise to it. Neither Nakhshab, nor Shariati lived to see the result of the revolution they helped to inspire. There are fundamental differences between what happened in Iran after the revolution and assuming the mayor’s office in New York City! But the temptation to worship the institutions of power is not something that creeps up overnight. Bureaucracy dictates its own logic, the logic of self-preservation, upon its office holders. To remain in the office cannot be the objective. Nakhshab and the socialists of his generation found the solution in a kind of spiritual commitment that was informed by their Towhidi worldview, inspired by teachings of Islam but all-embracing of all creeds that negate exploitative relations between all forms of beings. Let’s hope that our new mayor will uphold those principles of hope. Nakhshap died almost half-a-century ago not far from the office of our new mayor. Let us hope that Mamdani continues to practice the kind of Shi‘ism that Nakhshab dreamed of, a religion that promotes human dignity through socialist ideals. The post Mayor Mamdani and the Roots of Islamic Democratic Socialism appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi.
In the recent Atlantic interview, Donald Trump reiterated that the United States “absolutely needs Greenland,” effectively renewing his push for American control or influence over the Danish territory, a stance drawing sharp criticism from Denmark and Greenland’s leaders, and which many had hoped had gone away. As Thucydides—more accustomed to the warm waters of the More The post Is Greenland Next? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-600x446.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2348px) 100vw, 2348px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2348" height="1744" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM.png 2348w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-680x505.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-848x630.png 848w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-768x570.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-1536x1141.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-2048x1521.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-500x371.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-600x446.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2348px) 100vw, 2348px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2348" height="1744" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM.png 2348w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-680x505.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-848x630.png 848w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-768x570.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-1536x1141.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-2048x1521.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-500x371.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-600x446.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2348px) 100vw, 2348px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="848" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-848x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-848x630.png 848w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-680x505.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-768x570.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-1536x1141.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-2048x1521.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-500x371.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-600x446.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 848px) 100vw, 848px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396301" class="size-medium wp-image-396301" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-680x505.png" alt="" width="680" height="505" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-680x505.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-848x630.png 848w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-768x570.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-1536x1141.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-2048x1521.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-500x371.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-6.13.09-PM-600x446.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image Source: Derivate work: Janitoalevic – CC BY 4.0 In the recent Atlantic interview, Donald Trump reiterated that the United States “absolutely needs Greenland,” effectively renewing his push for American control or influence over the Danish territory, a stance drawing sharp criticism from Denmark and Greenland’s leaders, and which many had hoped had gone away. As Thucydides—more accustomed to the warm waters of the Mediterranean than to the icebergs of the Greenland Sea—once observed, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Trump, only a few days earlier, had reasserted his desire to take Greenland, stating that the United States “has to have” it for national security reasons, though it is no secret to say he also likes its potential for recoverable rare earths. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats, was pugnacious in her New Year’s speech. “Wanting to take over another country, other people. As if it were something you could buy and own. It doesn’t belong anywhere,” she said, adding ominously: “Never before have we increased our military strength so significantly. So quickly.” Since the US action in Venezuela, Katie Miller, the wife of Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted a provocative image on X showing a map of Greenland coloured with the US flag and captioned it simply: ‘SOON.’ What baffles Danes most is the sense of pleasure that seems to be taken by Americans in all this. As part of this renewed and worrying push, Trump has appointed Louisiana governor Jeff Landry as special envoy. Landry insists the United States is not seeking to “conquer” Greenland but merely to engage with Greenlanders. Yet he publicly posted the following publicly to Trump: “It’s an honor [sic] to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland part of the US.” French president Emmanuel Macron offered a characteristically Gallic shrug: “Greenland belongs to its people. Denmark stands as its guarantor.” Landry’s professional background is overwhelmingly domestic. He has served as a hardline conservative governor since 2024, previously as Louisiana’s attorney general, and before that as a combative member of Congress. He has no evident experience in foreign policy, Arctic security, or diplomatic negotiation with NATO allies. For critics, this makes his selection seem bizarre. Supporters point instead to his loyalty to the president. The appointment fits a broader pattern in which political allegiance is valued over diplomatic competence. Trump’s daughter Tiffany’s businessman father-in-law has been described as a senior adviser for Africa. A son-in-law and a real-estate associate have both handled Russia. Meanwhile, the US consulate in Nuuk is reportedly seeking unpaid interns to manage its communications channels, with the listing stating that the role involves communicating “US foreign policy priorities to a Greenlandic audience.” The symbolism is hard to miss. Denmark has rejected the premise of Landry’s appointment outright and has indicated it will summon the US ambassador to register its objections. Do not expect a celebratory shot of Aalborg Akvavit at the meeting. Danish officials see the move as further erosion of respect for sovereignty and it is unlikely to unfold in a convivial spirit. Greenland’s government has also firmly rejected talk of annexation. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has stressed that decisions about Greenland are made in Greenland, reflecting its autonomy within the Kingdom of Denmark. Leaders in Nuuk and Copenhagen have spoken with one voice in dismissing any suggestion that Greenland’s status is somehow up for negotiation. Rarely have Greenland and Denmark appeared so closely aligned. Yes, Greenland has long had a strong but cautious independence movement. For many Greenlanders, full sovereignty remains a long-term goal rather than an immediate demand. What has changed is not the debate itself, but the way it is now being conducted. Recent events in Venezuela show just how fast political expectations can fall apart. Greenland is not Venezuela. Its institutions are stronger, and its alliances are stable. The point is not that the situations are the same, but that change can happen fast. When powerful countries suggest that long-standing rules are open to change, smaller ones are forced to adjust faster than they would like. Washington’s blunt approach has had an unexpected result. It has pushed Nuuk and Copenhagen closer together, not further apart. European leaders have been broadly supportive of Denmark’s position. Echoing a principle articulated centuries ago by Emer de Vattel—that small states are no less sovereign than great powers—senior EU figures, including Spain’s prime minister, vocal about Venezuela, and European Commission leadership, less so, have publicly defended Danish sovereignty, and criticised Washington’s bullish approach. This has not, however, halted defence cooperation. The US State Department has just approved a potential sale of advanced air-to-air missiles to Denmark. These are valued at up to $951 million. On the natural minerals front, the Trump administration insists its stance on Greenland reflects security concerns rather than resource ambition—a claim Danish and Greenlandic leaders strongly contest. Even if legitimate security concerns do exist, as surely they might, the manner in which Washington has chosen to pursue them has generated suspicion rather than reassurance. The larger question is how all this affects NATO in 2026. Not in formal treaty terms, but in trust upon which alliances depend. A cynic might see this as an opportunity for the US to weaken its involvement in an organisation that some, including Elon Musk, have already suggested Washington should leave. Even without annexation, Greenland is likely to see an expanded US military presence. The effects reach beyond Denmark. Russia is unlikely to confront NATO directly over Greenland, but it may use the dispute to portray the US as acting in an imperial manner, as it has already done in Venezuela. The situation could also be used to justify further military build-up along Russia’s Arctic coast—another example of pressure that falls short of triggering NATO’s collective defence clause. China, meanwhile, may benefit by positioning itself as a champion of sovereignty and restraint, quietly re-engaging in Arctic scientific and economic discussions even if major investments remain out of reach. Beijing does not need bases in Greenland. Like Russia, it may simply welcome NATO disunity. Or, in China’s case, European goodwill. The Arctic Council is likely to remain limited by Russia’s isolation and by Western countries moving security discussions to other forums. Military cooperation will increasingly happen through NATO or bilateral agreements, while environmental and Indigenous issues risk losing attention despite recent progress. What is at stake is not Greenland itself. It is the precedent its treatment sets. Venezuela showed how quickly assumptions about sovereignty can erode once powerful states decide the rules are flexible. When that logic is applied elsewhere, pressure replaces principle and trust surrenders to suspicion. Greenland may remain Danish, autonomous, and unannexed, but the damage to the assumptions that once made such outcomes secure may be much, much harder to contain. “Stop the threats,” said Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen. The post Is Greenland Next? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Bach.
Operation Absolute Resolve and the Realpolitik of American Empire
The inherent fallacy of the political scientist is that she cannot test her theory. There are, of course, no controlled experiments (unless you’re running a country like an economic laboratory for neoliberal policies. See Chile 1973). Thus, making hypotheses or predicting the outcome in politics is a fool’s game. However, you can count on a More The post Operation Absolute Resolve and the Realpolitik of American Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396239" class="wp-image-396239 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dominik-vanyi-Mk2ls9UBO2E-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Dominik Vanyi. The inherent fallacy of the political scientist is that she cannot test her theory. There are, of course, no controlled experiments (unless you’re running a country like an economic laboratory for neoliberal policies. See Chile 1973). Thus, making hypotheses or predicting the outcome in politics is a fool’s game. However, you can count on a constant reality in the game of geopolitics—self-preservation through pragmatic politics that secure a State’s national interests, or what is known as realpolitik. While made infamous by the notorious “statesman” (read war criminal) Henry Kissinger, pragmatism has helped preserve more States than ideology has throughout history. States, as systems of control and centralized power operated by an elite class, seek self-preservation above all. While ideology can help to win over a populace for more effective governance, geopolitics requires a pragmatic approach in a landscape dictated by force. In other words, politics has always been a game of power and nothing else. While it is hard to determine the true geopolitical strategy behind Operation Absolute Resolve, which brazenly abducted the sovereign president of Venezuela, we can take a look at patterns and trends over the last few years, as well as the current geopolitical landscape, to deduce the pragmatic politics behind the assault. Setting aside the rhetoric from the White House as political posturing and saber-rattling, we can analyze what Operation Absolute Resolve accomplishes for the U.S. empire in the current moment. Beyond the immediate short-term goals of resource extraction and control, a closer look at what this operation does for the US on multiple fronts helps one better understand its move in the game of geopolitics. While the US is undoubtedly the world’s most influential rogue state, as it unapologetically prioritizes its interests over International Law in shaping the world order, it does not act irrationally. Instead, the US empire acts through strategic, well-calculated measures to preserve corporate and military interests. Whenever the US engages in open violations of International Law, such as the strikes in Libya, invasion of Iraq, bombing of EL Salvador, and so many others, we can assume it does so weighing the consequences of international blowback with the geopolitical and economic benefits it would gain. The following interventions outline some of the main areas in which the US empire has benefited following Operation Absolute Resolve. It situates this operation within the current geopolitical landscape and asks: What are its long-term implications and the messages it conveys? What are the short-term and long-term impacts of this operation? A clear message to China: The Western Hemisphere Belongs to the US Just hours before his abduction, President Maduro had concluded his first scheduled meeting with a Chinese delegation. The manner in which the operation was conducted was an affront to diplomatic and consular immunity, as it disregarded the presence of Chinese diplomats. It sends a message to the broader Chinese government that the US is above international Law and the established diplomatic channels respected by other countries. The meeting between Maduro and the diplomats sought to strengthen collaboration between Venezuela and China, which has invested nearly $70 billion over the past 20 years. China, Venezuela’s largest oil importer, has been strengthening its ties across the region over the years through its Belt and Road initiative, becoming Latin America’s largest trade partner. In 2024, trade in the region reached $518 billion, with more than 20 countries having signed on to the Belt and Road Initiative. Only a few months before the operation, China and Peru inaugurated the Chancay seaport just north of Lima. The nearly $4Billion project is a deep seaport that looks to cut travel time between regions and serve as the gateway to the mineral wealth across the hemisphere. One of the surprising elements of China’s growth in the 21st century is that it has done so without military interventions or resource wars. Rather, China has relied on investments and economic diplomacy to secure essential trade routes, partners, and significant reserves of its growing economy. At the same time, the US has continued to put pressure on its regional security, strengthening military ties with Japan and Korea, while reaffirming it commitment to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty. That this operation happened while China remains unable to exert its influence over the South China Sea and establish a decisive foreign policy with Taiwan 80 miles off its coast speaks volumes to the contrast between the regional powers. Operation Absolute Resolve reasserts US dominance over the hemisphere. “Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again, won’t happen,” said Trump shortly after the operation. This aligns with the national security blueprint, known as the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, issued by the White House in early December, which described the Western Hemisphere as a “Homeland Security Zone” given its strategic and economic significance to the well-being of the US. Reaffirms the Military Power of the US Operation Absolute Resolve’s effective, surgical brevity reflects the only sector of the American empire that remains unrivaled: its military. With China set to overtake the US by 2030 as the largest economy in the world, and US’s declining influence in the tech world as it falls behind the development of advanced supercomputers and large learning machine, this operation is a reminder to the world that the US not only stands alone with regard to military strength, but that it can be used to overcome its shortcomings. As the US army’s invasion of Panama in 1989 served to get the “Vietnam syndrome” out of the general public in the US through a swift military victory, the brazen and highly successful abduction of a sovereign president in such a manner gets the US out of the Afghan and Libyan syndrome, while winning over the isolationist “America first” MAGA base. The praise for the operation from many across the MAGA base indicates that the popular isolationist ‘America First’ position was less rooted in concerns for domestic issues and more about the efficacy and ability to project strength onto the global community. It demonstrates a level of warfare that makes other regional powers seem weak in comparison, projecting its domestic chauvinism onto the global stage. With Russia now entering its 5th year of war against Ukraine, and China’s inability to exert full control of the South China Sea, the US reminds its rivals that it remains well ahead in regional, if not global, influence. The US still maintains the largest number of aircraft carriers at sea, remains the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, and operates nearly 1000 military bases worldwide, most recently reactivating the Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico, which returned to service after 20 years. Together with the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June of 2025, the Trump regime reminds the world that it is the US doctrine and not International Law that dictates the world order. Not all about oil Venezuela’s oil production has fallen to about 1/3 of what it was at the beginning of Chavez’s presidency. The same goes for many of its other commodities, namely natural gas, with sanctions, mismanagement and the fracturing of PDVSA leading to weakening industries. Much has been made of Venezuela’s holding the world’s largest oil reserves, an amount larger than those of the US and Saudi Arabia combined. However, these reserves are untapped, located in a region known as the Orinoco Belt in the southeastern part of the country with very little infrastructure. Accessing these ultra-crude oil reserves would require sophisticated mapping technology and drilling equipment that would take years to deploy. Thus, discussions of oil center on its potential to meet the country’s long-term needs rather than to satisfy the empire’s immediate energy requirements. The inaccessibility of Venezuela’s resources is, of course, a consequence of the technological gap between the North and South countries, with the former still maintaining a disproportionate grip on patents and technologies for mineral extraction. Combined with sanctions and blockades, the extraction of mineral and oil reserves in the global south is always going to depend on its relationship with the North. Finally, we can assume that there have been coordinated efforts behind the scenes by some, if not all, of Venezuela’s allies and the US, who themselves engage in their own form of realpolitik while remaining true to any “anti-imperialist” ideology. Putin has been notably quiet on Operation Absolute Revolve, as of this writing, having not called for the release of Maduro. A longtime ally of Maduro, Putin had for years reiterated his support for Chavez’s heir, supplying the country with defensive anti-aircraft weapons, the same that failed to deter the US invasion. We can only deduce from this that some concessions may have been given to Russia as negotiations with the US and Ukraine enter their next phase. The same can be assumed about China, although, given that the US and China are not engaged in public negotiations over territorial disputes, we can see why China’s response has been more direct. For people worldwide, including the genuine anti-imperialist movement, the manner in which the operation was conducted indicates the empire’s reluctance to engage in direct confrontation with popular fronts. The time spent on clandestine training, covert operations, and infiltration indicates the empire’s apprehension about symmetric and even classic asymmetric warfare. Only time will reveal more of the strategic benefits Operation Absolute Resolve may have had, or perhaps make it another page in colonial hubris. The post Operation Absolute Resolve and the Realpolitik of American Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Ygarza Quispe.
Venezuela Will Pay for Its Own Reconstruction
When George W. Bush and his team invaded Iraq, ostensibly about weapons of mass destruction (something like drugs with Venezuela), their claim was that the country would pay for its own reconstruction with its oil revenue. They assured us that US troops (a.k.a. “boots on the ground”) would be welcomed with flowers. It didn’t quite More The post Venezuela Will Pay for Its Own Reconstruction appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-945x630.jpg 945w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1080" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg 680w, 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1080" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-500x333.jpg 500w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396305" class="size-medium wp-image-396305" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_Vicepresidenta_Ejecutiva_Delcy_Rodriguez_ratifico_que_las_instituciones_del_Estado_venezolano_se_mantienen_firmes_07.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Prensa Presidencial de Venezuela – Public Domain When George W. Bush and his team invaded Iraq, ostensibly about weapons of mass destruction (something like drugs with Venezuela), their claim was that the country would pay for its own reconstruction with its oil revenue. They assured us that US troops (a.k.a. “boots on the ground”) would be welcomed with flowers. It didn’t quite work out that way. Almost a quarter century later, we still have some US troops in Iraq. Over 3,000 US soldiers were killed in Iraq, tens of thousands more were injured, after President Bush famously declared “mission accomplished.” The cost of the war and subsequent occupation was over $1 trillion in today’s dollars. Trump assures that things will turn out better this time because unlike his predecessors, he is smart. The evidence of his intelligence is that he claims to have passed tests for dementia three times. The rest of us are not terribly assured that Trump’s doctors felt it necessary to test for dementia on three different occasions, even if he did pass. Anyhow, it seems Trump is too old to know much history, but those of us who aren’t remember all the other occasions, where overthrowing a government, even an authoritarian and dictatorial one, turned out not to be fun and easy. In addition to Iraq, the story in neighboring Afghanistan didn’t turn out any better. Overthrowing Khadafy in Libya turned out not to be a great victory for democracy and human rights, or even oil extraction. Production plunged immediately after the overthrow. More than a dozen years later, it is still down by 20 percent from when Khadafy was in power. Anyhow, just comparing the Iraq scenario with Venezuela, Iraq would have looked like a much better bet on paper 2003 to have a workable transition based on oil income than Venezuela does today. While Venezuela does have considerably larger reserves, most of it is heavy oil that requires substantial investment to get out of the ground. In terms of current production, Iraq was at almost 3 million barrels a day just a couple of years before the invasion. In principle, it should have been possible to fairly quickly restore production to this level, absent major domestic unrest. Of course, there was major unrest in Iraq, so that proved to be a major obstacle to restoring and expanding production. By comparison, Venezuela’s production is 900,000 barrels a day. While it may be possible to raise production by a few hundred thousand barrels a day fairly quickly by ending sanctions that blocked equipment sales, along with limited investment, most experts believe that major increases will require tens of billions in new investment and take many years. That investment will not be forthcoming without a more stable political environment. The price picture also looked better in Iraq in 2003. Adjusted for inflation, world oil prices were roughly the same in 2003 as they are today. But they quickly rose, so that over the next decade inflation-adjusted oil prices were on average more than twice as high as they are today. It is hard to envision a similar rise in oil prices going forward. Outside the United States the green transition is moving ahead rapidly. Already 60 percent of the new cars in China, the largest car market in the world, are electric, and that share is certain to rise much further in the next few years. In some other developing countries the share is even higher, as China is exporting high quality low-cost EVs to the rest of the world. With plenty of excess oil production capacity in the world, it seems more likely prices will go lower than higher. Given the prospect for Venezuela’s oil production and exports, the Bush administration’s pledge that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction seems far more credible than Trump’s claims about Venezuela. And this is before even considering the political situation. It’s true that Maduro was unpopular at the time of his removal; so was Saddam Hussein. But in both countries, there was little support for a regime that would be a US puppet, which Trump has explicitly said is his intention in Venezuela. From what he has said and done to date, it is difficult to get a clear idea of what Trump intends for the governance of Venezuela. Given how he has run his presidency, it is likely that Trump doesn’t have a clear idea himself. The one thing that does seem very likely is that it will cost taxpayers in the United States a good chunk of money, and that should be a concern even to people who are not bothered by the US invading a sovereign country on phony pretexts. This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog. The post Venezuela Will Pay for Its Own Reconstruction appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.
Another Day, Another Coup: Tawdry Addictions of the Oligarchy
We definitely should not be surprised that this happened. Venezuela is known for that addictive substance, used the world over. The use of this item will most certainly cause the death of untold millions, that much is true. The addiction requires that country to be invaded. Of course, I’m speaking of oil, but the controlled More The post Another Day, Another Coup: Tawdry Addictions of the Oligarchy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States.png 1262w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-680x512.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-837x630.png 837w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-768x578.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-500x376.png 500w, 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-680x512.png" alt="" width="680" height="512" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-680x512.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-837x630.png 837w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-768x578.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-500x376.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States-600x452.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nicolas_Maduro_posing_with_DEA_Agents_following_his_Capture_by_the_United_States.png 1262w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Drug Enforcement Administration – Public Domain We definitely should not be surprised that this happened. Venezuela is known for that addictive substance, used the world over. The use of this item will most certainly cause the death of untold millions, that much is true. The addiction requires that country to be invaded. Of course, I’m speaking of oil, but the controlled US media will say it’s about Fentanyl. As bizarre as the FIFA Peace Prize: up is down, down is up. If we can’t trust the FIFA Prize, what are we to think of the PEZ Genius Award, the Ramen Noodle New Literature Trophy and the Dr. Pepper Advances in Medicine Medal? This muddled reality peddling is, of course, nothing new; the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction lie never found anyone to be responsible for the selling of those falsehoods. Colin Powell just became temporarily embarrassed. Hillary Clinton cackled about the death of Libya’s leader by a mob that sodomized him with a knife. A US emboldened knife, of course. Yeah, that guy was weird, as all these leaders are, but Libya was looking to create a pan-African currency and was plotting to remove itself from the petro-dollar stranglehold. That’s what got him killed, not having photos of Condoleezza Rice up on his walls and/or any generalized freakery. The subsequent descent of that nation from one that provided citizens with housing, free college (with stipends), into an open-air slave market was, I guess, funny to Clinton. Break things and plunder. America just looks forward and, like a dog kicking dirt on its last crap, runs to the next adventure, consequences be damned. I won’t say that this time doesn’t feel a bit different and far more severe, however. Instead of the old method of toppling nations in a more sporadic fashion, this feels like a prelude to something much more massive. All of the American misbehavior we are used to is now on steroids, or if you will, on Pervitin. We have the current regime players putting pictures of Greenland on social media with US flags on top of it and the heading “Soon” by the nation. We have Rubio threatening Cuba that they are in hot water. We have Trump commenting that the leader of Mexico isn’t really in charge of her country, implying we should do something about it. My God, we can’t even keep our people on healthcare in this country, yet we can multi-task and threaten all of these nations and their leaders? Things are not looking good here in the United States. We have so many homeless students that school districts are having to open up their parking lots for the kids and their parents to sleep in cars. We have a declining life expectancy. Many young people don’t even want to have children because one: They can’t afford them and two: They can’t imagine bringing them into a world so completely fucked up. And this is a nation that thinks it has the green light to move in to take over other countries? It’s as if you move every time your house gets dirty. This is filthy and deranged behavior. One very bizarre aspect of this oligo-corporate kakistocracy is the fact that nothing is really being offered to the citizens. When we are speaking of the kind of funds it takes to prop up billionaires and to perform international take-overs of nations…you’d think there would be some chump change to toss at the masses to keep them fed, housed, and quiet. It’s not like the resources don’t exist. It’s as if Bezos didn’t have his funds from the month of June. His life wouldn’t change one bit. He would still have more than he could ever spend. The scarcity lie is just that–a lie. At some point, you have to wonder if cruelty isn’t the point. Those who revel in harming children probably low key get off on making vast numbers of people suffer as well. I think those of us with functioning empathy have completely underestimated the evil that simmers in so many of the rich and powerful. We are woefully unprepared for such enemies. The fact that they are leading the citizens to such suffering might be their Achilles’ heel, however. People can turn a blind eye to many atrocities if they are comfortable, but this new paradigm does not even afford basic necessities. Americans watch ballrooms be built; they see filler-faced nightmare people oozing about, moving around in their private jets while watching loved ones fall deeper into debt and despair. They see international fiascos that they were told would be a thing of the past by Trump. I would say that isn’t sustainable. And all of this in a setting of…pedophilia ring cover-ups. The corruption and filth run deep. This is a mask-off event, if you will. There isn’t even the slightest bit of subtlety. Those being told the economy is fine know they are broke when they try to purchase their groceries. They know their relative in the armed forces is being forced to be involved in foreign plunder, but barely gets by. Even the dimmest-witted of individuals will know the situation is wrong, even if they have no clue exactly who to blame. This is probably why we see such a rapid push to completely tighten up the news sources to all be a Pravda-style state media. Bari Weiss isn’t there for ratings, that’s for sure. The nation’s leaders are fine with an underfed and angry populace as long as they have no clue who to blame. But word gets out…and a situation such as this is simply unsustainable, even for a FIFA Peace Award winner. The post Another Day, Another Coup: Tawdry Addictions of the Oligarchy appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kathleen Wallace.
The United States and Israel: Two Halves of a Toxic Whole
America’s close partnership with Israel has been costly. Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies in Palestine and pursuit of military dominance over its neighbors have driven instability in the Middle East and distorted once predictable international institutions and norms. The United States, banking on its regional proxy, has followed Israel into the abyss, destroying the framework of international More The post The United States and Israel: Two Halves of a Toxic Whole appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396291" class="size-medium wp-image-396291" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844-600x450.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/American_and_Israeli_Flags_on_Mast_0844.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: James Emery – CC BY 2.0 America’s close partnership with Israel has been costly. Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies in Palestine and pursuit of military dominance over its neighbors have driven instability in the Middle East and distorted once predictable international institutions and norms. The United States, banking on its regional proxy, has followed Israel into the abyss, destroying the framework of international law, human rights and the rules-based order it created, to its own interests, following the Second World War. For decades, the United States has thrown the full weight of its political, economic and military might behind Israel. It has done so, to ensure that Palestine is never liberated, knowing that a free sovereign Palestine would mean the end of its Zionist proxy and the beginning of liberation movements throughout the Arab world. Washington’s adherence to a policy of strategic opportunism has morphed into an imbalanced Israel-first agenda that has had calamitous consequences for the Palestinian people, the United States and the world. A <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel#:~:text=Israel%20has%20been%20designated%20as,relationship%20with%20the%20United%20States." rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel%23:~:text%3DIsrael%2520has%2520been%2520designated%2520as,relationship%2520with%2520the%2520United%2520States.&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw1QqRUSnh0Ajn9GA52vjgWk">2025 report titled, “U.S. Security Cooperation with Israel,” issued by the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, detailed how deeply intertwined, at all levels, Washington and Tel Aviv have become. Under U.S. law, Israel is on the short-list of America’s major “non-NATO allies,” with unprecedented privileged access to the most advanced U.S. military platforms, support and technologies. Although Israel is ranked the 14th richest (per capita) country in the world, it has received over $317 billion (adjusted for inflation) in economic and military assistance from the United States; making it the largest cumulative recipient of foreign assistance since 1946. Concomitantly, the government has neglected the basic needs of the American people. Despite America’s exhaustive support, most Israelis tend to believe that American officials and public are inherently “dupable and naive”, especially about the Middle East. In order to envision a different narrative, it is important to reflect on the U.S.-Israel “special relationship” and how it has enfeebled America’s global leadership. Although Israel’s efforts to gain unilateral advantage in the region have harmed U.S. interests, Tel Aviv continues to count on the United States to do its heavy lifting. There are many cases that illustrate how Israel has undermined and/or ignored Washington. I will, however, analyze significant examples, beginning with the forever wars it has drawn America into and continues to demand. Forever Wars and Endless Violence According to Brown University’s “Cost of War” project, America’s post-9-11 wars (2001 to 2022) have killed at least 4.5 to 4.7 million people and have cost taxpayers approximately $8 trillion. The United States has paid in flesh and fortune in wars with enemies Tel Aviv has invented or created by its occupation of Palestine and seizure of the territory of its neighbors. Tel Aviv and Washington have designated national liberation groups or countries that have opposed Israeli hegemony, as terrorists or “threats to national security;” beginning with Iraq in 2003 and followed by others. As prime minister from 1996 to 1999, then as a private citizen, Benjamin Netanyahu strongly lobbied Washington for preemptive military action against Iraq, claiming falsely that its leader, Saddam Hussein, was developing nuclear weapons. In a 1996 paper written for Netanyahu, titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” influential U.S. pro-Israel neoconservatives—some serving in President George W. Bush’s administration—urged Israel to shape the region to its strategic advantage by removing “hostile” regimes. It advocated for a radical vision of a new Middle East and focused on containing Iraq, Syria and Iran. Netanyahu, in September 2002, testified before a U.S. Congressional Committee imperiously arguing for the invasion and overthrow of the Iraqi regime; deceitfully stating, “If you take out Saddam…, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And, I think that people sitting right next door, in Iran, the young people, and many others will say the time of such regimes, such despots, is gone.” Netanyahu’s predictions were not only spurious, they were deadly; as the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq proved. Netanyahu lied; Iraqis and Americans died. Eight years and nine months later (December 2011), no weapons were found, <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1618872/#:~:text=The%20researchers,%20from%20Johns%20Hopkins,in%20Iraq%20by%20the%20team." rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1618872/%23:~:text%3DThe%2520researchers,%2520from%2520Johns%2520Hopkins,in%2520Iraq%2520by%2520the%2520team.&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw1INes_SCjCOsbdFBdPKG-t">more than half a millionIraqis and approximately 4,492 U.S. soldiers were killed, and an estimated $2 trillion (long-term costs) was squandered. The region, more unstable than ever, has never recovered from the negative reverberations of “shock and awe.” The war gave rise to the Islamic State and other extremist groups and shattered the fragile regional order that existed before 2003. The geopolitical order in the Middle East and Iran’s place in it have been at the heart of much of the tension among Tehran, Washington and Tel Aviv. Because Iran has been a bulwark against Israeli hegemony and an uncompromising supporter of the Palestinian cause, it has sought, since the 1979 Revolution, to weaken the country to the point of regime change. In addition, at every turn, Israel and its influencers have thwarted Tehran’s attempts at rapprochement with the United States. Decades of anti-Iran propaganda and covert operations against the Islamic Republic culminated on 21 June 2025 with the U.S. dropping 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities and 12 days of Israeli airstrikes that killed over 1,000 Iranians. During the Trump administrations, Tel Aviv has been able to achieve two of its demands: 1) abrogation of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which would have limited its nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief; and 2) America’s direct entry into Israel’s long-sought war against Iran. That the JCPOA could have laid the foundation for detente between Washington and Tehran ran counter to Israel’s destabilizing expansionist project. It was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/4/14/why-saudi-arabia-and-israel-oppose-iran-nuclear-deal#:~:text=According%20to%20experts%20with%20Israel's,should%20its%20interests%20be%20threatened." rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/4/14/why-saudi-arabia-and-israel-oppose-iran-nuclear-deal%23:~:text%3DAccording%2520to%2520experts%2520with%2520Israel's,should%2520its%2520interests%2520be%2520threatened.&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw076IetDpc_Fmqe3h10rKYf">Netanyahu’s threats to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities that prompted the Obama administration to negotiate and finalize the JCPOA; thereby, neutralizing the Israeli-manufactured nuclear crisis and avoiding war. And it was Netanyahu’s strident campaign against it that led the Trump administration to withdraw in 2018. At the start of Trump’s second administration, Netanyahu had already proposed a series of options to attack Iranian facilities. The threat that Israel might attack unilaterally—which U.S. intelligence indicated it might do—as well as hawkish Israeli allies, thrust the United States into Israel’s longed-for war; a war that had been soundly rejected in 2015. Netanyahu continues to press Washington for more military action against Iran, regardless of consequences to the U.S. and the entire region. This time Israel’s target includes the country’s missile program—its major line of defense against Israeli air strikes. Years of unflagging support has led Israel to understand that direct attacks on the United States and its citizens will be tolerated by American politicians. The destruction of the USS Liberty and murder of American citizens established that precedent. Assault on the USS Liberty Israel, in 1967, waged war not only on its Arab neighbors, but on the United States as well, and got off scot-free. The long-suppressed story of Israel’s assault on the Liberty, is testament to the great lengths that Washington has been willing to go to protect Israel. The violent attack of 8 June on a U.S. Navy intelligence ship by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War resulted in the deaths of 34 American crew members and the wounding of 171 others. During the sustained onslaught, U.S. rescue jets that were sent to assist the Liberty were recalled by orders from Washington. The cover-up began soon after the attack. A total news blackout was imposed and survivors were told, under threat, not to discuss it with anyone. There is <a href="https://www.hnn.us/article/uss-liberty-eyewitness-account#:~:text=Former%20Central%20Intelligence%20Agency%20Director,deserves%20to%20be%20re-examined." rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.hnn.us/article/uss-liberty-eyewitness-account%23:~:text%3DFormer%2520Central%2520Intelligence%2520Agency%2520Director,deserves%2520to%2520be%2520re-examined.&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw3IX3obtA4STVAVQTGgLfdx">little doubt that Israel intended to sink the Liberty, leave as few survivors as possible and that both regimes covered it up. It is astounding that Washington has, over many years, systematically failed to hold Israel criminally accountable for the killing of American citizens. That dereliction has been especially evident with regard to the murder of Americans in Palestine. U.S. citizenship has provided no protection or immunity from Israeli violence. Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old human rights activist from Washington State, was crushed by a military bulldozer while protesting house demolitions in Gaza in 2003. Since then, 13 other U.S. citizens have been reported killed by Israeli soldiers and squatters or while in Israeli custody. Justice was never given them or their survivors. Spies Among Us Israeli intelligence agencies have long been active in the United States, carrying out a number of operations, including the likely theft in the mid-1960s, from a nuclear processing plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, of enough highly enriched weapons-grade uranium to make at least ten nuclear bombs. One of the most serious betrayals of national trust was the case of Jewish-American <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw1fDcRXLWaOkvMnJiRcdqw2">Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. naval intelligence analyst, who spied for Israel. His case made tangible that Israel has never been a loyal American ally. FBI agents arrested Pollard on 21 November 1985 for spying on the U.S. government. The U.S. military had entrusted him with some of the most sensitive government secrets. Rather than uphold his oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the U.S. against all enemies, foreign and domestic;” he chose to betray the national trust in favor of a foreign regime. For large sums of cash, Pollard gave Israel tens of thousands of top-secret documents, that seriously damaged U.S. intelligence and jeopardized lives. Because of the <a href="https://adst.org/2016/08/friends-spy-friends-case-jonathan-pollard/#:~:text=Former%20Navy%20intelligence%20analyst%20Jonathan,was%20released%20November%2020,%202015." rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://adst.org/2016/08/friends-spy-friends-case-jonathan-pollard/%23:~:text%3DFormer%2520Navy%2520intelligence%2520analyst%2520Jonathan,was%2520released%2520November%252020,%25202015.&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw3Nz-GWbiImDsu3bfN3Uncv">magnitude of the stolen data, he received a life sentence in 1987. Vehement opposition from U.S. defense and intelligence officials, across Republican and Democratic administrations, was a primary reason that efforts to secure Pollard’s freedom failed, despite numerous pleas from Israeli leaders. George Tenet, CIA director in 1998, threatened to resign if President Bill Clinton released him as part of a Mideast peace deal. During Pollard’s incarceration, Israel gave him citizenship and <a href="https://www.wrmea.org/1994-january/security-and-intelligence-will-clinton-yield-to-pressure-and-free-american-who-spied-for-israel.html#:~:text=The%20Israeli%20government%20is%20banking,and%20set%20aside%20for%20them." rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wrmea.org/1994-january/security-and-intelligence-will-clinton-yield-to-pressure-and-free-american-who-spied-for-israel.html%23:~:text%3DThe%2520Israeli%2520government%2520is%2520banking,and%2520set%2520aside%2520for%2520them.&source=gmail&ust=1767739708001000&usg=AOvVaw0CNG3pOBmC5_3-q7dWO_51">deposited $5,000 a month in his name in a Swiss bank account. He was paroled in 2015, after serving 30 years. Five years later, the Trump Justice Department lifted his parole restrictions. He was then flown to Israel on a private jet courtesy of Zionist American billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, and given a hero’s welcome by Prime Minister Netanyahu upon arrival in Tel Aviv. To add insult to injury, U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist and staunch Israel supporter, broke protocol, and met in secret with the convicted traitor, Pollard, at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in July 2025 (disclosed in November). U.S. counterintelligence officials consistently rank Israeli espionage as the most active in America. According to a 1996 General Accounting Office report, “Country A (identified by intelligence sources as Israel) conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the United States of any U.S. ally.” Although the Pollard case remains the most high-profile because of his life-sentence, he was not the only American to spy for Israel; among the most notable: + Richard K. Smyth, physicist and government consultant, arrested in 1985. Smyth was the principal link in aiding Israel obtain critical nuclear components and technology. Between 1980 to 1982, he illegally exported shipments of krytons (nuclear trigger devices) to Israeli arms dealer, Arnon Milchan (who went on to become a prominent Hollywood producer), who then mediated the transfer of the krytons to Israel. Although Milchan admitted publicly that he spent years working as an undercover operative for Israel, he was never indicted. + Ben-Ami Kadish, an engineer, provided classified military manuals on U.S. missile defense systems and nuclear weapons design to his Israeli handler (he reported to the same handler as Jonathan Pollard). Although he committed espionage in the 1980s, Kadish was sentenced in 2009, paid a $50,000 fine and served no prison time. + Lawrence Franklin worked as a senior Pentagon analyst at the Department of Defense, specializing on Iran. While working for Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, he passed classified documents to an Israeli diplomat and to AIPAC. He pleaded guilty in 2005 and received a 12-year sentence, serving only ten months under house arrest. + Stewart Nozette, U.S. government scientist, was arrested in 2009, for attempting to transfer U.S. nuclear and space technology to Israel. He served 13 years in prison and was released in 2020. Israel’s ongoing deception was evidenced again in 2019 when the FBI and other intelligence agencies concluded that it had been planting cellphone surveillance devices near the White House and other sensitive Washington locations to intercept the private conversations of top American officials. Israel faced no consequences or rebukes from the White House. Israel’s hubris has mobilized detractors and enemies worldwide. It was the toxic union between the United States and Israel that gave birth to the horrific attacks of 9-11 on American political, military and financial centers. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the architects of the 2001 attacks, detailed the reasons for the assault in bin Laden’s “Letter to America” of 24 November 2002. The letter makes clear that the interminable suffering of the people of Palestine, enabled by the United States, was the principal grievance that motivated 9-11. The suicidal bombers of September 2001 employed terrorism to attack U.S. foreign policy and to influence events. And Israel cynically used the event to implement its regional expansionist agenda, fabricating pretexts for an invasion of Iraq. The tragedy of 9-11 left little doubt: America’s alliance with Israel has been destructive and fatal. Despite its espionage and perfidy, the United States has not condemned, rebuked, sanctioned or punished Israel in any manner. On the contrary, it has continued to empower the genocidal regime. The United States has allowed AIPAC, Israel’s political action arm in the United States, to influence U.S. elections and promote policies favorable to Israel’s interests. Although those objectives most often run contrary to American national interests. The United States has not required the influential group to register as a foreign agent even though: + its predecessor, the American Zionist Council, was ordered to do so by the Justice Department in 1962; it relaunched as AIPAC in 1963, and skirted the law by using U.S. donors. + it operates an office in Jerusalem since 1982, has direct links to Israeli leaders and sponsors trips to Israel for members of Congress. + it collaborated with Tel Aviv to commit acts of espionage, passing on <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-fbi-files-alleging-aipac-theft-of-government-property-and-israeli-espionage-released-87230727.html" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-fbi-files-alleging-aipac-theft-of-government-property-and-israeli-espionage-released-87230727.html&source=gmail&ust=1767739708002000&usg=AOvVaw3EKznTa0EaWv3d5rXX2vUz">classified U.S. documents to Israeli officials in 1984 and 2005. Conclusion Over the last two years, the U.S. government has demonstrated the lengths it will go and the cruelty it will tolerate to protect its investment in Israel. In service to the apartheid colony, it has curtailed freedoms and placed America and Americans at the center of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Israel has changed America; not for the better. Like Tel Aviv, the U.S. government has become overtly lawless (case in point: the recent U.S. invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president and unlawful strikes on alleged drug boats in international waters, killing over 100). In Israel’s quest for regional domination, it has, with Washington’s permission, gotten away with murder. It has become the model for the Trump administration, hell-bent on using brute force to dominate the resources of the Middle East and Western Hemisphere, regardless of the suffering caused and damage done. It may be too late to detoxify the vicious worldview that was set in motion decades ago. In the absence of law, moral rules and accountability, disorder will increase. Israel has determined that America is clueless and its politicians can be bought and sold. It is past time to bring sanity, sobriety and decency to Washington, to end the “special relationship” and prove Israel wrong. The post The United States and Israel: Two Halves of a Toxic Whole appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by M. Reza Behnam.
The Empire is Teetering! Why is There No General Strike?
Going downhill, like a Slinky on a staircase, the empire rolls down almost imperceptibly, until it reaches the floor and collapses in on itself. But the empire isn’t a Slinky. It is busy with class and imperial warfare, the few attacking the many in ways more numerous than a short essay can outline. Where is More The post The Empire is Teetering! Why is There No General Strike? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="442" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-970x630.png 970w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-768x499.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-1536x998.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-600x390.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png 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100vw, 1936px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1936" height="1258" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png 1936w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-970x630.png 970w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-768x499.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-1536x998.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-600x390.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1936px) 100vw, 1936px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1936" height="1258" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png 1936w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-970x630.png 970w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-768x499.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-1536x998.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-600x390.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1936px) 100vw, 1936px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="970" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-970x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-970x630.png 970w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-768x499.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-1536x998.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-600x390.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png 1936w" sizes="(max-width: 970px) 100vw, 970px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396288" class="size-medium wp-image-396288" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png" alt="" width="680" height="442" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-970x630.png 970w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-768x499.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-1536x998.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM-600x390.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-06-at-5.27.48-PM.png 1936w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Claudio Schwarz Going downhill, like a Slinky on a staircase, the empire rolls down almost imperceptibly, until it reaches the floor and collapses in on itself. But the empire isn’t a Slinky. It is busy with class and imperial warfare, the few attacking the many in ways more numerous than a short essay can outline. Where is the resistance? Where are the unions? Even conservative Catholic, David Brooks, has called for a general strike and mass civil disobedience. It only makes sense. Let us consider our context: Combine the vast transfer of wealth to the pecunious in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the loss of Medicaid benefits for fourteen million people, the vast homeless crisis, climate and vaccine denial, a veritable war of the rich on the poor. Now the hubris of a socio-pathic narcissist decapitates the head of Venezuela, kidnaps him and his wife using typically amphetamine addled Delta force based on Fort Bragg (see “The Fort Bragg Cartel”), flies them to New York in preparation for a trial about drugs (?). Approximately forty people were killed in the operation: collateral damage. Add this body count to the fast boat murders, about 100 dead, where the evidence was destroyed by guaranteeing the ship were sunk, along with two survivors who were blown up while they waved at the sky. These were, most certainly boats full of drugs, even the one with eleven people on it—where was the room for the drugs? Drugs– after pardoning the Honduran convicted of bringing metric tons of drugs into the US? Consider this contradiction: Maduro is charged with enriching himself from the drug trade. Whether that is true or not, or if it is another Gulf of Tonkin tale, may take years to determine. For his year in office, Trump and his family have enriched themselves from the ponzi scheme that is crypto (even Melania has a crypto), real estate deals, pay for play dinners with billionaires, ignoring the emoluments class. It grew so egregious that the New York times is publishing pages of charts about the deals Trump and his allies have made, using his public office as cover for what amounts to electoral extortion. Prattling about bringing democracy: the Constitution does not follow the flag. Democracy talk ended on day two of the kidnapping. became, rule by proxy—likely Delcy Rodriguez, who should take a lesson from other allies and puppets, like Vietnam’s Diem (Johnson: “we killed the son of a bitch”), or Libya’s Gadaffi. Rodriguez has been warned by the administration that if she doesn’t cooperate, “She will get something worse than Maduro.” For her part, Rodriguez has demanded Maduro’s return. Daughter of a guerrilla terrorist, Rodriguez, the Vice President, is also the oil minister and has been meeting with Americans for months. She is a prime candidate as the insider who made the abduction possible. And, she may well be able to cooperate. Under Maduro’s fake socialism, she was pursuing open market strategies. Even so, democracy hasn’t ever ruled in the US. What has ruled, and still rules, are capitalism and imperialism. Whether we call the US a democracy (rule of the people) or a republic (somewhat distant rule of the people), they’re matched and overwhelmed by capital (rule of the few). It’s a two-sided contradiction and one side must and did win—capital. There are answers in history, which ties the past, with the present, and organizes the future. Founding Father, James Madison, wrote, “what if the poor vote not to pay their debts?” that would be too much democracy for any rich man. Or, when the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion broke out after a revolution that promised equality and happiness, George Washington raised a militia of around fifteen thousand men, to attack tax protesters in Western Pennsylvania. President Washington, who to his credit, was with the troops on battlefields during the revolution (unlike the five star hotel generals of today, parodied in the film “War Machine,”) left the militia early to lower ranking officers. They had problems: desertion, drunks, theft, but many of the ranks had no shoes and short rations. So, how did the officers, including the gentleman Merriweather Lewis, live? The lived very well with plenty of whiskey, beef, sweets, and more. Discipline, to enforce these inequities, was harsh—typically one hundred lashes laid on hard. Inequality, ah,trumped, equality, fast—despite the real radicalism of the American Revolution embodied in the Declaration of Independence. That summons to action for equality and revolution inspired radicals in France, Haiti, and Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam who wrote his declaration almost word for word from Jefferson’s. Jefferson, per historian Stephen Ambrose, “wanted empire.” He was a slaveholder and land speculator, like Washington, two of the richest men in the country. He and other landowner/speculators, needed more and more land to serve the soil destroyer, tobacco. It was, as always with empire, expand or die. In this case, internally, but in most cases, expand or die because another empire; now soft-economic power China, is coming. (The US has at least 750 bases around the world. China has one. The soft power is money and people). The US government, before and with Trump, is nothing but an executive committee and armed weapon of the ruling class, the exploiters. It is inequality, within the US and the world, not “affordability,” the Democrats mantra. Now, back to the kidnapping. Sun Tzu, the Chinese philosopher of war, wrote, about two thousand years ago, “know yourself, know your enemy, know the terrain, and you will win one thousand battles.” Socio-pathic narcissists can’t know themselves, and their sycophants who trail along, all blinded by “we leader,” only know he’s a genius, that is, for public consumption, otherwise they know they are kidnapped by him. Venezuela is a huge country, thirty million people, twice the size of Iraq. There a competing militias all over Venezuela, and two Colombian guerrilla forces. The people are armed, and were in training before the abductions. Fifteen thousand troops on ships west of Venezuela won’t be nearly enough to quell a rebellion. Congressman Gil Cisneros says Trump wants the oil so he can process it and bring it to the US to drive down gas prices. If he is right, it’s a classic example of the US leaders not knowing the terrain, as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Venezuela’s oil processing plants are dilapidated. Over twenty years of decay means only oil rigs owned by Chevron are anywhere near full capacity. According to oil industry insiders, it will take years to bring the rigs up to capacity. Others within Trump’s orbit, promise the oil companies will be reimbursed for their efforts. And who will reimburse them? Taxpayers from an unjust tax system where billionaires like Trump, pay little or no taxes. Is this a diversion as a former Democratic Party presidential candidate suggests? Yes, Trump’s popularity ratings have plummeted, and the Democrats did do will in the mid-terms. In New York, the voters chose a socialist, who probably won’t be able to keep his promises, like Obama’s “hope and change” demagoguery, but billionaires spent millions for Cuomo, and they lost. All true. Then there are the Epstein files (demand the videos!) which cling to Trump like his orange makeup and wig. They were forgotten for a day. But this military attack is part and parcel of US imperialism. It is what empire’s MUST do: join in the relentless struggle for cheap labor, raw materials (oil), regional control and markets. Empire sent the US into Vietnam (rice, tin, rubber, strategic location), Afghanistan (strategic location going back to the Great Game) and Iraq (oil again). Rosa Luxemberg outlined empire long ago. “In detail, capital in its struggle against societies with a natural economy pursues the following ends: + To gain immediate possession of important sources of productive forces such as land, game in primeval forests, minerals, precious stones and ores, products of exotic flora such as rubber, etc. + To ‘liberate’ labour power and to coerce it into service. + To introduce a commodity economy. + To separate trade and agriculture. The 2025 National Security Strategy, straight from Project 2025, expands on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, now dubbed the Don-doctrine, declaring all of the Americas the property of the US. Trump, before the kidnapping, declared Venezuelas’ oil, “ours.” The many-titled Marco Rubio threatened Cuba, Columbia, and Mexico, with the Venezuela treatment. Clearly, Greenland and Canada have reason to worry about the once-peacnik candidate Trump. My “No Blood for Oil,” buttons and stickers, created in 2001, will be good for the rest of our lives. Moments after the kidnappings were announced, lawyers leaped forward to declare the actions illegal, under so many laws that I lost count: the UN Charter, no involvement of congress, the War Powers Act, and more. But the law is merely a reflection of political and economic reality. US law is PROPERTY law. There is no right to have a job, home, health care—it’s not about human rights, it is about power, and usually money. And so, it’s only illegal if you get caught, and sure they are caught, after all they caught themselves by announcing the kidnapping. No law is going to stop them. Trump has immunity. He can pardon the other co-conspirators in murder and kidnapping, and that will be that. And, immediately after I heard the big news, I got an email from the Democratic Party Front, Move-on, urging donations and plans to petition congress, and let’s vote in the mid-terms. Nobody ever voted their way out of fascism, and that is what this modern tyranny is. It will take a mass, activist, anti-racist,class conscious movement with experience in direct action, on the job and off. Let us wrap up with why there will be no general strike. I have never been able to get off the merry-go-roud of the bogus US unions. I have been writing about them for nearly 20 years, often on Counterpunch. A sidelight of imperialism is that the core empire loots enough goods and money to bribe certain sections of the working class. Lenin demonstrated this more than 100 years ago. It’s still true. The upshot of this is that the union bosses who, as above, believe and benefit from, Partners in Production, sell the pacified labor of the union members to the Big Bosses, in exchange for dues income, off of which the labors bosses live very well. Foe example, a past president of the National Education Union, where I once worked as an organizer, when NEA was actually a union on the early ’80s, made $686, 949 in his last year in office—this in a union where many school workers live in trailers. It follows that a general strike led by rank and file activists, would upend that sweet deal. They’d realize the union bosses would become worse than irrelevant—enemies. The union bosses know they are corrupt, and they are going to protect their corruption at all costs. A United Auto Workers president threatened to kill a dissenter in his inner circle. In the unlikely event that some accelerator, like the Tunisian fruit vendor who self-immolated to set off the disastrous “Arab Spring,” should create a series of rolling strike that coalesce as a General Strike, expect a violent response. ICE, Border Patrol, and Trump’s own SS, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, unmarked masked men, and others will certainly mobilize and, as in past strikes, like the railroad strike of 1877, people will begin to be “shot back to work.” Simply withdrawing labor may not be enough. All the forces of the state, the police, the courts, almost all of congress, the mainstream media, and most cultural institutions would be arrayed against strikers and their allies. And, then, in the even unlikelier event that class consciousness sees the state itself as a target, the planning gets beyond my pay grade, and my crystal ball becomes opaque. While I like the Declaration’s call for the necessity of revolution, and I have already laid out plenty of similar grievances, a 21st century revolution is difficult for me to imagine. This is the best I can do. I’ve been thinking and acting like this for more than six decades. The youngers will have to pick up where parts of my generation left off (so many mistakes, sad to say) and carry on the fight for equality and justice. One last thing. Justice demands organization. A critical examination of past parties, and the contradictions of democratic centralism, must push forward our battle. The post The Empire is Teetering! Why is There No General Strike? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Rich Gibson.
The Cowardice of the Powerful: Educational Leadership in DEI
Every year my institution measures faculty productivity by requiring us to submit a report of our annual activities. This year I noticed that two sections had silently disappeared. The entries still exist in the awful web platform through which we are forced to submit our responses. But when you generate the report, those headings and More The post The Cowardice of the Powerful: Educational Leadership in DEI appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Every year my institution measures faculty productivity by requiring us to submit a report of our annual activities. This year I noticed that two sections had silently disappeared. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396003" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM-680x319.png" alt="" width="680" height="319" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM-680x319.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM-1200x563.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM-768x361.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM-500x235.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM-600x282.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-4.54.32-PM.png 1504w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> The entries still exist in the awful web platform through which we are forced to submit our responses. But when you generate the report, those headings and any responses are simply not included in the document. There was no announcement, no policy change, just a silent elision of our work. The current university administration was installed in 2022. Although the new provost is a laughable AI-atollah, as far as we can tell none of them seem to be fascists. But in that time we have not been able to construct an instrument sufficiently powerful to detect their integrity. My disgust at this development prompted me to write the following. I submitted an abridged version of it in my portfolio, as space permitted. I feel the need to stress the word “disgust.” Reading history requires context The continuing attack on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” must be contextualized within the continuing attack on education broadly. Indeed, in the broadest context, the attack on science itself resembles and reinforces the attack on the arts and humanities. Both attacks share deep historical roots in this culture, and both share the same political aims. Setting personal politics aside—setting morality aside—there are urgent, strictly professional responsibilities that compel educators to defend these values and the institutional activities that uphold them. Establishing authority in the classroom requires establishing trust with all of the students. It requires establishing trust between and among all of the students. Carrying out effective pedagogy requires creating an engaging environment for every student. An engaging environment must be many things, but it cannot be a hostile environment. Every component of the educational mission is directly undermined within an institution that permits the perception of indifference to injustice. In short, education requires cooperation, which in turn requires social morality. Representing and supporting marginalized students My wife and I are both first-generation college graduates. We both have (invisible) disabilities. We both earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from globally preeminent public universities. We both subsequently devoted our careers to teaching at public universities. (I was also a non-traditional student: I was obliged to leave college without a degree, eked out a living for three years, and returned to finish a bachelor’s degree at age 28. Statistically speaking, I dramatically beat the odds.) Education ennobled both of us. Science and literature are ennobling, travel and languages are ennobling, so many of the things for which education opened doors for us have been ennobling. Do you know what else is ennobling? Being able to pay our fucking bills. The security that nobody in our families had enjoyed before we did is ennobling. We both staked our careers on the core belief that we have a responsibility to contribute back to the system that produced us, to uphold the standards of excellence to which we were held, to provide each and every student with all of the support that we received (or, did not receive), and to represent ourselves to our students and to our colleagues as who we are. Incidentally, my maternal grandmother’s entire extended family were murdered in Nazi death camps, except for her sister and mother who somehow survived. So I suppose that’s another thing to which I am forced to bear witness, including in the classroom. Protecting vulnerable students What are we even talking about when we say “diversity, equity, and inclusion?” It means recognizing, at least, this: every person is unique. A human being is not an instantiation of a category. This observation, like many truisms, circumscribes and transcends the fractal outline traced between the trivially mundane and the transcendently profound. This insight is worth ruminating deeply about. It contains the deep meaning of the slogan “Representation Matters.” Each human exists independently of categories. Conversely, programs of intimidation targeting human categories purposely elicit very real terror in actual individuals. I simply refuse to permit any students to feel threatened in my classroom. When I noticed that foreign students stopped attending my classes after the immigration raids of early 2025, I took it personally, because it is both a political and a professional affront. When queer students confide to me their fear of violence on campus, I take it personally, because it is both a political and a professional affront. I am confronted with students who before my very eyes tremble with the fear of being deported, students who can’t afford food, students male and female visibly scarred by a pervasive culture of rape, students who have accustomed themselves to the spectre of mass death from assault rifles in the auditorium—all intolerable, all familiar. Threats to our students are direct attacks on the educational mission and tangible disruptions to our work. I repeat: our professional responsibilities compel our active defense of social values. If this conclusion is “political,” it is because the political, the very ugliest political, has violated the academy. In this context, every educator is called to represent themselves as a visible advocate of civil values. Every institution must protect space for this representation. Each of these modes of representation matters. Public expression of solidarity matters even more. Institutional support of these values matters even more. The post The Cowardice of the Powerful: Educational Leadership in DEI appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by James Endres Howell.
The USA is descending into a state of general lawlessness, at home and abroad. From using domestic special ops paramilitary units (ICE) to kidnap people off the streets of America and send them abroad, the US government is now deploying secret special ops military units (Delta Force) to snatch foreign heads of governments from their More The post Venezuela vs. the Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4608" height="3456" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-scaled.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-scaled.jpg 4608w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396296" class="size-medium wp-image-396296" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9200-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair The USA is descending into a state of general lawlessness, at home and abroad. From using domestic special ops paramilitary units (ICE) to kidnap people off the streets of America and send them abroad, the US government is now deploying secret special ops military units (Delta Force) to snatch foreign heads of governments from their homes and sending them to jail in the US. Political human trafficking has become the rule of law in America under the current Trump administration! Before 2025, the two political parties engaged in a crescendo of lawfare actions against each other, employing the FBI, the courts and even the CIA behind the scene to destroy each other. Both parties engaged in abuse of the rule of law, pardoning family, rich friends, and business partners to protect themselves and their personal relations, rendering a travesty of the fiction that in America no one is above the law. Senior politicians of both enriched themselves, becoming multi-millionaires after leaving office after arranging special deals while in. The recent US invasion of Venezuela a gross violation of international law. A hypocritical disrespect for sovereign boundaries that US neocon ideologues and their echo chamber captured US media have leveled at Russia in Ukraine the past four years. Trump himself has publicly admitted the invasion of Venezuela was intended to secure US economic control of Venezuela’s natural resources, especially its oil reserves. In other words, good old fashion naked US imperialism, intended to grab another country’s natural resources. The excuse was the nonsense charges of narco drug trafficking—i.e. the US neocons’ substitute excuse for WMD’s, weapons of mass destruction, used before in Iraq, Syria, Libya to justify US military intervention. WMDs couldn’t be levied at Venezuela. Wouldn’t work. Nor would past excuses for US imperial intervention like ‘Remember the Maine’. ‘Tonkin Gulf’. Or ‘Killing Incubator Babies’. The neocons needed a new fake excuse for US imperial military intervention in Venezuela. So they looked into their magic bag of false flags, fake excuses, and CIA lies and pulled out ‘Narco drug trafficking’. That works better for Latin America imperial interventions—as former president of Panama, Noriega, found out in 1989. Watch out Colombia president Gustavo Petro who defended Venezuela sovereignty and criticized Trump’s Venezuela action. And heed the warning Mexico president, Sheinbaum! You’re the next Trump targets. Ditto Cuba. Does Greenland have a president Trump can threaten? Wonder what that excuse will be. Maybe the US must invade because ‘Chinese ships are melting the ice cap’. And make no mistake. Trump’s not only engaged in naked military imperialism in Venezuela to enact regime change. His big mouth ‘spilled the beans’ that the US plans to install a new colonialism as well. Within 24 hrs. he declared publicly the US intends to ‘rule’ Venezuela directly until such time as a proper puppet regime can be put in place. Direct rule constitutes a colonial form of imperialism. As the saying goes, the truth is often spoken from the mouth of a drunkard. And Trump is a big mouth bragger, drunk with power. And he’s saying directly what the US neocon imperialist elite behind him (Rubio, Walz, Graham, CIA spooks, etc.) are really thinking and planning. In an attempt to cover up Trump’s careless blurting out the blunt truth, Trump neocon cronies like Rubio quickly rushed to the US media echo chamber to try to put lipstick on the ‘US will rule’ pig, saying the US has no such plans. Another Trump neocon, Walz, former NSA to Trump and now ambassador to the UN, in his emergency speech to the UN argued the kidnapping of Venezuela president, Maduro, was not about creating colonial rule; it wasn’t even a military operation—according to Walz. It was just a police operation. Some police operation, accompanied by a fleet of 17 US warships, aircraft carriers, submarines, and 10,000 marines stationed in nearby Trinidad island! Rubio added the US only wants to bring Maduro to New York to stand trial, as he conveniently avoided any mention that the USnavy is continuing to blockade all shipping from Venezuela. The US has no further military plans! Really? Anyone wanna buy a bridge from the man? This is crass, US gunboat imperialism reminiscent of the early 20th century when the US invaded Latin American countries by the dozens. It is also a harbinger of US plans to impose some new form of colonialism on Venezuela, and who knows what other Latin American countries who dare to try to walk an independent path from the US Empire. Trump and his crony neocons will try to cover up their plans for some new kind of colonialism if they can with CIA managed new elections this spring, the outcome of which is already pre-determined. The US designated next president, Machado, is already packing her bags and on her way to Caracas, no doubt with an escort of US agents of course who’ll accompany her throughout the forthcoming phony election campaign. US imperialism has never given up on regime change in Venezuela for the past quarter century. Just like it has never with Iran for nearly half a century. Nor Cuba for the past 65 years. The Bush administration in 2002 thought it had achieved regime change deposing then Venezuelan president, former General Chavez. He nationalized US oil interests in the country. The most unholy of capitalist sins! But the deposing of Chavaz was short lived as he was rescued and re-installed as president by the people and Armed forces of Venezuela quickly. Under Obama the CIA continued deep financial and other aid to opposition movements to overturn Venezuelan elections, to little avail. Venezuelan public support was too great despite the US launching a classic economic war on Venezuela, wrecking its currency, stoking inflation, preventing its sale of oil exports and receipt of necessary medical and food imports. Their candidates kept losing national elections nonetheless. Under Trump in 2018-19 the CIA efforts intensified, seizing Venezuelan gold in western banks and Venezuela’s CITGO oil distribution company in the US and giving the money from its sale to Venezuelan opposition movements. Still no success in regime change via electoral intervention. US CIA and regime change ops were temporarily put on hold with the arrival of the Covid recession in the US in 2020, followed by US chaotic exit from Afghanistan in 2021, and implementation in 2022 of bigger US plans to engineer a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. Once Trump returned to office in January 2025, however, Venezuelan regime change was placed on the US foreign policy front burner once again. This time the Empire planned to do it right—which meant not relying solely on CIA electoral interference in Venezuela, as in the past, but taking the gloves off and doing regime change by means of US special ops intervention and direct US military action! The Emperor removed his clothes and waded in waist deep. Perhaps over his head, as time will only tell! One should not lose sight of the bigger picture behind the Venezuelan invasion. It is not a standalone, one off operation. I’m sure the governments of Colombia, Mexico and Cuba will agree. The Venezuela operation is part of US neocon forces and imperialists refocusing on the Empire’s western hemisphere base that it had partly neglected while preoccupied in the middle east and eastern Europe (Ukraine and Caucasus). The Empire had let the western hemisphere go unattended. In the interim, when it was preoccupied on the other side of the world, and while planning long term to engage China in Taiwan, other challengers to Empire intervened quietly in Latin America. China in particular. In the past decade, China invested heavily as part of its global ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure building program in Latin America. It bought up ports in Panama and started other projects there. It struck deals in Mexico to build the largest EV auto plant in north America that might then export under free trade to the US auto market. It started building ports in Ecuador and Peru. It had plans to build a railroad link from that latter country through the Amazon to Brazil. And it loaned Venezuela more than $100 billion for infrastructure projects and oil infrastructure modernization. Most important, it also started buying large quantities of Venezuela oil. The US imperialists want that oil. The US pumps 13m barrels a day, the most in the world, and is sucking its own fracking wells dry in the next decade. Moreover, it needs more oil to sell to its European allies since the US chased the Russians out of Europe. Where to get it? Next door Venezuela of course. The Trump administration, and US neocon imperialists’, have turned back to the western hemisphere to try to restore US economic hegemony over the region. That meant driving China and its investments out of Latin America, and especially Venezuela to secure its future oil supplies. In the first year of Trump’s term in office, the US threatened Mexico with US drones and special ops; in response Mexico canceled its EV deal with China. It threatened Panama with a repeat of the US 1989 invasion; Panama canceled its projects with China and US private equity took over its ports. It threatened Ecuador and Peru. Propped up its client in Argentina with a new $40 billion loan, supported recent right wing government shifts in Chile and Boliva, threatened Brazil if it prosecuted Trump’s buddy, Bolsonaro for his attempting a coup, and threatened Venezuela continually, amassing military forces offshore, blowing up more than 80 fishing boats in the region, and sending in more CIA forces on the ground into that country. The US delta force special ops snatching of Maduro and his wife is just the latest tactic. Stand by. There’s more to come! Lawless operations by Trump in the hemisphere are only beginning. I predict he will ‘seize’ Greenland one way or another, and soon. The objective there is the same as throughout Latin America. In the case of Greenland it’s about preventing China (and Russia) arctic shipping access down Greenland’s western coast on the way to the Atlantic ports and trade. Panama was quickly cut off for the Chinese. Now the Arctic passage will be as well. All the Trump intimidation and insulting of Canada is also about the US shoring up its Arctic strategy which has lagged badly in competition with Russia. The latter’s arctic strategy development and implementation is well ahead of the US’s. Russia has a fleet of more than 40 advanced icebreakers. The US has two. Trump’s ridiculing of Canada has been about forcing that country to develop an arctic military presence and strategy—along with the US in Greenland and Alaska. Trump wants Canada to pay part of the US cost. Canada’s new prime minister, in his first visit to the White House earlier in 2025, pledged to do so. The Trump ridicule and intimidation immediately stopped. Trump’s and the US empire’s plans to refocus more to the western Hemisphere is not this writer’s conjecture. It’s been obvious as Trump’s 2024 election campaign. The strategic shift was recently spelled out clearly in the Trump administration’s recently publication, ‘National Security Strategy of the United States of America, November 2025. It’s on the White House website. Read it. Especially discussion about the western hemisphere. Trump says it’s all about Making America Great Again. What he really means it’s about Making American the Great Bully Again. That other American imperialist president, Teddy Roosevelt, bragged about ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’? Trump is a perverted facsimile of Roosevelt. His motto is ‘brag boldly and carry a stick’ so long as it’s against someone smaller than you. The US Empire is restructuring and refocusing its resources—immediately on the western hemisphere and longer term on the western Pacific where it’s now rearming and shoring up its allies to contain and confront China. That’s a longer term objective. Western hemisphere comes first. Japan has been encouraged and has begun to remilitarize. The US is pumping military arms at an accelerating rate into the key countries—Taiwan, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Four years ago, these countries purchased less than $1 billion a year each in US military equipment. In 2024, all were buying more than $4 billion a year, and in 2025 no doubt the data will show that’s accelerated further, especially for Taiwan. US imperial plans are longer term in that region. The western Hemisphere is shorter term. Why the Trump administration wants to reduce its presence in Europe and NATO and extricate from its former commitment in Ukraine should be viewed in the context of this more fundamental shift to the hemisphere and the western Pacific. That’s also spelled out in the ‘National Security Strategy’ document. So what’s the deeper reason for the Empire’s strategic shift now accelerating under Trump? The answer to that most fundamental question is to be found in the accelerating costs of maintaining the US global empire as previously structured. It can no longer afford it, simply put. According to its own budget data, the US now spends more than $1 trillion a year on the Pentagon alone. But that’s not all its ‘defense’ spending. At least as much ‘defense’ spending is squirreled away in other parts of the budget. When adding other defense cost like Veterans affairs, Homeland Security, nuclear weapons development, CIA and intelligence ops, foreign military aid, foreign military base expenses, rising pay for its1.4m military forces and top heavy, bloated senior officer corps, plus the defense share of interest payments on the US national debt, the total actual US defense spending in 2025 was more than $2.1 trillion! With US annual budget deficits of $1.5 trillion a year, a national debt of $38 trillion, and interest payments on the latter already $1.1 trillion a year and rising—the US empire can no longer continue its costs as previously structured. So it’s consolidating—back to the western Hemisphere and the Pacific basin. That’s the bigger picture and context for the current events in Venezuela and what’s yet to come there—and throughout the western hemisphere—as the US resorts to direct military action to re-establish direct control and unchallenged hegemony in its back yard once again. The post Venezuela vs. the Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jack Rasmus.
Trump’s Forest Service Wants to Log Next to Glacier National Park
The Hungry Horse Ranger District on the Flathead National Forest in Montana recently announced the Moccasin Granite Project to “treat” a 67,536-acre area along the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork of the Flathead River which it alleges will reduce wildfire threat and “promote forest health.” Among the lands that will be affected are roadless lands More The post Trump’s Forest Service Wants to Log Next to Glacier National Park appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="398" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396236" class="wp-image-396236 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="398" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/90002-00513-Grizzly-bear-Glacier-NP-Montana-George-Wuerthner-706-500x332.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> Young Grizzly Bear in Glacier National Park. Photo: George Wuerthner. The Hungry Horse Ranger District on the Flathead National Forest in Montana recently announced the Moccasin Granite Project to “treat” a 67,536-acre area along the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork of the Flathead River which it alleges will reduce wildfire threat and “promote forest health.” Among the lands that will be affected are roadless lands recommended for addition to the Great Bear Wilderness and roadless lands along the river corridor. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-47545" src="https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Great-Bear-Wilderness-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1677.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" srcset="https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Great-Bear-Wilderness-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1677.jpg 600w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Great-Bear-Wilderness-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1677-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Great-Bear-Wilderness-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1677-585x390.jpg 585w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Great-Bear-Wilderness-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1677-263x175.jpg 263w" alt="" width="600" height="400" /> Peaks of Great Bear Wilderness, Montana. Photo by George Wuerthner This corridor is within core grizzly bear habitat and will include the construction of 7.6 miles of new “temporary” roads. Access created by roads are a major source of mortality for grizzly bears. Roads also provide access to humans who are responsible for 84% of all wildfires. The Forest Service uses its usual justification that it needs to fix our forests and control evolutionary processes and natural mortality caused by disease, insects and wildfire. Apparently, the only mortality the Forest Service finds acceptable is death caused by chainsaw medicine. The entire project, besides compromising the scenery with logging along a “scenic corridor,” is based on flawed assumptions about the effectiveness of “fuel treatments” in protecting homes, as well as an anti-scientific view of the ecological value of natural selection and forest evolution. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-47554" src="https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1-791x1024.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px" srcset="https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1-791x1024.jpg 791w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1-232x300.jpg 232w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1-768x994.jpg 768w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1-1170x1514.jpg 1170w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1-585x757.jpg 585w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Granite-Moccasin-Vicinity-Map-copy-1187x1536-1.jpg 1187w" alt="" width="791" height="1024" /> The dominant tree species along the corridor include western larch, lodgepole pine, subalpine fire and Engelmann spruce. All of these forest types have long fire rotations of many decades to hundreds of years between any significant blaze. Though the Forest Service correctly admits that nearly 70% of the project area falls within a “stand-replacing fire regime,” meaning that while large fires are infrequent. They note such blazes: “tend to burn with higher intensity, replacing mature forest stands with younger trees,”. Stand replacement fires only occur when the right climatic and weather conditions line up that include high temperatures, low humidity, combined with drought and high winds. These extreme wildfire weather conditions are infrequent and occur many decades to hundreds of years apart. Nevertheless, the agency does not consider the very low probability of any large blazes occurring any time soon. As a result, any treatment the agency does is unlikely to affect or preclude a major wildlife because vegetation rapidly grows back, negating any fuel reduction. So the public immediately gets the negatives from logging including loss of secure grizzly bear habitat, more sedimentation in to streams from logging roads, loss of carbon storage by removal of logs and snags, loss of scenic value and potential loss of proposed additions to the Great Bear Wilderness, all at great cost to taxpayers (such logging projects are always money losers to taxpayers) without clear benefits. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-47551" src="https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Essex-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1668.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" srcset="https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Essex-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1668.jpg 600w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Essex-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1668-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Essex-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1668-585x390.jpg 585w, https://www.thewildlifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Essex-Montana-George-Wuerthner-1668-263x175.jpg 263w" alt="" width="600" height="400" /> Izzak Walton Lodge, Essex, Montana. The best way to protect structures is to reduce the flammability of the building and nearby surrounding landscape, typically no more than 100 feet. Photo by George Wuerthner The other problem with the proposal is that research by the Forest Service’s own scientists has concluded that fuel removal more than 100 feet or so from any structure provides no additional benefit. Most structure fires result from embers tossed sometimes a mile or more ahead of a fire front. This is one reason why “solutions” like creating fire breaks, or thinning forests fails to protect property under extreme fire weather conditions. Indeed, there is even evidence that thinning, and other “active management” can exacerbate fire spread by opening up the canopy which promotes soil and fuel drying, while making it easier for wind to penetrate and carry embers beyond the treated areas. One review study of 1500 wildfires found that fire severity was higher in areas with “active forest management” compared to areas off limits to logging like wilderness and roadless lands. Furthermore, most wildfires occur within a few hundred feet of roads. So rather than constructing new roads, the best policy the agency could promote is to close roads—at least during extreme fire weather red flag conditions. Finally, the Forest Service is using the emergency authorities authorized by the Secretary of Agriculture under section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) as a way to avoid any public scrutiny and objections over how our public lands are managed or mismanaged by the agency that is nothing more than a handmaiden of the timber industry. The best way to protect structures is to reduce the flammability of the buildings themselves and the immediate area surrounding them. One can send your concerns to District Ranger Robert Davies by January 15th. The post Trump’s Forest Service Wants to Log Next to Glacier National Park appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Wuerthner.
The United States in Venezuela and Beyond
About a month ago, I was worried about an awful lot of saber-rattling that was going on in the Trump administration. That rattling became a reality with the invasion of Venezuela and more threats issued against other countries, first against Colombia, then Mexico, Cuba, and the dreamiest of all dreamworlds, the annexation of Greenland, which More The post The United States in Venezuela and Beyond appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396190" class="wp-image-396190 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-680x389.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="389" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-680x389.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-1103x630.jpg 1103w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-768x439.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-2048x1170.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-500x286.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/planet-volumes-badTuQ1flsg-unsplash-1-600x343.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Planet Volumes. About a month ago, I was worried about an awful lot of saber-rattling that was going on in the Trump administration. That rattling became a reality with the invasion of Venezuela and more threats issued against other countries, first against Colombia, then Mexico, Cuba, and the dreamiest of all dreamworlds, the annexation of Greenland, which is still under the protective flag of Denmark. Panama was the subject of some saber-rattling as well, so the threat against them appears to not be as serious. However (somewhat presciently), I said the following: Panama has momentarily escaped Trump’s threats, primarily by promising to rethink the contract it has with CK Hutchison to run the canal. The president is worried that the Hong Kong-based company (and its subsidiary, Panama Ports Company) is giving too much power to China in a region where “rightfully” the US must dominate, as set forth in documents like the Monroe Doctrine and backed up by Teddy Roosevelt’s “Big stick” diplomacy. For the time being, Panama is working on a back-up plan in case a new contract with CK Hutchison falls through. Trump is still looming in the background, but things are stable, at least for the time being. Nicolás Maduro has likely worn out his welcome as president of Venezuela. The US and some other states recognized Juan Guaidó as president, that failed, then Edmundo González probably won the most recent presidential election but Maduro was sworn in as president this year anyway. Lacking access to opinion polls, it seems that few people actually like Maduro because the continuation of policies introduced by Hugo Chávez has been carried out without much forethought, plunging Venezuela’s economy into a tailspin. That said, if the US continues to threaten Venezuela, that is likely to bring people in the country together against Trump, more than it unites people against Maduro, as disliked as he may be. Decades ago, scholars like Benedict Anderson and Tom Nairn argued that nationality, nationalism, and one’s sense of belonging to a nation run much deeper in identity than anyone could imagine. It’s more important to defend Venezuela than it is to get rid of a president whose time has come and gone. Yeah, all of that. You see, it’s not the Monroe Doctrine anymore, but the Donroe Doctrine, according to the president. Columbia seems to be in the sights of the Trump administration, again under the auspices of dealing with the drug trade in Columbia even though the cartelization of cocaine trafficking was a much bigger deal back in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the current anti-drug obsession was supposed to be about illicit synthetic opioids coming into the United States (with fentanyl topping the list) and the flood of methamphetamines similarly getting cooked in other countries, then being sold in the US. None of that seems to matter anymore because the US is supposedly awash in coke right now. Time is of the essence, or so the government wants to argue. There is also the precarious situation that Greenland finds itself at the moment. Vice President JD Vance and his spouse Usha visited Greenland not long ago, then White House “advisor” and blogger Katie Miller posted a map of Greenland in stars and stripes with the one word comment, “SOON.” Perhaps it was a joke of some kind, but the prime minister of Denmark warned that a military takeover of the island by an ally would signal the end of the NATO alliance. That’s a fairly big deal, and Vladimir Putin must certainly must be holding his thumb (in Eastern Europe, it’s like crossing one’s fingers) for that to happen. Does the Trump administration recognize the dangers of saying that Greenland is “needed” by the US? Seems as though they are blind to that possibility, as they are to grabbing Venezuela and then claiming that the US will control the crude oil flowing out of that country. What happened to stopping the so-called “narco-terrorism” of the Maduro government? Oh, now it’s about oil. Of course, the drug thing might all be just a cover story anyway. That was revealed when the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, got pardoned by Trump, even though a trial found him guilty of helping to traffic 400 tons (metric tons—1000 kg each) of coke to the US, and his sentence was to serve 45 years in prison. But he said some nice things about Trump, so ignore what he was actually convicted of, right? People of Venezuela were not big fans of Maduro. Gustavo Petro is probably on firmer ground with his constituents in Colombia. Forced to defend their country or not, people will resist American aggression. If the US wants to build better relations with other countries and their leaders other than Vladimir Putin, this is not the way to do it. The Monroe Doctrine affirmed US imperialistic ambitions in the 1820s. The Donroe Doctrine reinforces a more menacing foreign policy posture in 2026. The post The United States in Venezuela and Beyond appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Edgar Kaskla.
“Quiet, Piggy.” The president was intent on silencing Catherine Lucey. The Bloomberg reporter had provoked him with a question about the release of the Epstein files. His insult caught the public’s attention. But Trump’s tongue-lashing lexicon against women has a long history. Other female journalists have been dubbed “obnoxious,” “terrible,” “third-rate” and “ugly.” Vice President Kamala Harris, More The post Trump’s War on Women appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396242" class="wp-image-396242 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mike-newbry-9Zd5tUQC9FI-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Mike Newbry. “Quiet, Piggy.” The president was intent on silencing Catherine Lucey. The Bloomberg reporter had provoked him with a question about the release of the Epstein files. His insult caught the public’s attention. But Trump’s tongue-lashing lexicon against women has a long history. Other female journalists have been dubbed “obnoxious,” “terrible,” “third-rate” and “ugly.” Vice President Kamala Harris, opposing him in the 2024 presidential election, was labeled “retarded” and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy as a bedbug.” The list goes on (and on and on). And who knows what was redacted from the Epstein files along those very lines? Mind you, those Trumpian insults hurled at women (and regularly offered about them) are anything but performative throwaways. They reveal Donald Trump’s deep and abiding contempt for females, an attitude that has taken a giant leap forward (or do I mean backward?) in policy terms in the Trump 2.0 years. Well beyond a simple cascade of insulting words, the commander-in-chief and his allies have deemed women the enemy. And not surprisingly, under the circumstances, they are now distinctly under attack. The Purges From day one of his second term as president, Trump has made his intention to rid the government of women crystal clear — with some window-dressing exceptions. Without mentioning women per se, he nonetheless targeted them on his very first day in office. Executive Order 14151 vowed to end the “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs” of the Biden era. (On his first day in office, Biden had issued an executive order opening the door for “underserved communities” via a “whole of government equity agenda.”). Trump’s EO, however, decreed an end to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and to any appointments that were meant to reflect diversity hiring, claiming that such policies “demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination.” Immediately, women began to be flung from their government perches. Those holding high positions were the first to go. U.S. Archivist Colleen Shogan was removed, as were the three top women at the National Labor Relations Board. Head of the Federal Trade Commission Rebecca Slaughter was promptly fired, a case still under review by the Supreme Court (though it’s hard to expect good news from SCOTUS these days). The Pentagon cleaned house early and fast, removing women from positions of leadership, including the head of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis; the commandant of the Coast Guard, the chief of naval operations, and the only woman flag officer on NATO’s Military Committee. All had been the first females to occupy those posts. Also sent packing was the woman serving as the senior military assistant to the secretary of defense. Black women in particular found themselves under attack. Early removals of Black women included Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress; Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the National Labor Relations Board; and Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve Board. Meanwhile, Peggy Carr, the first Black person and the first woman to be commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, was cruelly and unexpectedly escorted out of the building in front of her staff. The circumstances surrounding the ouster of the first female to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), acting administrator Janet Petro, highlighted the conviction that emptying offices of women occupants took precedence over quality, efficiency, or overall professionalism. Petro was replaced by an interim appointee, Sean Duffy, who continued to serve in the demanding job of secretary of transportation even as he assumed the leadership of NASA. Better, it seems, to overtax a man than allow a woman to lead anything whatsoever. The Pentagon The Pentagon took an early lead in the crusade against women. Even before he was confirmed as secretary of defense (now the Department of War), nominee Pete Hegseth signaled the changes to come under his leadership. Obama’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had opened up combat roles to women in 2015. Hegseth promised to change that. “I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles,” he told podcaster Shawn Ryan. “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.” The Hill summed it up well in late July this way: “All women have now been purged from the military’s top jobs, with no female four-star officers on active duty and none in pending appointments for four- or three-star roles.” Hegseth’s anti-female campaign focused on substance as well as numbers. Women, he suggested, just didn’t have the skills to conduct business with sufficient lethality. According to him, the Pentagon’s Women, Peace and Security program, signed into law during Trump’s first term in office, only served to weaken the Pentagon. Women would merely distract the department from its “core task — FIGHTING,” he tweeted (as Politico reported). Hegseth summarily ended the program. As a U.N. spokeswoman suggested, the removal of women’s voices from the realm of peacekeeping would impede the protection of women and children worldwide. Healthcare Back at home, removing protections for females has amounted to a full-scale attack, consistent with warfare, on their bodies. A restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services has crippled reproductive health programs. In April, HuffPost reported that “the majority” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Division of Reproductive Health was laid off and two of the three main programs of the Maternal and Infant Health division were eradicated. While the Trump administration has consistently tried to hide data about such purges and policies, journalists have kept at it, unearthing some of the facts. Citing “piecemeal and crowd-sourced information,” the Guardian, for example, was able to report that “the entire staff of a gold-standard maternal mortality survey… was also put on leave.” As it happens, the Republican Congress has joined the assault. Trump’s much-ballyhooed Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), which passed in July, included reductions in funding to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, programs that are projected to hit adult women the hardest. Of note, the BBB included a prohibition on federal Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood. Even before the passage of the bill, the administration had withheld Title X funding from 20 states and 144 Planned Parenthood clinics that, since 1970, had received grants for family planning and reproductive health services. Expectations are that more drastic cuts will follow. In May, the Commonwealth Fund summarized the devastating consequences of the president’s first 100 days in office for women’s reproductive health, detailing a drastic decline in access to medical abortions. And if such reproductive issues weren’t enough to alarm us, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has removed its recommendation for COVID vaccines for pregnant women and children. The Record To add insult to injury, the administration has made it clear that it’s not just women’s positions in government or their healthcare that are subject to eradication. The historical record of women and their accomplishments is also under attack. Across government databases, museum displays, and archival holdings, information about women has been systematically deleted. As I wrote in an earlier TomDispatch post, the erasure of information, historical and statistical, has been a signature weapon of this administration. The websites of the Army and Navy have dutifully removed information about the history of women in the military, while Arlington Cemetery took down its webpage on women buried there, including First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. And in a similar fashion, NASA opted to remove any mention of women as part of the DEI purge of its website. The Deception No essay on the plight of women in the era of Trump 2.0 would be sufficient without commentary on the seeming contradiction between the multipronged attack on women and the presence of women in a striking number of cabinet roles. Seven of Trump’s cabinet appointments are held by women and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is the first woman to hold that cabinet-level post. And yet, that doesn’t seem to have changed the narrative of Trump 2.0 or the impulse to assault women’s rights nationwide. If anything, it has at times enabled it, only further amplifying the administration’s anti-female screed. At the Department of Justice, for instance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who a decade earlier had voted against the Violence Against Women Act, has reportedly intervened in a number of asylum cases, banning entry to the U.S. for women fleeing domestic violence. At the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under the directorship of Secretary Kristi Noem, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has been shuttered, while “at least 25 sexual abuse complaints” have been dismissed. And when it comes to immigration detention, reports of the sexual and physical abuse of women abound. In the words of Human Rights Watch researcher Clara Long, the conditions are “jaw-dropping.” As Long puts it, “Grievous abuses — assaults, sexual abuse, and discriminatory treatment by U.S. agents — are an open secret within DHS.” In short, the performances of the women in this administration have undermined the cause of women even more. Chosen for their loyalty to Trump rather than their expertise, their incompetence has been laid out for all to see, scoring high marks when it comes to furthering the perception of women as insufficient to the important tasks at hand. Exhibit One is certainly Lindsey Halligan. A former insurance lawyer who had previously been on Trump’s legal team, she was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan subsequently headed up the prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General of New York Letitia James, who had been at the helm of lawsuits against the president before he entered office a second time. Both of Halligan’s cases were thrown out after a federal judge ruled her appointment to be an unlawful use of the attorney general’s appointment power. The Department of Justice is appealing both cases. But even before that judge had a chance to issue his ruling, Halligan had harmed the cause of women. Having never led a prosecution before, she faced the grand jury seeking an indictment of Comey without the presence of her own team at the Justice Department to back her up. (After all, her predecessor, Trump-nominated and Trump-fired Erik Siebert had resigned in part because he had determined that there were insufficient grounds for bringing just such a prosecution.) Due to her lack of expertise, she displayed a profound lack of knowledge about trial procedure and courtroom norms. As former prosecutor Elie Honig reported in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, “the bumbling novice prosecutor” botched many things, including making incorrect statements to the jury and failing to present the final version of the indictment to jury members for their sign-off. Though the case was ultimately thrown out, criticism of Halligan has continued relentlessly. For those who continue to embrace the exclusion of women from positions of power and consequence, what better proof do they need than Lindsey Halligan — or, for that matter, other women who are being patched into roles they can’t possibly fulfill at a high standard? As French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir long ago commented when it came to women seeking to advance in the world, “Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.” In sum, women are in trouble in Donald Trump’s second presidency. And yet, there are signs of hope, promising both sustenance and strength for women in the days to come. While the Center for American Women and Politics reports that the number of women in elected office is down overall for 2025, 26 of the 100 senators are now women, the highest percentage ever. (And who knows what the congressional elections in 2026 are likely to bring, given the strong showing of Democrats in elections in 2025?) Moreover, outside of government, women are far from absent. They currently sit atop the country’s largest philanthropic foundations — Heather Gerken at the Ford Foundation, Amber Miller at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Louise Richardson at the Carnegie Corporation of New York. They are presidents of some of the country’s most prestigious universities, including Brown, Columbia, New York University, and Yale. At Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, and other tech companies, women are distinctly on the rise, offering expertise, guidance, and leadership, while undoubtedly preparing for a future in which their expertise will be sought. About-Face? In recent weeks, inside the Trump administration, there have been signs, however minor, that some of the president’s most devout female allies are starting to dissent. Congressional Representative and Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene has taken the lead in that female about-face, announcing that she is going to leave Congress before her term is up and going so far as to suggest that she is more in touch with the president’s MAGA base than he is. Like Greene, longtime Trump ally Representative Elise Stefanik has chosen to “call it quits” and leave public office behind. Trump had failed to support her bid to run for governor of New York, just as he had pulled her nomination to the U.N. earlier in the year. And then there’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles who, however much she subsequently reneged on remarks she made over the course of 11 interviews with Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple, clearly indicated that she had moved away from the president’s stances on Venezuela, the January 6th pardons, and the Epstein files. Maybe, just maybe, the undermining of decades of progress stands a chance of reversal. No wonder he’s so afraid of women! This piece first appeared on TomDispatch. The post Trump’s War on Women appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Karen J. Greenberg.
Trump’s plan to ‘run’ Venezuela is ‘wish-casting’
US regime kidnaps Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro
Trump Admin Won’t Be Able to ‘Run’ Venezuela
The “New Alcatraz”: The Darkest Threat of the Venezuela Looting Spree
Andrea joins Russian mafia expert Olga Lautman to expose the transnational looting spree and warn Stephen Miller will turn Venezuela into a new Alcatraz. First, we look at who stands to get rich off Trump's illegal invasion. Devin Nunes and a squad of Trump Media cronies just took over a company that tried to bid $10 billion for Citgo, Venezuela's oil crown jewel, right as their boss plotted a secret invasion. So who won Citgo? Why, MAGA billionaire Paul Singer, a vulture capitalist who serves as Trump's ATM and hand-picked Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. Who else is a big winner? The Republican Party's longtime backers, Exxon. Just as Trump hoped invading Venezuela would boost his plummeting approval ratings, Maduro threatened to invade oil-rich Guyana to distract from his own corruption. Now that Maduro is no longer harassing Exxon in Guyana, Exxon's stocks are soaring along with the rest of Big Oil. But the darkest "follow the money" story goes beyond oil. The private prison industry rakes in a fortune thanks to Trump's cruelty. El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison holds 40,000, but Trump and Stephen Miller want space for 80,000 people kidnapped from the U.S. Construction takes years; so Venezuela offers the obvious solution: the "New Alcatraz." Outsourcing prisoners to a lawless, torture-filled transnational Gulag, a story censored by Bari Weiss's CBS News, is the most troubling crisis of MAGA's illegal invasion of Venezuela and co-rule with a violent oil mafia. There's always hope, but it requires a blueprint and courage. The Venezuelan people proved their 2024 election victory through heroic citizen vote-counting: a model of resistance that we in the U.S. must study to reclaim our own democracy. We must align with these transnational forces for good to dismantle the global crime syndicate. We warned you this would happen. Now, we must organize, stand up, and remain defiant. Show Notes: Devin Nunes and others linked to Trump Media became officers of a company soon after it made an unsuccessful $10 billion bid for Venezuelan-state-owned Citgo Petroleum's U.S. assets by Wendy Siegelman https://newstracs.com/devin-nunes-and-others-linked-to-trump-media-are-officers-of-a-company-that-bid-for-citgo/2026/01/01/ Learn from Venezuela's opposition: The Official Unofficial Record How do you count almost 12 million votes if you're not the government? This week, we bring you the extraordinary story of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who created the only verifiable public record of votes in their presidential election — and other stories of people trying to correct the official record with their own versions. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/848/the-official-unofficial-record Olga Lautman's Trump Tyranny Tracker: https://trumptyrannytracker.substack.com/ Venezuela raid enriches MAGA billionaire: The ouster of Maduro is a financial windfall for a prominent Trump-supporting billionaire, investor Paul Singer. https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/venezuela-raid-enriches-maga-billionaire?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email Opening clip: https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mbmostp3xk2j CNN Data Guru Reveals Trump's Devastating Drop in Approval Rating https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cnn-data-guru-reveals-trump-105250680.html Trump admin sends tough private message to oil companies on Venezuela: The White House has told companies they must rebuild Venezuela's crude-pumping infrastructure if they want compensation for assets seized by Caracas. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezuela-oil-us-companies-return-00709782 The U.S.-Venezuela-Guyana Oil Triangle https://drilled.media/news/guyana-venezuela Gabbard abruptly ousted CIA Russia expert days after Trump-Putin meeting https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/28/politics/gabbard-abruptly-ousted-cia-russia-expert-days-after-trump-putin-meeting Tulsi Gabbard's history with Russia is even more concerning than you think https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tulsi-gabbard-russian-connection-dni-trump-syria-b2692244.html Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit!
Andrea joins Russian mafia expert Olga Lautman to expose the transnational looting spree and warn Stephen Miller will turn Venezuela into a new Alcatraz. First, we look at who stands to get rich off Trump's illegal invasion. Devin Nunes and a squad of Trump Media cronies just took over a company that tried to bid $10 billion for Citgo, Venezuela's oil crown jewel, right as their boss plotted a secret invasion. So who won Citgo? Why, MAGA billionaire Paul Singer, a vulture capitalist who serves as Trump's ATM and hand-picked Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. Who else is a big winner? The Republican Party's longtime backers, Exxon. Just as Trump hoped invading Venezuela would boost his plummeting approval ratings, Maduro threatened to invade oil-rich Guyana to distract from his own corruption. Now that Maduro is no longer harassing Exxon in Guyana, Exxon's stocks are soaring along with the rest of Big Oil. But the darkest "follow the money" story goes beyond oil. The private prison industry rakes in a fortune thanks to Trump's cruelty. El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison holds 40,000, but Trump and Stephen Miller want space for 80,000 people kidnapped from the U.S. Construction takes years; so Venezuela offers the obvious solution: the "New Alcatraz." Outsourcing prisoners to a lawless, torture-filled transnational Gulag, a story censored by Bari Weiss's CBS News, is the most troubling crisis of MAGA's illegal invasion of Venezuela and co-rule with a violent oil mafia. There's always hope, but it requires a blueprint and courage. The Venezuelan people proved their 2024 election victory through heroic citizen vote-counting: a model of resistance that we in the U.S. must study to reclaim our own democracy. We must align with these transnational forces for good to dismantle the global crime syndicate. We warned you this would happen. Now, we must organize, stand up, and remain defiant. Show Notes: Devin Nunes and others linked to Trump Media became officers of a company soon after it made an unsuccessful $10 billion bid for Venezuelan-state-owned Citgo Petroleum's U.S. assets by Wendy Siegelman https://newstracs.com/devin-nunes-and-others-linked-to-trump-media-are-officers-of-a-company-that-bid-for-citgo/2026/01/01/ Learn from Venezuela's opposition: The Official Unofficial Record How do you count almost 12 million votes if you're not the government? This week, we bring you the extraordinary story of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who created the only verifiable public record of votes in their presidential election — and other stories of people trying to correct the official record with their own versions. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/848/the-official-unofficial-record Olga Lautman's Trump Tyranny Tracker: https://trumptyrannytracker.substack.com/ Venezuela raid enriches MAGA billionaire: The ouster of Maduro is a financial windfall for a prominent Trump-supporting billionaire, investor Paul Singer. https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/venezuela-raid-enriches-maga-billionaire?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email Opening clip: https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mbmostp3xk2j CNN Data Guru Reveals Trump's Devastating Drop in Approval Rating https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cnn-data-guru-reveals-trump-105250680.html Trump admin sends tough private message to oil companies on Venezuela: The White House has told companies they must rebuild Venezuela's crude-pumping infrastructure if they want compensation for assets seized by Caracas. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezuela-oil-us-companies-return-00709782 The U.S.-Venezuela-Guyana Oil Triangle https://drilled.media/news/guyana-venezuela Gabbard abruptly ousted CIA Russia expert days after Trump-Putin meeting https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/28/politics/gabbard-abruptly-ousted-cia-russia-expert-days-after-trump-putin-meeting Tulsi Gabbard's history with Russia is even more concerning than you think https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tulsi-gabbard-russian-connection-dni-trump-syria-b2692244.html Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit! This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
Philippines tells CPJ it will uphold due process ahead of Frenchie Mae Cumpio verdict
New York, January 7, 2026—The Philippines’ presidential office has told the Committee to Protect Journalists that it will uphold due process and protect the rights of journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, weeks before key judgments in a long-running case that could see her jailed for up to 40 years. On December 8, ahead of International Human...
New York, January 7, 2026—The Philippines’ presidential office has told the Committee to Protect Journalists that it will uphold due process and protect the rights of journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, weeks before key judgments in a long-running case that could see her jailed for up to 40 years. On December 8, ahead of International Human Rights Day, CPJ wrote to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urging him to free Cumpio, a 26-year-old journalist who has been held in detention for nearly six years since her arrest in February 2020 on charges of illegal possession of firearms and financing terrorism. In a response on behalf of Marcos, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security said in a December 22 letter to CPJ that while the president’s executive powers cannot be invoked at this time to secure Cumpio’s release, the Marcos administration “is dedicated to protecting her rights and upholding due process to ensure a legitimate and lasting resolution.” It added that upcoming verdicts in Cumpio’s case “will be critical for recognizing her rights.” A court in Tacloban, a central Philippine city on Leyte island, is due to rule on the firearms charge on January 22, and the financing terrorism charge on February 9. CPJ has been advocating for Cumpio’s release for years. “We are encouraged by the Philippine government’s pledge to protect Frenchie Mae Cumpio’s rights. It is high time to end the injustice,” said CPJ Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi. “Authorities must now turn words into action and right past wrongs. Cumpio has been targeted for her critical journalism and each day she spends in jail is a travesty of justice.” Read the Philippine government’s letter to CPJ in full here. CPJ’s December 8 letter to Marcos can be read here. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
The courts, American institutions, and the public can still reject the lawlessness of the Trump Administration.
The courts, American institutions, and the public can still reject the lawlessness of the Trump Administration. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Bill Lueders.
It’s not drugs, democracy, or even oil. It’s power.
It’s not drugs, democracy, or even oil. It’s power. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Stephen Zunes.
Artificial intelligence is endangering lives and privacy, especially for survivors, children, and people seeking reproductive care.
Artificial intelligence is endangering lives and privacy, especially for survivors, children, and people seeking reproductive care. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Sylvia Ghazarian.
Why America Must Rewrite Charter School Laws Now
Research shows charter school laws enable mismanagement, profiteering, and instability at the expense of students and taxpayers.
Research shows charter school laws enable mismanagement, profiteering, and instability at the expense of students and taxpayers. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Carol Burris.
Resisting Attacks on Academic Freedom / Ellen Schrecker
On this episode of CounterPunch Radio, Erik Wallenberg and Joshua Frank welcome Ellen Schrecker to discuss the legacy of McCarthyism and the current right-wing attack on academic freedom in the U.S., and why the situation is even worse today than it was in the 1950s. Ellen Schrecker is an American historian and author who has More The post Resisting Attacks on Academic Freedom / Ellen Schrecker appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
On this episode of CounterPunch Radio, Erik Wallenberg and Joshua Frank welcome Ellen Schrecker to discuss the legacy of McCarthyism and the current right-wing attack on academic freedom in the U.S., and why the situation is even worse today than it was in the 1950s. Ellen Schrecker is an American historian and author who has written extensively about McCarthyism and American higher education. She is the author of many books, including The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s, published by the University of Chicago Press, which provides the first comprehensive analysis of American higher education’s most turbulent decade. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard, taught there and at NYU and Princeton, and later joined Yeshiva University, from which she retired as a full professor. Head over and grab some books from the best shop, Pilsen Community Books. The post Resisting Attacks on Academic Freedom / Ellen Schrecker appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by CounterPunch Radio.
Trump’s January 6 Coup Ushered in the New World Order
With Trump's unpunished coup, we officially entered a New World Order. And it's a lot like the car-bomb 1990s in Russia–a lawless era where the biggest oligarch wins. But the crisis is bigger than Trump. It also comes down to the American elite hitting the panic button on China. While China secures global influence through infrastructure and green tech, the U.S. has reverted to the Monroe Doctrine. We are seeing this with the illegal invasion of Venezuela and the impending invasions of Greenland and Mexico. The objective is resource acquisition: oil from the south and rare earth minerals from the north. Their premature celebrations and promise of big oil money are Bush/Cheney hubris. Successfully extracting Venezuela's famously challenging oil would require major oil giants to commit roughly $10 billion annually in a viper's den of Russian intelligence agents and fierce anti-American resistance, thanks to generations of traumatic American foreign policy in the region. The Venezuela crisis is larger than Trump, as Andrea explains in this recording from Monday's salon with Gaslit Nation listeners. The American empire is throwing a violent tantrum against Chinese global dominance. This leaves Europe abandoned to fight Russian terrorism and genocidal imperialism on its own. And once again, the arrogant Washington, D.C. elite think tank world underestimates Russia–the same stupidity that helped bring Trump to power in the first place, with the Kremlin's illegal help. Trump and the Pentagon are banking on "shock and awe" to normalize their grab for resources. They want us to accept this lawlessness as the status quo. We must refuse. We must own our agency and demand a future defined by democracy and the global community, not the violent whims of the highest bidder. January 6 is a day of national mourning and rage. Commemorate this dark day by shining your light into the world. Find ideas to fight back at the Gaslit Nation Action Guide. And see you at Monday's Salon at 4pm ET on Patreon. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!
With Trump's unpunished coup, we officially entered a New World Order. And it's a lot like the car-bomb 1990s in Russia–a lawless era where the biggest oligarch wins. But the crisis is bigger than Trump. It also comes down to the American elite hitting the panic button on China. While China secures global influence through infrastructure and green tech, the U.S. has reverted to the Monroe Doctrine. We are seeing this with the illegal invasion of Venezuela and the impending invasions of Greenland and Mexico. The objective is resource acquisition: oil from the south and rare earth minerals from the north. Their premature celebrations and promise of big oil money are Bush/Cheney hubris. Successfully extracting Venezuela's famously challenging oil would require major oil giants to commit roughly $10 billion annually in a viper's den of Russian intelligence agents and fierce anti-American resistance, thanks to generations of traumatic American foreign policy in the region. The Venezuela crisis is larger than Trump, as Andrea explains in this recording from Monday's salon with Gaslit Nation listeners. The American empire is throwing a violent tantrum against Chinese global dominance. This leaves Europe abandoned to fight Russian terrorism and genocidal imperialism on its own. And once again, the arrogant Washington, D.C. elite think tank world underestimates Russia–the same stupidity that helped bring Trump to power in the first place, with the Kremlin's illegal help. Trump and the Pentagon are banking on "shock and awe" to normalize their grab for resources. They want us to accept this lawlessness as the status quo. We must refuse. We must own our agency and demand a future defined by democracy and the global community, not the violent whims of the highest bidder. January 6 is a day of national mourning and rage. Commemorate this dark day by shining your light into the world. Find ideas to fight back at the Gaslit Nation Action Guide. And see you at Monday's Salon at 4pm ET on Patreon. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit! This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
Papua New Guinea fully retires debt for Liquefied Natural Gas project
SPECIAL REPORT: By Scott Waide, RNZ Pacific PNG correspondent Papua New Guinea’s largest resource development has reached a milestone more than a decade in the making. The PNG Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project has fully retired its bank-financed project debt, closing one of the most complex financing arrangements in the country’s economic history. The debt,
SPECIAL REPORT: By Scott Waide, RNZ Pacific PNG correspondent Papua New Guinea’s largest resource development has reached a milestone more than a decade in the making. The PNG Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project has fully retired its bank-financed project debt, closing one of the most complex financing arrangements in the country’s economic history. The debt, raised in the late 2000s to fund construction of onshore and offshore infrastructure, totalled about US$16 billion, including interest. READ MORE: Other PNG LNG Project reports Although liquefied natural gas exports began in 2014, repayments continued for more than a decade, limiting how much revenue flowed to equity holders, including the state through Kumul Petroleum Holdings, which holds a 19.4 percent stake. In December 2025, joint venture partners accelerated the final repayment, clearing the facility around six months ahead of schedule. Sustained production, disciplined cost control and favourable global LNG prices helped bring forward the close, removing a long-standing financial constraint from the project. Prime Minister James Marape described the milestone as a national achievement during a site visit to the LNG facilities. “PNG LNG is now debt-free. It is a free-standing, world-class asset for the country,” he said, linking the early repayment to Papua New Guinea’s credibility as a destination for large-scale global investment. The Prime Minister has pointed to the project’s long delivery arc — from financing during the global financial crisis to more than a decade of continuous operations — as evidence that PNG can sustain projects of international scale. What changes now With the project finance facility closed, PNG LNG’s future revenues will no longer be directed first to servicing debt. After operating costs, cash will flow directly to shareholders, including Kumul Petroleum and, by extension, the state. That reshapes the project’s financial profile. It does not create an immediate budget windfall, but it improves long-term income prospects and balance-sheet flexibility for PNG’s national oil company. Kumul Petroleum chairman Gerea Aopi said the timing was strategically important as PNG prepares for its next major gas development. “Our increased income will strategically flow into and assist us to put together the necessary finance for PNG to take up its mandated 22.5 percent equity in the forthcoming Papua LNG Project, especially during its four-to-five-year construction period,” he said. Aopi cautioned the announcement should not be read as a sudden cash surplus, noting future income remains exposed to global petroleum prices and largely committed to upcoming obligations. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-121999" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marape-Exxon-Mobil-workers-RNZ-680wide.png" alt="Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape (front and centre) meets with Exxon-Mobil workers" width="680" height="423" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marape-Exxon-Mobil-workers-RNZ-680wide.png 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marape-Exxon-Mobil-workers-RNZ-680wide-300x187.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marape-Exxon-Mobil-workers-RNZ-680wide-356x220.png 356w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marape-Exxon-Mobil-workers-RNZ-680wide-675x420.png 675w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape (front and centre) meets with Exxon-Mobil workers. Image: Office of the Prime Minister/RNZ Pacific How PNG compares with Malaysia and Indonesia A useful comparison is often drawn with Malaysia and Indonesia, resource-rich neighbours that developed their oil and gas sectors earlier under different institutional models. Malaysia centralised its hydrocarbons industry under Petronas, a commercially run national oil company with broad autonomy. Profits were reinvested domestically over decades, helping fund infrastructure, education and industrial diversification while reducing reliance on raw commodity exports. Indonesia followed a hybrid approach through Pertamina, operating alongside international partners under production-sharing contracts. While governance challenges persisted, the model allowed the state to retain resource ownership while building domestic capability over time. Papua New Guinea entered the LNG era later and adopted a project-finance joint-venture model, anchored by foreign operators and lenders. The state participates primarily as an equity partner through Kumul Petroleum rather than as an operator or sector-wide manager. Large upfront borrowing was repaid from future LNG revenues, meaning debt servicing took priority over dividends for much of PNG LNG’s life. The retirement of PNG LNG’s debt narrows the gap with regional peers, but it does not change the underlying model PNG follows — one reliant on project-by-project financing rather than a fully integrated national oil company structure. That distinction now shapes decisions around Papua LNG and P’nyang, where the question is not only how much equity PNG holds, but how revenues are managed once construction and financing pressures return. From one mega-project to the next With PNG LNG’s debt chapter closed, attention turns to the next phase of the gas industry. Projects such as Papua LNG and P’nyang are intended to extend exports well into the 2030s, but they bring fresh financing needs, risks and negotiations. Supporters argue that retiring PNG LNG’s debt early strengthens investor confidence and shows PNG can honour long-term agreements. Each new project, however, will reopen familiar debates over equity, landowner benefits and the balance between fiscal returns and long-term development. The early retirement of PNG LNG’s project debt closes a significant chapter in Papua New Guinea’s resource history. Whether it marks a decisive shift in how resource wealth supports long-term development — or simply resets the cycle ahead of the next mega-project — will depend on the choices that follow. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Editorial Boards Cheer Trump Doctrine in Venezuela
Rather than worrying the US will encourage other countries to behave lawlessly, US papers could be more concerned about their own country's lawlessness.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” Mark Twain allegedly quipped. On January 3, 1990, Panamanian Commander Manuel Noriega surrendered to US forces, who carried him off to face drug charges. Thirty-six years to the day later, US forces swooped into Venezuela, abducting President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, following decades of hostility between the oil-rich socialist country and the United States. The pretext offered: Maduro had to be taken to the US to face drug charges. The coincidence is a reminder that the US has a long history of both covert and military intervention in Latin America: President Donald Trump, as extreme as he might be, isn’t an outlier among American presidents in this regard. And despite the right’s attempt to paint Trump as some sort of peacenik (Compact, 4/7/23; X, 10/14/25), he is no less an imperialist than his predecessors. And that’s precisely why many of the nation’s leading editorial pages are hailing Maduro’s capture. ‘Hemispheric hygiene’ To the Wall Street Journal (1/3/26), the devastation of Venezuela’s economy was not the intentional effect of US sanctions, but part of President Nicolás Maduro’s sinister scheme to “flood…the US with migrants in an effort to sow political discord.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board (1/3/26) called the abductions “an act of hemispheric hygiene,” a dehumanizing comparison of Venezuela’s leaders to germs needing to be cleansed. For the Journal, the abductions were justified because they weren’t just a blow to Venezuela, but to the rest of America’s official enemies. “The dictator was also part of the axis of US adversaries that includes Russia, China, Cuba and Iran,” it said. It called Maduro’s “capture…a demonstration of Mr. Trump’s declaration to keep America’s enemies from spreading chaos in the Western Hemisphere.” It amplified Trump’s own rhetoric of adding on to the Roosevelt Corollary, saying “It’s the ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine”—a nod to the long-standing imperial notion that the US more or less owns the Western Hemisphere. The next day, the Journal editorial board (1/4/26) even seemed upset that the Trump administration didn’t go far enough in Venezuela, worrying that it left the socialist regime in place, whose “new leaders rely so much on aid from Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.” “Despite Mr. Trump’s vow that the US will ‘run the country,’ there is no one on the ground to do so,” the paper complained, thus reducing “the US ability to persuade the regime.” The Washington Post board (1/3/26) took a similar view to the Journal. “This is a major victory for American interests,” it wrote. “Just hours before, supportive Chinese officials held a chummy meeting with Maduro, who had also been propped up by Russia, Cuba and Iran.” Washington Post (1/3/26): “Trump had telegraphed for months that Maduro could not remain in power, yet Venezuela’s illegitimate leader clung on.” The effrontery! The Post, which has moved steadily to the right since Trump’s inauguration a year ago, seemed to endorse extreme “might makes right” militarism. “Maduro’s removal sends an important message to tin-pot dictators in Latin America and the world: Trump follows through,” the board wrote. (Really? Did we miss when Trump “followed through” on his promise to end the Ukraine War within 24 hours? Or to take back the Panama Canal? Or make Canada the 51st state?) It belittled Democratic President Joe Biden, who “offered sanctions relief to Venezuela, and Maduro responded to that show of weakness by stealing an election.” Like the Journal, the Post board (1/4/26) followed up a day later to push Trump to take a more active role in Venezuela’s future. It worried about his decision to leave in place “dyed-in-the-wool Chavista” Delcy Rodriguez and other “hard-liners” in Maduro’s administration. The Post chided Trump for dismissing the idea of installing opposition leader María Corina Machado, who it deemed a worthy partner in imperial prospects: “She has a strong record of standing for democracy and free markets, and she’s committed to doing lucrative business with the US.” As with the Journal, the assumption that it’s up to the US to choose Venezuela’s leadership went unquestioned. ‘Fueled economic and political disruption’ The New York Times editorialists (1/3/26) were an exception in not prioritizing their hatred of Maduro over international law—though they made it clear that they do hate Maduro. The New York Times editorial board (1/3/26), on the other hand, condemned the abductions, saying Trump’s attack “represents a dangerous and illegal approach to America’s place in the world.” But the board only did so after the requisite vilifying, asserting that “few people will feel any sympathy for Mr. Maduro. He is undemocratic and repressive, and has destabilized the Western Hemisphere in recent years.” You’re writing from the country that has spent the past four months blowing up small craft in the Caribbean, and you think it’s Maduro who has “destabilized the Western Hemisphere”? Even as CBS News content czar Bari Weiss spiked a 60 Minutes piece about the plight of Venezuelan migrants under the administration’s brutal round-ups, the Times editorial blamed Maduro alone for the humanitarian crisis at hand. “He has fueled economic and political disruption throughout the region by instigating an exodus of nearly 8 million migrants,” the editorial said. As is typical in US commentary on Venezuela (FAIR.org, 2/6/19), the word “sanctions” does not appear in the editorial, though US strictures have fueled an economic collapse three times worse than the Great Depression. And it comes after the Times opinion page gave space calling for regime change in Venezuela. “Washington should approach dismantling the Maduro regime as we would any criminal enterprise,” wrote Jimmy Story (New York Times, 12/26/25), a former US ambassador to Venezuela. Right-wing Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote a piece simply headlined “The Case for Overthrowing Maduro” (11/17/25). The Times didn’t mention the recent seizures of ships carrying Venezuelan oil (BBC, 12/21/25; Houston Public Media, 12/22/25)—or the issue of Venezuela’s oil at all, though even the paper’s own news section (1/3/25) admitted that oil was “central” to the kidnapping. ​“They stole our oil,” Trump dubiously claimed in his public address, bragging that the door to the country was now open to have “very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars…and start making money for the country.” These are glaring oversights by the Times board, even if it ultimately waved its finger at the administration for its military action. Contrast this to the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle (1/3/26), which serves a huge portion of the energy sector: Even now we’re still asking: Why? Why is the US taking such drastic military action? Is it to “take back” our oil? To deport Venezuelans en masse? To fight drug trafficking? To send a message to Cuba? Perhaps this cloud of justifications just conceals the truth—there is no real reason. Trump seems to be doing this because he can. ‘Not a guarantee’ “Maduro Had to Be Removed,” the Dallas Morning News (1/3/26) editorialized—”for the cause of human freedom around the world.” Elsewhere in the press, the operation against Maduro won support from editorial boards that also reserved the right to say “I told you so.” “Maduro Had to Be Removed,” said the Dallas Morning News editorial board (1/3/26) in its headline, adding in the subhead, “But the US Cannot ‘Run’ Venezuela.” And the Miami Herald editorial board (1/3/26), which serves a large anti-socialist Latin American population, said that while Maduro out of power was “obviously cause for enormous joy,” this was “not a guarantee for democracy.” “Is Trump’s true interest to see democracy in Venezuela,” it asked, “or to install a new leader who’s more friendly to the US and its interests in the nation’s oil reserves?” The Chicago Tribune editorial board (1/5/25) heaped paragraphs of praise on the Maduro mission—”we don’t lament Maduro’s exit for a moment”—and scoffed at “left-wing mayors” who “howled in protest at the weekend actions.” But it saw a moral dilemma: What moral authority does the US now have if, say, China, removes the Taiwanese leadership, deeming it incompatible with Chinese interests? Not much. And this action surely weakens the moral argument against Vladimir Putin, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now hoping Russia’s leader is the next authoritarian Trump takes out. The New York Times editorial board (12/21/89) said something similar 36 years ago, when the US invaded Panama. While justifying the invasion, it asked, “What kind of precedent does the invasion set for potential Soviet action in Eastern Europe?” Perhaps rather than worrying that US behavior will encourage some other country to behave lawlessly, US papers could be more concerned about their own country’s lawlessness. By kidnapping a foreign head of state, the Trump administration is saying that international law doesn’t apply to the United States. That’s a sentiment most American editorialists are all too ready to applaud—despite the danger it poses for Americans, and for the world. This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Ari Paul.
"He just can’t stop talking about the oil"
"Donroe Doctrine": How Trump is bringing 19th-century imperial ambitions to Latin America
At least 14 journalists detained during presidential inauguration in Venezuela
Mexico City, January 6, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the detention of at least 14 journalists and media workers in Caracas during the inauguration ceremony of Delcy Rodríguez as president, and urges Venezuelan authorities to guarantee that journalists can report freely without intimidation, surveillance, or retaliation. On January 5, 13 journalists and media...
Mexico City, January 6, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the detention of at least 14 journalists and media workers in Caracas during the inauguration ceremony of Delcy Rodríguez as president, and urges Venezuelan authorities to guarantee that journalists can report freely without intimidation, surveillance, or retaliation. On January 5, 13 journalists and media workers affiliated with international media outlets and news agencies, and one working for a national outlet, were detained while covering the inauguration, according to information documented by Venezuela’s National Union of Press Workers. Thirteen of those detained were later released without being formally presented before judicial authorities, while one journalist was deported, the union reported. While the identities of most of those detained have been withheld for security reasons, Venezuelan press freedom organization Espacio Público reported that the deported journalist is Stefano Pozzebon of CNN. “These detentions are part of a broader pattern of intimidation aimed at obstructing independent coverage of events of public interest,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ Latin America program coordinator. “Venezuelan authorities must immediately end practices that expose journalists to surveillance and arbitrary detention, and ensure that the press can work safely and without fear.” The press workers’ union documented that, during the detentions, security officials searched journalistic equipment, forced journalists to unlock their mobile phones, and reviewed calls, messages, and activity on messaging platforms and social media. The detentions occurred inside the National Assembly, in surrounding areas, and in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas. In a related incident, on January 4 — the day of the US military operation that plucked leader Nicolás Maduro from power and removed him from the country — officers from Venezuela’s intelligence police, SEBIN, detained two reporters for several hours while they were covering a security operation at the border between Colombia and Venezuela, according to Espacio Público. Luis Carlos Vélez, a journalist from the US spanish speaking outlet Univision Noticias, said on social media that officers checked their documents and mobile phones and deleted journalistic material before releasing them. Journalists Nakary Mena Ramos, Gianni González and Rory Branker are currently imprisoned in Venezuela, according to CPJ. CPJ sent emails requesting comment to Venezuela’s Interior Ministry and the presidency but did not receive an immediate response. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 6, 2026
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 6, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 6, 2026 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
‘They Beat Everyone’: How Iranian Medical Staff Protected Shot Protesters
Analysis: Trump Offshore Drilling Plan Could Generate 4,000+ Oil Spills
The Trump administration’s proposal to dramatically ramp up offshore oil drilling could lead to 4,232 oil spills, dumping 12.1 million gallons of oil into ocean waters, according to an analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity.The Center’s spill...
The Trump administration’s proposal to dramatically ramp up offshore oil drilling could lead to 4,232 oil spills, dumping 12.1 million gallons of oil into ocean waters, according to an analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center’s spill analysis of Trump’s draft 2026-2031 leasing plan is based on historical data and federal records. “Our analysis shows that Trump’s ridiculously reckless drilling plan could cause thousands of new oil spills, threatening almost every U.S. coast,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Nobody wants beaches and marine life coated in crude, but that’ll be our future if Trump’s scheme goes forward. Every new drilling project signs us up for decades of problems, and our wildlife and coastal economies will suffer the most.” Today’s analysis assumes average spill rates for platforms and pipelines based on 1974-2015 data. It does not include catastrophic events like the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which released more than 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Trump’s draft plan calls for as many as 34 offshore oil and gas lease sales over the next five years. It could open up as much as 1.27 billion acres of federal waters to drilling off California, Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. That amount is far more than previous administrations have offered. It is in addition to 36 offshore oil lease sales mandated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Center’s oil spill calculations and estimates for each planning area are available here and FAQs for the projections are here. By the administration’s own estimates, the increase in extraction and fossil fuel combustion could also add as much greenhouse gas pollution to the atmosphere as burning nearly 200 billion pounds of coal. Several imperiled species are at risk from increased drilling: Pacific Sea otter: Known for their thick furry coats, sea otters once inhabited the entire U.S. Pacific coast, all the way from Alaska down to Baja California. Sea otters are especially vulnerable to oil spills that coat their fur, ruining their natural insulation against the cold. Otters already face oil spill threats from existing offshore drilling near the southern part of their current range, and expanded drilling could halt recovery and reintroduction efforts. Southern resident killer whale: These orcas spend most of their time in the Pacific Northwest, but regularly travel as far south as Monterey, California. Running into an oil spill in Northern California could devastate this genetically distinct population, which is down to just 74 individuals. Blue whale: The largest seasonal aggregation of these enormous mammals occurs in the Santa Barbara Channel off California, an area already at risk of oil spills from existing drilling nearby. Blue whale populations have been steadily growing since whaling wiped out an estimated 99% of the species, but they still have a long way to go. Pacific leatherback sea turtle: As ancient as the dinosaurs, these turtles migrate all the way from Indonesia and then along the West Coast to feed on jellyfish and other gelatinous prey. Leatherbacks are the heaviest reptiles on Earth, and their population is already declining from existing threats such as fishing gear entanglement. Gulf of Mexico Black-capped petrel: These far-traveling seabirds forage in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic coast, returning to raise their young on Hispaniola, the island of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Also called diablotín, or “little devil,” for their eerie night calls, the petrel’s population has declined quickly, and oil spills could kill the food sources they fly hundreds of miles to find. Additionally, artificial lighting from offshore oil platforms disorients migrating seabirds and even causes them to collide with platforms. Rice’s whale: The critically endangered Rice’s whale lives in the Gulf year-round, and only about 50 individuals remain. Scientists estimate that the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster killed about 20% of their population, and another major spill could wipe them out completely. As surface swimmers, the whales are also prone to ship strikes. Seismic airgun blasting used by the oil and gas industry disrupts their ability to communicate, find mates and care for their young. Kemp’s ridley sea turtle: Beaches along the Gulf are the primary nesting sites for these turtles, which have rebounded from near-extinction thanks to breeding programs and conservation interventions. But they are still highly imperiled and their continued recovery relies on a healthy Gulf ecosystem, which more oil spills could easily disrupt. Alaska Bowhead whale: Arctic oil drilling and climate charge are the primary threats for these cold-water giants. Bowhead populations have come back from the brink thanks to commercial whaling prohibitions, but the whales are now contending with a changing habitat due to melting sea ice. Pacific walrus: The Center has been fighting for endangered species protections for the blubbery tusked walrus for almost two decades. Exploratory offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea posed a huge risk to walrus habitat, until the Center and allies blocked the project. Trump’s plan revives the threat. Cook Inlet beluga whale: The population of these small, white whales is only about 330. They face threats from existing oil and gas extraction, commercial shipping and climate change. Cook Inlet is already crowded with industry and at risk of spills, and ramping up drilling could be fatal for these belugas. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Top U.S. & World Headlines — January 6, 2026
Report: Major outlets informed of plan to abduct Maduro, but withheld reporting
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="The front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue during a rainy night on January 24, 2024 in New York City. Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images" data-attachment-id="340072" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/new-york-times-washington-post-maduro-venezuela/new-york-city-exteriors-and-landmarks" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-7RM5","caption":"NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 24: The front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue during a rainy night on January 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1706125229","copyright":"2024 Craig T Fruchtman","focal_length":"16","iso":"1250","shutter_speed":"0.008","title":"New York City Exteriors And Landmarks","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="New York City Exteriors And Landmarks" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" The front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue during a rainy night on January 24, 2024 in New York City. Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> The New York Times and The Washington Post reportedly sought to “avoid endangering US troops.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="The front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue during a rainy night on January 24, 2024 in New York City. Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340072" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/new-york-times-washington-post-maduro-venezuela/new-york-city-exteriors-and-landmarks" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-7RM5","caption":"NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 24: The front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue during a rainy night on January 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1706125229","copyright":"2024 Craig T Fruchtman","focal_length":"16","iso":"1250","shutter_speed":"0.008","title":"New York City Exteriors And Landmarks","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="New York City Exteriors And Landmarks" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" The front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue during a rainy night on January 24, 2024 in New York City. Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-1958875866-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="218" data-attachment-id="277549" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/half-a-million-south-korean-workers-walk-off-jobs-in-general-strike/truthout-logo" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?fit=874%2C244&ssl=1" data-orig-size="874,244" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1634742558","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="truthout-logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?fit=300%2C84&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?fit=780%2C218&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?resize=780%2C218&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-277549 size-full" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?w=874&ssl=1 874w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?resize=300%2C84&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?resize=768%2C214&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?resize=400%2C112&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?resize=706%2C197&ssl=1 706w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/truthout-logo.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> This story was originally published on Truthout on Jan. 05, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. Major American news outlets were informed of the Trump administration’s plan to bombard Venezuela and abduct its president ahead of the operation early Saturday morning, but withheld their reporting on the operation to protect the military, Semafor reports. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post knew about the raid before President Donald Trump approved it on Friday night at 10:46 pm, Semafor reported over the weekend. However, according to two people familiar with the administration’s communications with the outlets, they “held off publishing what they knew to avoid endangering U.S. troops.” The report raises major questions about the media’s role in the operation, which has been widely condemned as an illegal and authoritarian action by legal experts and foreign leaders; Semafor describes the withholding of coverage as potential “cooperation” with the military by news outlets. Major news outlets in the U.S. have a history of coordinating with the Pentagon in order to protect military operations. As Semafor notes, The New York Times reportedly withheld a story about the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 before the Cuban invasion at the behest of the Kennedy administration. There are numerous other such examples. In the mid-2000s, the Times withheld a major report on the National Security Agency’s campaign of warrantless spying on American citizens, Stellar Wind, for a year at the Bush administration’s request. Most recently, The Atlantic withheld a potential report on a planned U.S. attack on Yemen that was the central focus of Signalgate. That attack, which the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was notified about two hours in advance, killed 15 people, including six children, one of them a newborn baby. Goldberg noted that he wasn’t clear about the authenticity of the Signal chat. However, even in his article exposing the existence of the chat, he still withheld some of the most sensitive information that government officials discussed. In reality, major outlets often protect government operations because those in charge at the outlets support them, a phenomenon those on the left have noted is observable in the practice of manufactured consent. After the Trump administration’s attack on Saturday, The Washington Post editorial board — which owner Jeff Bezos has revamped to be more conservative — published an editorial celebrating the abduction, calling the operation that killed at least 80 people, including civilians, an “unquestionable tactical success.” Meanwhile, U.K. writer Owen Jones reported on Monday that BBC has directed its reporters to avoid using the word “kidnapped” when referring to the U.S.’s abduction of Maduro. Instead, according to the reported directive posted online by Jones, journalists are to use “seized” or “captured,” with attribution to the U.S. for the latter term — despite even Trump saying that kidnapping is “not a bad term” to use to describe the action. This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Sharon Zhang.
Trump & US oil-igarchy want to ‘run Venezuela.’ How is Latin America responding?
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Protesters participate in a rally near the U.S. embassy to denounce the U.S. attack on Venezuela on January 05, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images" data-attachment-id="340050" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/trump-us-oil-igarchy-want-to-run-venezuela-how-is-latin-america-responding/gettyimages-2254688907" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="GettyImages-2254688907" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Protesters participate in a rally near the U.S. embassy to denounce the U.S. attack on Venezuela on January 05, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> “Whenever there is an imperial attack from the United States, whenever there is some type of intervention, there is always a huge backlash.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Protesters participate in a rally near the U.S. embassy to denounce the U.S. attack on Venezuela on January 05, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340050" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/trump-us-oil-igarchy-want-to-run-venezuela-how-is-latin-america-responding/gettyimages-2254688907" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="GettyImages-2254688907" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Protesters participate in a rally near the U.S. embassy to denounce the U.S. attack on Venezuela on January 05, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254688907-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> In the early, pre-dawn hours of Saturday, Jan. 3, the US invaded and bombed the sovereign country of Venezuela, and kidnapped Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro and the First Lady of Venezuela, Cilia Flores. This is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country, and President Trump made the purpose of the invasion very clear: oil. What will happen to Venezuela’s government now? What will be the geopolitical fallout in the Western Hemisphere from this stunning act of imperial intervention? How does this period of US intervention in Latin America compare to previous ones? TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Latin America correspondent Michael Fox break down your questions. Additional links/info: Michael Fox, The Real News Network, “Trump invades Venezuela, kidnaps Maduro, and hurls the Western hemisphere into chaos” Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / The Real News Network, “Trump’s piracy in the Caribbean won’t end with Venezuela” Michael Fox, Under the Shadow (podcast series) Credits: Production: Maximillian Alvarez Post-Production: David Hebden Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Maximillian Alvarez: In the early pre-dawn hours of Saturday, January 3rd, the US administration of self-proclaimed Peace President Donald Trump invaded and bombed the sovereign country of Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and the First Lady of Venezuela, Celia Flores. As our Latin America based correspondent, Michael Fox reports for the real news, “This is the first US invasion of another country in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, when the US kidnapped and detained Panamanian President Manuel Noriega under charges of drug trafficking. The Trump administration used the same excuses on Saturday to detain Maduro, despite lack of evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking. Despite the fact that Trump recently pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez of his own drug trafficking conviction. And despite the fact that Trump broke internationational law and according to lawmakers in his own party, violated the US Constitution to carry out Saturday’s operation. Trump’s attacks on Venezuela Mark are returned to a terrifying, not so distant past when the United States felt emboldened and entitled to carry out unilateral military action against sovereign nations to achieve its goals. Trump’s Monroe Doctrine 2.0. But with this strike, the United States has taken an unprecedented step. This is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country. President Trump claimed at a press conference on Saturday that the United States would quote, run the country of Venezuela and would be quote, very strongly involved in the operation of Venezuela’s oil industry. It’s hard to guess what will happen next, but one thing is clear. The fallout across Latin America will be severe. All right. So to break down the frankly mind melting developments that have unfolded this weekend in the Western hemisphere, I’m honored to be joined on The Real News right now by Michael Fox himself. And we’re recording this interview on Sunday, January 4th. And frankly, there is still a whole lot that we do not know about the situation right now. And we’re going to be bringing you continued coverage on the real news as developments continue to unfold. But we’re going to start by trying to break down what we do know with the information we do have as of right now. So Mike, thank you so much for joining us today, brother, and thank you for all the reporting. I really appreciate it. I want to just jump right in and start with the basics like break it down for folks watching. What do we know about what happened in Venezuela this weekend? Michael Fox: We now know that Trump issued the strike order at 10:46 Eastern Standard Time, which was 11:46 on the evening on last Friday evening. Aircraft, 1150 aircraft were used in the strike from roughly 20 different bases and locations across Latin America. They flew in the direction of Karakas and started bombing and raiding the city at right around 2:00 AM. And they raided … I mean, Karaka’s residents and people, not just in Karakas, but several different states around the country, you had bomb explosions happening all over the place. People are hearing them, people are waking up, people are afraid. At around that time, they arrived to the residency of President Nicholas Maduro at around 2:00 AM local time. They detained him, they kidnapped him, they put him on a flight and they flew him out of the country. The total raid itself took roughly between three, four hours. Like I said, somewhere from 2:00 to 5:00, 2:00 to 6:00. There was a ton of disinformation or misinformation. People don’t know what’s happening. And if you can imagine, Max, that suddenly the United States has been saying that they’re going to be invading your country for months, if not years and decades, and suddenly it’s now happening, but you don’t know, are there people on the ground? Are there troops on the ground? Are there aircraft? What is happening? You have no idea. So kind of new started to leak out. People started to get word of what had actually happened, the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores. They were put on a ship and they are now in New York City where their underaccusation of drug trafficking charges very similar to what we saw in 1989 in Panama with Manuel Noriega. In Venezuela itself, Delci Rodriguez has become the interim president. She was the vice president before. She’s kind of the most pro- business member of the Maduro government, but she’s been a longtime member. I mean, going back decades of a top member of the Maduro government sitting in many different ministries, the head of many different ministries over the years. She is now the interim president while Maduro is out of the country. They’re not saying that Muduru has gone. They’re not saying he is no longer the president. They’re saying she’s the interim president during this period of time. And like you said, so many people have so many questions. This is still, so many things are up in the air. Like you mentioned, Trump talked about … He gave an hour long press conference on Saturday, which he said many, many things, including we are going to run Venezuela, we’re going to run the oil. And some of that stuff we can get into, what does that actually mean? But just to put this in perspective, it is a shocking development, a terrifying return to a dark age in the Western hemisphere with the United States felt like it had the police and the reason and the rule and the might to do whatever it wanted with the region. And it’s clear that Trump wants to use that and wants to return to that moment, lifting up kind of the image of the Monroe doctrine to push his goals by any means necessary in the region. And it’s terrifying, not just for Venezuela, but for countries up and down the Western hemisphere. Maximillian Alvarez: Yeah, man. I mean, at that press conference, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to pretty obviously hint that countries like Cuba, Colombia, even Mexico could face similar fates. And this is frankly really hard to wrap our heads around, but like you said, we’ll dig into as much as we can, but I want to start with what is happening on the ground there in Venezuela because you used to live and report from Karacas. I wanted to ask, there is so much misinformation, so much selective information flying around online right now. I basically have people blowing up my mentions on every social media platform saying like, “Oh, everyone in Venezuela is in the streets cheering this on and celebrating what Trump did on Saturday.” And it feels like a redux of Iraq in that vein. So I don’t want to ask you to speak for the whole of Venezuela because the basic point should be Venezuela is a big country with a lot of people in it who feel differently about these things, but what are you hearing from folks on the ground in and around Karakas? Was this surprising to them? How are they dealing with all of this now? Michael Fox: It’s interesting, Max, because even when I was living there in the mid 2000s, there was always talk of a potential US invasion all the time. Or there was a threat or something that was always just rolled out. And so it’s been a constant in the back of people’s minds. And of course now with the buildup in the Caribbean, we’ve seen the largest amassing of boats and warships, the largest warship on the planet, 15,000 personnel, US personnel are now stationed in different ports and parts of the Caribbean. And so clearly people understood that Trump was threatening this a potential invasion. And I’ve actually been asking people there, I was speaking with a lot of people on the ground in Karaka, some old friends and journalists and most of them said even then it was still a shock. Even if you went to bed at night every single night knowing, well, something could happen tonight, it’s still a shock when suddenly you hear the bombs falling and you’re awoken by the bombs nearby and particularly those people who live near Fuertetuna, which is one of the largest forts there in Karakas. I mean, some of the videos out of there are just shocking with like the buildings just rocking and people screaming. Children, people’s friends of mine, their kids are just crying and awakened by the bombs that are falling. And it’s just a terrifying situation and so reminiscent, like I mentioned before so many times, so reminiscent of my own speaking with people who lived through Panama 1989, such a similar situation. So that on the one hand is just this, no one knows what’s happening. No one knows if suddenly 20,000 troops are going to be invading their country and they’re going to be under occupation. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And almost everyone I’ve spoken with said that we just didn’t sleep that night. We’ve been up for, I don’t know how many hours. At this point, Venezuelan officials are trying to get things under control. Obviously Del Cio Rodriguez and many other members of the government interior minister, the Minister of Defense, they came out very, very quickly saying, “Look, we want to call for calm.” The defense forces have been, they’re on alert around the country at this point. This is after US troops had already detained and kidnapped Maduro and already like left the country. And so the main thing is right now is this sense of shock, this sense of violation that this could actually happen. Another country could just invade and do whatever they wanted with Venezuela with no repercussions up till now, but also a sense of kind of wanting to get back to some normalcy. There are no US troops on the ground right now in Venezuela. This was really kind of a shock and awe, we’re going to get in, we’re going to get the president and his wife and we’re going to get out, but still terrifying. It’s a shock. I mean, what we know up till now, at least 40 people have died and some of the images of the homes and the apartment buildings that were hit are very reminiscent of what we saw in Gaza or so many other places where the United States has carried out airstrikes and bombing raids. So it’s a terrifying moment. It’s a shock even though Trump has talked about this forever and the United States has talked about this for decades and yet still people are just kind of coming to grips. So many people I’ve spoken with have said like, “I can’t believe that was just yesterday and I can’t believe it. It seems almost like a dream Maximillian Alvarez: Still.” Yeah. I mean, it feels that way from afar too. And I think that there are obviously massive unanswered questions on like what’s going to happen with Venezuela’s government and Trump and his administration were pretty deliberately vague in the press conference on Saturday when they were asked those very same questions. I mean, I think a lot of folks assumed that leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Corina Mochalo, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, was going to just be plucked and installed as the new puppet leader of Venezuela. That did not happen. In fact, Trump threw cold water on that and said Machado did not have the support of the people there while at the same time he Fox and Friends, everybody on the right is saying that the Venezuelan people are jubilant and in the streets celebrating all of this. So those two messages seem to be in contradiction to one another. But also like as I said, the Bayer fact remains that Venezuela is a big country with a lot of people who did not like Maduro, who had very reasonable justifications to not be happy with life under Nicholas Maduro, under punishing sanctions from the United States. These are all really important, worthwhile topics of discussion that we can’t get into fully here, but I would highly recommend that anyone who wants to delve into them should follow Mike’s work and should listen to the work that Mike has done for the real news, particularly on his podcast Under the Shadow, where he does dig into these very questions. And also we published episodes of our podcast, Solidarity Without Exception that also goes into these nuances of the recent history and politics of Venezuela. So I would encourage folks who want to delve into those questions to go listen to those episodes. We’ll link to them in the show notes here. But I say that all to say that like, what is the government of Venezuela going to be moving forward? Trump himself said that the US was going to run the country of Venezuela. At the same time, Delci Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president has been sworn in as the interim president. The current government structure is still in place, but there is no functional way that the United States could run the country of Venezuela without a massive increase in military force in boots on the ground. So again, those are questions that we’re going to have to delve into as more information comes to light. But based on what we know now, Mike, how does Trump saying that the US is going to run Venezuela? How does that fit into the long history of US intervention in the region? Is there any precedent for this? Michael Fox: Yeah. So Max, I want to just jump to something first that you mentioned and then I’ll dive into that. And this is the first question. There really are questions like Trump’s, I want to run this. It seems like he’s holding the potential threat of an invasion, of another type of invasion, or he even mentioned in his press conference that it would be much bigger and it would be much greater if they don’t follow the line. So it seems like he’s trying to hold that over Delci Rodriguez and her kind of incoming interim government as a way to try and force them into submission to whatever it is that Trump wants and to whatever it is they want to push in terms of particularly the oil question. And then the other question is, and because this is important for Trump’s whole, his whole discourse on Saturday, this whole talk was about we’re getting the oil. That was his whole thing that Venezuela stole the oil, which is not true, and we’re taking it back and we’re going to run the oil. And I think people need to understand that when he says we, he’s actually meaning US corporations. And that’s the push and that’s kind of the new feature from what I’m speaking with analysts who understand the history of Latin America and the history of the Monroe doctrine. When he says we, now he’s really talking about US corporation. He’s talking about Exxon and whoever else might be involved in this. It’s not actually going to be … In fact, one of the people in the press conference on Saturday, one of the press effort actually asked him, wait, so like Marco Rubio and Defense Minister Hegseth, they’re going to be in Venezuela running things like that. He’s like, “No, no, no, but it’s a team. We’re doing this together.” So part of this is also Trump bluster, right? It’s just him like, “Look we have everything we did and it was so great and we’re the best in the world.” But it is going to be like, I think the next few weeks are going to be critical in terms of understanding exactly what Delci Rodriguez is going to be able to manage right now, having this threat of the boot of the United States overhead and having at the same time the Unitited States pushing this idea of that the oil is for us, right? And so you have to do that. And so Delsi’s really got to walk this tightrope at this point to try and be able to continue without Trump coming back. And that is the concern I think that of so many people, like is there going to be another invasion but way larger that could, you know, with boots on the ground and something like that. In terms of how this fits with the past, I mean, look, like we’ve mentioned several times, even just in our interview right now, the last time the United States invaded another country in Latin America, like full scale military invasion was 1989, December 20th, Panama, right? They flew in with more than 20,000 troops. They destroyed 20,000 homes. They killed hundreds of people, burring their bodies in mass graves and occupied the country essentially for days and then basically installed the puppet government that which the United States could then kind of rule over for a long period of time. And of course, that all had to do with the Panama Canal. It’s always about the assets. We can’t forget that. If this was a country that had nothing but, I don’t know, a couple of trees and some cows, the United States isn’t going to be invading. The United States has never invaded Uruguay. It’s had its hand over Uduwai, it’s threatened Uduwi, dictatorship, all this, but it’s never had boots on the ground on Ui because they don’t have the assets. You have the Panama Canal in Panama right now in Venezuela, you have the largest reserves of oil on the freaking planet. So that is why, and if you look at the numbers, I was looking at it the other day. If you look at the numbers of how big are the reserves of all the other countries, all of the other ones are outside of the Western hemisphere. So of course, Trump’s like, “Hey, let’s get some oil.” But in terms of running another country, usually what you’ve seen in the past, and I’m talking back in 1980s, or we’re going back even far further, the other precedent, of course, is the era of Teddy Roosevelt and his Roosevelt corollary when the United States would just send in Marines for literally years or decades, and they would kind of be there just to shore up the government and say, “Look, we’re here, so you better do what we want. ” I mean, that’s the precedent. Now, there’s a whole other thing when you talk about actually running like oil, that’s why for me and for most people, Trump isn’t going to send a whole team down. They’re going to say, “All right, we are now the oil barons of Venezuela, but he’s going to get in US corporations.” And of course, the United States has always defended US corporations and there’s united fruit in Guatemala and throughout Central America, literally ran those countries of Central America throughout the 1950s and 1960s. I mean, there was the coup that happened as we looked at and under the shadow in Guatemala, the coup against our bends was literally done in defense of united fruit, right? And so of course, US corporations have long been very important for the United States, but at this point, at least what some analysts who I’m talking with, they’re saying, no, it’s actually the goals of the corporations themselves that are dictating US foreign policy. And that’s this shift that we’re looking at. In the case of Panama, like running the Panama Canal or controlling the asset of the Panama Canal for at least a period of time for many years longer, that was the goal at that point. But there is no precedent in terms of like, “Oh, the United States is going to set up a petroleum and oil corporation and literally take all the oil.” That’s not going to be happening, but what is going to be happening is the United States wants US corporations on the ground. And in terms of that, if you look back over the last two centuries of US intervention in the region, US businesses, much of it has been because of or propping up US businesses, no doubt. Maximillian Alvarez: Well, let’s stick with that thread for a second, right? Because you produced an entire podcast called Under the Shadow with us at the Real News Network. It’s a phenomenal podcast, but the entire thing examines the history and legacy of US intervention in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine. Now, most people in this country have never heard of the Monroe Doctrine outside of like a junior high history class. And yet, here is President Donald Trump invoking the Monroe doctrine at the Saturday press conference after this invasion and operation in Venezuela. So let’s take a listen to that real quick. Speaker 3: In addition, Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms costing us billions and billions of dollars. They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property. It was our property. We built it and we never had a president that decided to do anything about it. Instead, they fought wars that were 10,000 miles away. We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations, and they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country, considered the largest theft of property in the history of our country. Massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies and we didn’t do anything about it. I would have done something about it. America will never allow foreign powers to rob our people or drive us back into and out of our own hemisphere. That’s what they did. Furthermore, under the now deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten US interest in lives. And they used those weapons last night. They used those weapons last night, potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border. All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy dating back more than two centuries and not anymore. All the way back, it dated to the Monroe doctrines and the Monroe doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe document. I don’t know. It’s Monroe doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don’t forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western hemmisphere will never be questioned again, won’t happen. So just in concluding, for decades, other administrations have neglected or even contributed to these growing security threats in the Western hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region and our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago. The future will be … And we did this in my first term. We had great dominance in my first term and we have far greater dominance right now. Everyone’s coming back to us. The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security. These are core to our national security. Just like tariffs are, they made our country rich and they’ve made our national security strong, stronger than ever before. But these are the iron laws that have always determined global power and we’re going to keep it that way. We will secure our borders. We’ll stop the terrorists. We will crash the cartels and we will defend our citizens against all threats, foreign and domestic. Other presidents may have lacked the courage or whatever to defend America, but I will never allow terrorists and criminals to operate with impunity against the United States. This extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives. Very importantly, the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect. The American Armada remains poised in position and the United States retains all military options until United States demands have been fully met and fully satisfied. All political and military figures and Venezuela should understand what happened to Medura can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren’t just fair, even to their people. The dictator and terrorist Maduro is finally gone and Venezuela. People are free. They’re free again. It’s been a long time for them, but they’re free. America is a safer nation this morning. It’s a prouder nation this morning because it didn’t allow this horrible person and this country that was doing very bad things to us. It didn’t allow it to happen and the Western hemisphere is right now a much safer place to be. All Maximillian Alvarez: Right. Mike, break this all down for us. Like, what was the Monroe doctrine? How does the Donrow doctrine compare to that in terms of US foreign policy in Latin America? And what the hell does this all mean for the potential invasion and pressure campaigns from the US to other countries across Latin America moving forward? Michael Fox: Well, the Monroe Doctrine was a doctrine created in the 1820s by President James Monroe. The whole idea was it comes off of the huge independence campaign from most of Latin America. They had just breaken away from Spain, obviously the United States, you had other ones that were breaking away from different European countries. And essentially James Monroe says, “Europeans, you’re not allowed here anymore.” He wanted to stop the possibility that European countries might come in and try and recolonize or colonize other countries that were previous colonized by one, by other European countries. He’s basically saying, “You are not allowed in the Western hemisphere.This is our Western hemisphere.” And in fact, in the early days, many of those newly independent countries were really excited about it. They applauded James Munro’s measures. They talked about how to internationalize how to incorporate the Monroe doctrine in other countries. Boulevard was a fan of it, and they actually talked about it at his Boulevard’s Congress back in the 1820s as well. So it was a big thing and very important. And it doesn’t really do very much for the next, I don’t know how many decades, but fast forward to the end of the 19th century, you’ve got the United States is growing in its own imperial powers. You have the United States kind of invading and taking over different countries like Cuba, like Hawaii, and enter in Teddy Roosevelt. And Teddy Roosevelt creates what is called the Roosevelt Corollary. And it basically says that we can be the region’s police force. Not just we can, but we have the right to be the region’s police force when other countries aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be. And so we are now going to use this Monroe doctrine to invade, to push our agenda wherever we want to. And what we saw was this huge uptick across the region with US Marines being deployed in countries all over the place, Dominican Republic, Haiti, how many locations, Nicaragua. I mean, it was just up and down. And in some cases, they stayed for years or decades. And so it was literally this doctrine that was used to push US agenda and US interest in the region and justify those interests in the region. It has been kind of on the back burner. It’s been used ever since. People have talked about it ever since, but that was like when you talk about the Haiti of the insanity of gun boat diplomacy and the use of Monroe doctrine, it’s really the Roosevelt corollary that people talk about. Fast forward to literally December, Trump and his administration released what’s known as their national security strategy. And in that, they talk about a new Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine. So it’s totally hearkening back to a hundred years to where we were with Teddy Roosevelt saying, no, we are going to push and we are going to use this in order to ensure that we have our assets, we have our means, that what we want is to have friends in the region that are going to be on our side and are going to fight with us against narco trafficking and drug trafficking. So they’ve created this justification, this excuse to now do whatever they want to in the region. It doesn’t matter if there’s actually an issue of drug trafficking like in Venezuela, there isn’t, but they’ve created the excuse to be able to push that and use that as the agenda. And so that takes us to where we are right now in this press conference. I mean, the fact that Trump actually invoked the Monroe doctrine, but also called it the Dunro doctrine, which is something that some people have been talking about, Don as in Donald, Donald Roe doctrine, that’s where the Donrow comes from. But he clearly is saying like, “I’m going to one up James Monroe. I’m going to take this to a whole other level.” And that’s what is so concerning about this region. We talked about this in the first episode of season two of Under the Shadow and people should totally check it out because we’re going to be rolling stuff out all the time and it’s all focused on exactly what’s happening right now. But within we talk about this, a lot of people, what we’re saying, analysts that I’ve been interviewing, including Alexandra Avina, who’s historian professor of Latin American history, talks about how Whenever the United States moves toward isolationism, and of course Trump is supposed to be the peace president, the isolationist president, whenever that happens, that’s bad news for Latin America because it doesn’t mean they’re going to stop its imperial intentions in the region. It just means that they’re going to pull themselves back from getting outstretched everywhere else, and we’re going to now focus on Latin America. I mean, Greg Granted has talked about this a lot. He’s an incredible historian and he wrote … I’m sorry, it’s not even coming to me. Oh, The Empire’s Workshop. And so it’s an incredible book back years ago. And the focus that he talks about is this, is that this is a region that has been used as the workshop for US empire and imperialism since the beginning of the United States essentially, and particularly the Monroe doctrine, particularly the 19th century. And so what we’re seeing now is Trump invoking that. This is part of, and I think this is really, really key right now, Max, to understanding this context. From what I’ve been speaking with other people, what we’re seeing right now is this vision of Trump breaking the world into these different spheres of influence. This something that was from literally the 19th century. And this is why we really need to understand that history. We need to understand the past to understand where we are right now. Because part of it’s Monroe, but part of it is this kind of idea that if I’m the power in this region, then I need to be … Then this is my space and you guys don’t mess with me over here. And that’s your … So for instance, oh, Russia, you got your deal over there. Deal with what Ukraine, come on, create peace. But that’s your area. You got to deal with China. And part of this is because, look, the reality is Trump and the United States realizes, well, I am no longer the hegemon. I can’t compete against China. And China’s been moving in profound ways all across Latin America. So this is partly Trump trying to say, “I need to shore up our interests here and push China out. Now, China, if you want to mess with Asia, you can do whatever you want to. I’m not going to get over there. This is our region.” And so this is what’s happening now. And this is why it’s so concerning to understand Venezuela. Venezuela, what we’ve just seen right now in the same way that Panama, you have to remember, Panama 1989, the US invasion there was the first US invasion, the first military attack after the end of the Cold War. It was a way of Father George W. Bush at the time, George H.W. Bush, of basically marking out territory and saying, “This is how we’re going to do it. You still have to be afraid of us. We are going to continue to fight regardless of the Cold War is over, and the new war is going to be over drugs.” But it was also a training ground. It was to show what they could do and what they would do elsewhere in the Middle East. Right now, in a lot of ways, we were seeing this in Venezuela. It’s a massive attack. But like you said, Trump’s been … They weren’t talking very much about Cuba. You could tell in that press conference that he was kind of reluctant. He’s like, “Yeah, Cuba’s like, maybe Cuba. Hey, Marco Ruby, you want to talk about Cuba?” But it’s like Cuba’s there. Clearly that’s on the agenda. In fact, I would say that that’s probably even higher on the agenda. If you look at who’s in his cabinet and you look at the Cuban American lobby within the United States, it’s huge. And so I would say that Cuba is even higher on the agenda than Venezuela, except for the fact that Venezuela has oil, but they have to get out Venezuela first and maybe some other countries before they can start thinking about Cuba and then ramp up the war mongering talk about Cuba, but also about Colombia. Trump has been … He did press conferences in December where we were saying, “Look, this guy’s a bad guy.” And they’re talking about Gustavo Petro, who’s the president of Columbia. And why? Because the president of Columbia has been very vocal in defending Venezuela. So all of this is happening right now within this context. Trump has also been pushing back against Mexico, or maybe we’re going to send our troops into Mexico to fight drug traffickers in Mexico. So it’s kind of about drugs, but it’s not really. It’s really about the fact that, look, Max, the reality is these are all leftist presidents who aren’t going to bow down to Trump. You don’t see Trump saying anything about Ecuador. Ecuador, the president Ecuador, he is someone who actually has ties to narco trafficking. There have been research and releases of information and magazine articles showing that there were cocaine shipments on boats that were carrying the bananas that his family was exporting. It’s a clear connection, but he won’t say anything about him. Why? Because he’s an ally. And so Trump, and the amount of allies that Trump is increasingly having in the region is big. He’s got Naibukelian El Salvador, he’s got Milay in Argentina. Now you have the son of a member of the Nazi party in Chile, who’s just one, who’s going to be inaugurated in just a couple of months. Honduras is now going to shift to the right. And then Bolivia, we’ve just seen the, that’s also shifted. So Trump is shoring up support and he feels emboldened to be able to do what he needs to do across the region to push the America first agenda. Maximillian Alvarez: Well, and when pressed at the Saturday press conference of like, how the hell could the America first president who was supposedly isolationist, supposedly not as the typical imperialist US president and was focused on the domestic matters of the United States, how do you square that with invading a foreign country in Latin America and kidnapping its president and saying you’re going to run their government? And Trump’s kind of quick nonchalant response was like, “Well, we have to make sure that we have good neighbors in the region.” That like, again, invoking that Rooseveltian police power to say it’s our duty, responsibility and right to tell all of our neighbors in Latin America what to do so that they are serving our interests. And also, he was very blatant about like, “And it’s America first because America’s going to take their oil.” So that’s the loose justification for this imperialist expansionist aggression from Donald Trump. But again, it’s not all just about what Trump says and does. It’s about how the rest of the world responds. And as you mentioned, the political chess board is rearranging quite dramatically across Latin America, not just in terms of the allies that Trump himself is building, but also in terms of the resistance that is growing from other countries. And I wanted to end on that point. I wanted to ask, what else is taking place across the region? How are regional leaders like Gloria Scheinbaum in Mexico, like Lula in Brazil, how are they responding to this and how is that going to factor into whatever the hell happens as we continue to barrel forward into this horrifying future? Michael Fox: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, Claudia Scheinbung has been very, very outspoken and she says, “Look, this can’t happen. We have to stand up. The United Nations should be doing more and she’s going to be continuing to be vocal.” Not just about this, but also about the boat strikes, also about other cases where the United States is pushing against Latin America. I already mentioned Gustavo Petro, but he’s been extremely outspoken. He actually went and visited a family of one of the victims of one of the boat strikes in Santa Marta, and he actually spoke with the family and said, “Look, this guy, they say he was a fisherman.” And I spoke with him directly. So he’s been extremely vocal and pushing back. And that’s one of the things that Trump doesn’t like about him because these are all people that are not going to bow down to Trump’s interests. Lula in Brazil … Now, Lula’s interesting because Brazil’s a huge country. Don’t forget that Brazil literally has the population, the size and the GDP of all of the other South American countries combined. So it’s massive. And Lula has a lot of clout, particularly with the BRICS and the BRICS nation. So he has a lot … His voice really, really matters on kind of an international stage and he’s been extremely vocal just in the last couple days. He released a large statement again saying that the United Nations needs to act. Now, this was one of the big critiques when I was at the BRICS conference earlier this year, this is one of the big critiques is that the United Nations kind of like they were stuck. They couldn’t do anything. They weren’t doing anything. And so many Latin American leaders have really been strong in trying to push that and saying, “More needs to happen, more needs to be done internationally.” It just can’t stay with this where the United States can invade a sovereign nation in Latin America and just get away with it without anything happening, right? The other interesting thing that we’ve seen, and I’m actually working on an episode for Under the Shadow that will be released at some point, is how the Caribbean leaders have also come out. And that’s something like, usually it’s like there’s Latin America, there’s the left leaders, the right leaders, and then the Caribbean’s just forgotten, right? But the prime minister of Barbados in particular has been absolutely vocal. The Kadikam countries came together in November in denouncing the boat strikes. And when I say vocal, I mean in particular against US aggression, the region and particularly around the boat strikes. The only Caribbean leader that has backed Trump is the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago. They’re only seven miles from the border with Venezuela. And she’s the only one who’s come out and said, “We need the United States to defend us against drug traffickers or whatever else.” That’s the only country, all of the other ones, including the former prime minister of Trinidad, have all come out absolutely condemning the US aggression that’s continued to happen in the region and I’m sure will be extremely vocal against this US invasion. So the resistance in terms of leaders of these countries is powerful. And look, the other thing is Max, many people I’ve mentioned in … First off, Friday night, the attack happens Friday night into Saturday morning. And Saturday morning, people turned into the streets, many Venezuelans turned out in the streets actually to protest the attack. Now we have seen people celebrating. And of course, like you mentioned several times, Venezuela is huge. There are many, many people, and in fact, many people that have left the country, the seven or eight million people that have left Venezuela are excited to see Maduro be removed, but many people, particularly within Venezuela, even if they’re on the opposition, it’s one thing to have Maduro out, but I don’t want the United States coming and bombing our country. And so whenever there is an imperial attack from the United States, whenever there is some type of intervention, there is always a huge backlash. And that’s how come we’ve seen people protesting, not just in Venezuela, within the Unitited States, elsewhere, in Mexico, in many different places people have been protesting. And we saw that backlash also. I don’t know if you remember when Trump tried to impose this 50% tariff on Brazil, apparently, because Brazil had this … They were going to convict Trump’s former ally, Jaye Bolsonato. And so he poses this 50% tariff and Lula’s like, “Okay, okay, bring it on. ” And in fact, his polls just shot right up because you can’t come here, you just can’t do that. You just can’t push around people. What we need is diplomacy. We need international relations. There are ways of negotiating disputes in the region that have been developed over the last century and under the United Nations. And if you have a problem with Venezuela, if you have a problem with these other countries, if you are concerned about drug trafficking, there’s a ways of negotiating those things and hashing that out without bombing other people, without attacking, invading, and killing people and kidnapping, kidnapping their president. That cannot happen. And so I think that’s really important. When you mention resistance, it is really important to understand that resistance is like the metaphor. It’s like the symbol of Latin America. It’s what Latin America has represented since the beginning of time because it’s had to resist against a United States that has always had its foot out and has Boeing been trying to push the rest of the region down and take from them whatever they can. And so I think that we’re only going to see more of this. And if Trump continues to push and pressure and invade and do whatever he’s going to be doing under his new Donro doctrine, then we’re just going to continue to see resistance, whether it’s from leaders in the region, whether it’s from movements that are standing up, or whether it’s from elections that will happen in years to come in which people will push back and say, “No, we don’t want any more of this. And no, we’re not going to bow down to the United States.” This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez and Michael Fox.
Can U.S. Oil Companies Really Take Over Venezuela’s Industry?
Irreversible Robust Tempo of Charter School Failures and Closures
Charter schools are deregulated private entities that embrace “free market” ideology. They rest firmly on consumerism, competition, and the medieval view that every individual should fend for themselves. Winning and losing are considered normal, healthy, and desirable in this obsolete outlook where “shopping for a school and hoping for the best” replaces the right to […] The post Irreversible Robust Tempo of Charter School Failures and Closures first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/shawgi-tell-charter-school-146x300.jpg" alt="" width="146" height="300" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-162787" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/shawgi-tell-charter-school-146x300.jpg 146w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/shawgi-tell-charter-school.jpg 487w" sizes="(max-width: 146px) 100vw, 146px" />Charter schools are deregulated private entities that embrace “free market” ideology. They rest firmly on consumerism, competition, and the medieval view that every individual should fend for themselves. Winning and losing are considered normal, healthy, and desirable in this obsolete outlook where “shopping for a school and hoping for the best” replaces the right to education. These outsourced “schools” have been around since 1991. They make a few people quite rich, are usually more segregated than traditional public schools, and are also well-known for poor accountability, widespread corruption, and high student, teacher, and principal turnover rates that undermine a modern teaching and learning culture. See here for dozens of other differences between public schools and charter schools. While many charter schools failed, closed, and abandoned thousands of people two to three decades ago, in recent years it has become a full time job to report on the number of old and new charter schools failing, closing, and leaving many out in the cold. The rate and tempo of non-profit and for-profit charter school failures and closures has now conditioned researchers, writers, journalists, and commentators to not let their guard down for a second because the next, typically sudden and abrupt, charter school failure and closure is right around the corner. A high level of predictability for failure and closure has now been solidified. Uncertainty and bedlam have increased qualitatively and quantitatively in the charter school sector. In such a frenzied context, charter school disinformation, propaganda, and gas-lighting lose much of their power. Top-down neoliberal narratives collide more severely with harsh realities and hold less sway. Social consciousness of what is really happening begins to gradually increase. The National Center for Charter School Accountability (NCCSA) states that, “Today, the charter sector stands at a reckoning point. Growth has slowed. For-profit models are expanding. The push to create religious charter schools has fractured the movement from within. Meanwhile, charters are now competing not just with public schools and each other, but with a growing network of voucher-funded private schools and publicly subsidized home-schools.” The NCCSA also reminds us that, “In the first half of 2025, 50 charter schools announced plans to shut down. Some would close immediately, while others would remain open through the end of the school year.” In a separate, more recent report, the same organization also reminds us that,” Scandals and closures have tarnished the charter brand resulting in mounting public disillusionment with charter schools — even among progressive policymakers who once embraced the idea. The 2025 Kappan poll illustrates this dramatic shift: in 2013, nearly seven in ten Americans (68%) supported charter and lab schools. By 2025, support had plummeted to just 46% — a22-point drop during a period when general support for school choice has reached record highs.” While this is a big drop, it is not unreasonable to assume that a more investigative survey would show even lower support for charter schools. Experience shows that when open, calm, honest, and deep discussion takes place with people, especially on a one-on-one basis, many people, including charter school employees, operators, and supporters, admit that charter schools have 50 problems and that society does not need to privatize schools because society can actually do much better. People crave coherence and analysis, and are eager to overcome disinformation and propaganda. A recent alarming example of yet another charter school to close suddenly and abruptly, leaving everyone shocked and appalled again, comes from Orlando, Florida which already has a high rate of charter school failures and closures. The title of the January 2, 2026 article says it all: “Families scramble to find new schools after Orlando charter school’s abrupt closure.” “Unsustainable financial challenges” was the main reason cited for the closure of Legends Academy Charter School. This is actually a common problem in the charter school sector which receives billions of dollars in public funds every year from the federal government and state governments, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars a year from “philanthrocapitalists” and other private funders. Charter School Scandals is a website that regularly documents embezzlement, racketeering, and a range of other crimes, scandals, and controversies in the crisis-ridden charter school sector. Legends Academy Charter School has been around for nearly 25 years and the unexpected closure will affect 200 families. Shocked and angry parents now have to frantically and urgently fend for themselves again to find another school for their kids in an education landscape that has become more chaotic over the years due to school privatization schemes imposed on the public in the name of “choice.” Angela Gillenwaters said she “doesn’t know where her 7-year-old grandson King will finish first grade.” She said, “My heart is crushed.” Speaking to the abrupt nature of the school’s closure and the lack of accountability routinely and casually demonstrated by school leaders in such horrible cases, Gillenwaters went on to say, “They weren’t answering any questions about where the funds and stuff like that…This isn’t something you just find out in one day. That’s impossible.” Another news source points out that, “For the families affected, the closure is much more than a mere logistical inconvenience. It signifies the dismantling of a community and a severing of plans for continuity in education.” Many teachers and education support staff will also become jobless because of the school’s sudden closure. Sadly, this tragic scenario will be played out every week in the charter school sector in 2026. Even more disturbing is the outdated view of many charter school owners and operators who treat education as a commodity instead of a right and social responsibility. Such individuals nonchalantly repeat that schools are businesses and like any business they should be closed when they fail and someone smarter should show up and start a more successful business/school. Such a socially irresponsible view speaks volumes about those dominating education through the seizure of more state mechanisms and agencies. Fortunately, many students abandoned by failing charter schools operated by unelected private citizens are able return to their host traditional public school district which, unlike charter schools, accepts all students at all times. Of course, these public schools will continue to be demonized, starved of funds, and set up to fail by neoliberals and privatizers determined to create charter schools that enrich them in the name of “choice” and “saving the kids.” The public should not doubt its ability to combat all forms of privatization. Privatization causes many of the same problems no matter which sector, sphere, or country it invades, whether it is education, healthcare, electricity production, garbage collection, transportation, parking meter reading, airports, or railroads. Privatization is a major problem confronting everyone everywhere, not just those in the sphere of education. In this age of fifth generation warfare, it is more critical than ever for everyone to engage in deep and sustained investigation and discussion and to make sure action and analysis go together. People are fed up with disinformation repeated endlessly as historical truth and desire facts, data, information, and analysis that opens the door to the progress of society. Everything constantly changes, moves, and develops through contradictions, which means openings and opportunities to create the new, fresh, and modern will present themselves. Together we can seize these occasions to individually and collectively move society forward and restore education as a public responsibility, not a consumer good. It can be done. The post Irreversible Robust Tempo of Charter School Failures and Closures first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Shawgi Tell.
"Imperial Laboratory": Alexander Aviña on the "Donroe" Doctrine & U.S. Intervention in Latin America
"It’s All About the Oil, Stupid!": Mehdi Hasan on Trump Attacking Venezuela & Kidnapping Maduro
The crazy-quilt National Security Strategy released a few weeks back is a patchwork of declarations of intent, admonitions thrown at other countries and ad hominem statements of dubious validity. It lacks coherence or consistency – much less a theme, a central idea, or a concept that gives pattern to its incongruent parts. Clearly, the document is […] The post Mock Strategy first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The crazy-quilt National Security Strategy released a few weeks back is a patchwork of declarations of intent, admonitions thrown at other countries and ad hominem statements of dubious validity. It lacks coherence or consistency – much less a theme, a central idea, or a concept that gives pattern to its incongruent parts. Clearly, the document is the artless product of an assemblage of authors undisciplined by editorial direction. Yet, many serious analysts claim to see in this disjointed attempt at composing a grand strategy a landmark signaling a fundamental shift in the way the United States sees itself in the realm of international affairs. Only the last is surprising. There is no formal policy process in the Trump administration. Neither clear organizational lines, nor designation of mandated responsibilities, nor fixed procedures for deliberation and decision, nor an articulated set of policy guidelines. The critical role of National Security Adviser belongs nominally to Marco Rubio whose day job of Secretary of State exhausts his limited time, skills and authority. He is merely one of Trump many appointees, White House aides, family and pals who vie for the President’s attention. Policy as free-form existential art. The National Security Strategy is the sort of pot-pourri you get when nobody oversees and coordinates the document’s drafting. This disorder suits the temper of Trump himself. For tidy procedure, disciplined logical thinking, action based on design – all are totally alien to his personality. They constitute restraint on impulse – on the freedom that his extreme narcissism demands. That need requires a license to superimpose his distorted impressions of reality on actuality – to contradict himself in order to sustain Trump’s grandiose sense of self. Ignorance follows – more precisely, perpetuating a condition wherein ignorance about the world outside the inflated ego’s imaginary reality is Trump’s narcissistic bliss. The National Security Strategy, in these circumstances, bears all the earmarks of composition by multiple contributors, each of whom managed to squeeze in their pet ideas. Eldrige Colby, the ‘brains’ of the Defense Department in his official position as Assistant Secretary for Policy, seems to have had the largest input. He long has argued that the United States should focus on China as the greatest long-term threat to American hegemony. Resources of every kind should be concentrated there; anything else is secondary – not unimportant but given lower priority whenever tradeoff have to be made. Doubtless he was responsible for the insertion of language stressing that the present challenge is posed by China’s formidable technological and commercial competition. The downplaying of the much discussed (publicly by senior officials and Pentagon chiefs) expectation of a military showdown within the decade made the supposed shift in focus a softer sell for those hesitant to put most of America’s chips onto East Asia while also satisfying Treasury Secretary Bessent who is obsessed with conducting economic warfare on all fronts. Stephan Miller at the White House doubtless kept an eagle on the document’s development so as to ensure that it contained nothing that could in any way diminish or qualify American backing for Israel’s plans to dominate the Middle East. Marco Rubio, for his part, was the author of the updated Monroe Doctrine that prominently commits the United States to the status quo ante when Washington intervened unreservedly – by multiple means – in Latin American politics with the aim of preserving the controlling coalition of staunchly pro-American white elites and corporate interests, both American and local. As for the Pentagon brass, nothing in the NSS’ verbiage disturbs their eager expectation that shortly they will be popping the champagne in celebration of their budget hitting the 1 trillion-dollar mark. The unprecedently crude disparagement of the European allies, the EU and their national societies feel more like the release of pent-up emotion than the conclusion of anything approximating a serious thought process. Likely, its inclusion was psychic raw meat served to satisfy Trump’s appetite for insult and invective while tapping more widespread feelings of disparagement toward European leaders. Most likely, Trump himself never read a draft of the full document. We have the testimony of several insiders who have worked with Trump that his attention span is measured in minutes, that a paragraph is the maximum length of any reading that can hold his attention, that his communications are limited to short verbal exchanges and the nightly tweet fireworks. We can readily imagine that his instructions as to what the National Security Strategy should say amounted to little more than a short list of highlighted topics punctuated by remarks like: ‘Play up my successes as peacemaker in addition to crushing our enemies in Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria. America has never been as safe and secure as it is now under my presidency. Compare with the mess left behind by the feeble Biden, make sure you hit those European guys hard; they deserve it; nothing nasty about China that could upset Xi before we meet in April; lay out the economic benefits to the U.S. from refusing to play patsy with foreign countries.” When the full draft arrived in the Oval Office, it probably came with highlighted sentences annotated by an aide (Miller? Kushner?) looking over his shoulder to explain how this bit or that conforms to Presidential slogans, pronouncements and obsessions. Trump nods, nods….he signs. [Trump’s literal mindless would be on full display were he subject to probing questions from a truly inquisitive press corps. “Some commentators are claiming that the National Security Strategy points to an American retrenchment from its current strategy of global activism. Are we planning to pull back from some of our forward positions – if so, where?” The reaction from Trump would be a typical outburst of disconnected catchwords and oaths rejecting the notion that the U.S. was in “retreat” and excoriating the usual suspects for raising doubts about the country’s unmatched power and commitment to working for peace all around the world.] Back to the central question: Does the NSS document represent a basic reorientation of official thinking about America’s global strategy? To offer an answer we should examine the process that generated it, decipher the exact meaning of the document’s many opaque passages, and compare what is written to recent actions. A. PROCESS affects the authoritativeness of the product. National Security Reviews can be placed on a continuum running from NSC 68 promulgated in 1948 to dreary boilerplate borrowed from vintage predecessors. This document cannot be located on that continuum. It is sui generis. How could that be otherwise in light of the process depicted above. There is no basis/justification for interpreting its contents as the outcome of a sober deliberative reassessment that will enshrine its ideas as the fundamental guideposts for an official American worldview enduring into the future. The New York Times’ exhaustive reconstruction of life among Trump’s foreign policymakers over the past year attests to the disarray, incoherence, fractiousness and complacent ignorance that are its hallmarks. B. WORDS: Let’s scrutinize what specifically the NSS document says: CHINA: The NSS’ extended discussion of the China challenge can be boiled down to these points: · The PRC is the one power in a position to threaten the maintenance of the United States’ global supremacy. China’s rise owes to the failures of previous Presidents to foresee the looming danger and to take appropriate steps to thwart it · Therefore, it is imperative that all of America’s resources – supplemented by those of partners – should be deployed to weaken China, slow its economic growth, undercut its technology programs, and deter it from coercing or intimidating Taiwan by securing our military dominance · That is the only way to avoid a war over Taiwan · Accept that we are rivals in a game of unprecedentedly high stakes. Our aims should be to achieve modus vivendi on America’s terms. · There is little reason to expect that relations could be cordial or cooperation beyond short-term, specific issues. Our national interest does not require anything more RUSSIA: The NSS gives Russia short shrift compared to its preoccupation with China. The conflict over Ukraine is accorded a single paragraph which is a thinly veiled promo for the shelf-soiled 28-point plan long shown to be unviable. Its acceptance is declared the foundation stone for stabilizing relations with Russia that, in turn, ensures for stability across Europe. Laying a heavy bet on the Kremlin’s readiness to swallow terms of an accord that contradict its oft-stated “bottom lines” — accepted by Trump at Anchorage — is an extreme example of the low level of sophistication that marks the NSS generally. So, instead of sober diplomacy, we are treated to an endless reel of Trump-Zelensky get-togethers — repetitious palavers remindful of dreary soap opera reruns. Moreover, the notion of ‘stability’ is liable to multiple meanings. One, a Russia content to settle for annexation of the Donbas while a sovereign Ukraine integrates into the EU and keeps an army of 800,000. Two, a Russia that exchanges a piecemeal easing of sanctions in return for opening its rich natural resources to American investment. Three, a Russia whose current leadership is replaced by a Western friendly, oligarch dominated government headed by a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. The odds on any of these daydreams coming to pass are obviously extremely low. There is a fourth version of Russian stability — in theory. That would entail accepting Moscow’s insistence that Ukraine be recognized as a sovereign state, that an institutional arrangement is made that accords Russia a formal place in European security architecture, and that the obstacles to normal economic intercourse be removed. This one reasonable resolution of continental security is rejected out of hand in Washington and in European capitals. They prefer a continuation of the present hostile attitude and preparation for asymmetric war against Russia indefinitely — a war that already underway. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Washington has plotted the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Georgia following the Maiden coup method to a T. GENERAL The United States is the cynosure of all that is good and virtuous in world affairs. We have the resources – economic, military, technological to beat China in the competition to be global supremo and to contain the spread of Beijing’s influence worldwide · Combining the power resources of the collective West — including Japan, South Korea and Europe (evidently rescued from the brink of civilizational erasure by American tough love) — tips the balance heavily in the U.S.’ favor. · The nation’s economy will flourish as we end being a soft touch and take from dealings with others what is rightly ours; that boom will accelerate as the world’s investors eagerly trigger a wave of capital investment. · Donald Trump’s unique vision and hard-headedness is setting the country on the path to accomplish that which the preceding four presidents failed to do. They got it all of this wrong until Trump came along and set things right. Geographic Segmentation The idea of prioritizing certain regions over others can be read into the NSS albeit nowhere is it made explicit. That ambiguity is understandable since such a strategic innovation is contradicted and overridden by the objective of securing the United States dominant position world-wide. Europe is written off as a hopeless lost cause. Yet, at a later point in the documentary, we are told that “Not only can we not afford to write Europe off—doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.’ Consistency, it is said, is the hobgoblin of weak minds – or the ejaculation of infirmed minds. Of course, Washington has no intention of abandoning Europe. For one time, it is essential as an auxiliary in the economic war against Chins. For another, its network of military bases is critical to the projection of American military might throughout the greater Middle East and in Africa. (The Army’s Africa Command is located in Stuttgart). We could not have supplied the Israelis with the weaponry and air power they needed for the annihilation of Gaza or the missile war with Iran without them. · Much is written about the Rubio authored Monroe Doctrine II – the supposed tangible evidence of regional prioritization. Does it follow that Greenland is shifted by some tectonic slight-of-hand 24 degrees of longitude westward? How do you reconcile the principle of geographic segmentation with our aggressive actions in the Middle East which include ‘running’ Gaza? Where do air strikes in Nigeria and Somalia, and Yemen fit in? It is a telling sign of the degeneration in American public discourse that this arrant nonsense is treated so widely as authoritative pronouncements from on high. · All of the above assertions could have been borrowed verbatim from National Security Strategies promulgated from every President from Clinton onwards. Historic reset? Retrenchment? Only in the eyes of the beholder. · “What differentiates America from the rest of the world—our openness, transparency, trustworthiness, commitment to freedom and innovation, and free market capitalism—will continue to make us the global partner of first choice.” This last is a revealing indicator of the enduring conceits that underly American thinking about its exceptionalism and unique place in the world. Ridiculous on the face of it, yet pervasive among Washington elites. Today, post-Palestinian geocide, past tariff wars, past diplomacy as coercive bullying, past the aggression against Venezuela, past institutionalized. Hypocrisy – the United States’ standing in the world is at an all-time low Most of the world now sees us as the greatest threat to world peace. They fear us but do not respect us. Claims of moral authority are met with derision. The “global partner of first choice”? Ask India, ask Brazil, ask Indonesia, ask Malaysia, ask Colombia, ask South Africa, ask Mali, ask other BRIC members and applicants – not to mention the ‘shit hole” countries. That proposition holds only for our vassal governments in the collective West led by feeble people whose abysmal popular standing reflects the scorn of their citizenry. Finally, nobody trusts the United States’ leadership. We have now a demonstrable record of deceit, unilateral abrogation of contracts, treaties and understandings, arbitrary imposition of penalties on whomever is disobedient to Washington’s will, threat and intimidation as standard practice — not to speak of Trump’s erratic, deranged behavior. Yet, the NSS still insists on our referring to unrivaled “soft power.” This is one of Trump’s innumerable psychotic delusions – infecting his entire government. C. DEEDS As of January 1, 2026, the United States is doing the following: · Continuing to conduct its undeclared war against Russia in and around Ukraine – by proxy, by complicity, by belligerency. It supplies arms (including state-of-the-art missilry), American military personnel on site direct the firing of HIMARS and ACADMS targeted on Russia proper – Ukrainian officers merely push the button, provides critical Intelligence of both a tactical battlefront nature and for guidance of drone and missile strikes, financed government operations, plans military operations. Direct tangible assistance has slowed but not stopped entirely, e.g. Congression authorization of the Defense budget allocated $800 million in aid to Kiev. In regard to weaponry, Washington no longer will donate arms but rather will sell them to the Europeans who have agreed to cover the cost and to transfer them to the Ukraine. The bulk of the payments will be recycled to American companies in the military-industrial complex. · The U.S. has tightened economic sanctions on Russia – concentrating on its energy trade. The measures include backing European states that are interdicting non-Russian flagged vessels transporting oil. · The U.S. is establishing a new set of bases in the Baltic countries. It also is adding to forward deployments in Poland and Romania. · In East Asia, Washington has announced an $11 billion military aid package to Taiwan that includes the most sophisticated high-tech weaponry · The project of ringing the PRC with friendly allies and partners is gathering new steam – including a high-pressure campaign to cajole India into joining the anti- China “Quad” in what was, and remains a futile cause (made all the more so by the knotting of new security ties with Pakistan). · Washington has refrained for speaking a single word of caution to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi over her inflammatory declaration in Parliament that Taiwan (Formosa) falls within Japan’s vital security zone and, thus, prepared to defend it militarily against attack by the PRC. Whether those remarks were spontaneous or premeditated, it is reasonable to suppose that her attitude was well known in Washington policy circles, and that it was reinforced by contacts with like-minded persons there. · In the Middle East, American co-belligerency with Israel on all fronts is unabated. At the moment, the partners are putting in place a plan for a possible second assault against Iran. They collaborated – with Turkey — to install as President of Syria Abu Mohammad al-Julani, former chief of al-Qaeda/al Nusra, a designated terrorist with a price on his head of $10 million put there in 2017 by Trump I. Meanwhile, the U.S. is moving to implement its mandate to act as sovereign authority over Gaza with the stated intention of segregating the remnants of the Palestinian community into ghettos while commercially exploiting the territory. Palestine, like Ukraine, is being turned into a profit center for the U.S. and Trump favorites. This is what is passed off as a strategic reset in the region. · In Latin America, there is no ambiguity as to American purposes. The aim is to subordinate sovereign states to the dependency status they suffered in times past – to do so via interventions of all types (economic coercion, subversion, coup, military intimidation). Active support for a “League of Autocrats” (Bolsonaro, Milei, Boric, Machado, Asfura et al) is a major element in this strategy. So, what is the NSS document? A boastful account of Trump’s wonderous achievements with a plan for even greater successes in shaping the world to American advantage based on fanciful premises? Or, a landmark statement of a strategic reset that prioritizes certain regions over others and backs away from strident forecasts of military confrontation with China or Russia? My opinion: it tilts sharply toward the former. The post Mock Strategy first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Michael Brenner.
Venezuela: US actions make all countries less safe, says rights chief TürkUkraine: WFP teams continue to reach frontline communitiesSudan: Escalating violence in Darfurs and Kordofan sparks panic, warns OCHA
Venezuela: US actions make all countries less safe, says rights chief TürkUkraine: WFP teams continue to reach frontline communitiesSudan: Escalating violence in Darfurs and Kordofan sparks panic, warns OCHA This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Daniel Johnson.
Where Was My Generic Prescription Drug Made?
This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by ProPublica.
Trump Family Businesses Rake in $4 Billion After His Reelection with Focus on AI, Crypto & Nuclear
Ventures launched by the Trump family since Donald Trump’s reelection have generated at least $4 billion in proceeds and paper wealth for the Trump family. With investments across sectors like real estate, hospitality, media, cryptocurre...
Ventures launched by the Trump family since Donald Trump’s reelection have generated at least $4 billion in proceeds and paper wealth for the Trump family. With investments across sectors like real estate, hospitality, media, cryptocurrency and more, the Trumps are “increasingly integrating their business empire” into the wider U.S. economy, says David Uberti, who has been reporting on the family’s self-enrichment for The Wall Street Journal. The coupling of Trump’s economic and political influence is raising major questions about conflicts of interest. “You have all of these different business interests in different areas in which the government regulates,” and this “proximity to power may help along some of these deals and the valuations at which they’re made.” We look at the Trumps’ cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial and the Trump Organization’s planned $6 billion merger with a firm hoping to build a nuclear fusion plant to power AI data centers with Uberti, who says such “very speculative, highly risky corners of financial markets” are key to the family’s investment strategy. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Chevron Stocks Surge After Trump Vows to “Take Back” Venezuela’s Oil After U.S. Attack
The share prices of U.S. oil companies surged following the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro. In public statements, Trump has been clear about his desire to reassert U.S. corporate...
The share prices of U.S. oil companies surged following the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro. In public statements, Trump has been clear about his desire to reassert U.S. corporate control over Venezuela’s nationalized oil industry. Now with Trump’s show of force over Venezuela’s political sovereignty, many investors see the potential for a similar overpowering of the socialist country’s economic independence. However, notes financial reporter David Uberti, it won’t be so easy for Wall Street to make a profit. In addition to upgrading Venezuela’s “decrepit” oil-producing infrastructure, “they have to push for more appetite for oil around the world.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
January 6th Five Years On: Our Democracy Crisis Persists
Five years ago, our nation’s Capitol was stormed by rioters. They were there because President Trump lied about the outcome of the 2020 election. And five years later the threat to American democracy hasn’t faded – it has evolved, expanded, and grown...
Five years ago, our nation’s Capitol was stormed by rioters. They were there because President Trump lied about the outcome of the 2020 election. And five years later the threat to American democracy hasn’t faded – it has evolved, expanded, and grown more dangerous. Public Citizen’s co-president Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement on the 5th anniversary of the January 6th insurrection: "On January 6th five years ago, a sitting U.S. president incited violence against our nation in a shameless attempt to overturn a democratically-held election.This day must live forever in our memory, so that we continue to seek accountability for the perpetrators and work tirelessly to safeguard our democracy from future lawlessness. “As we reflect on the solemn anniversary of the insurrection, we must grapple with the reality that the same president is back in office. And that his disdain for the rule of law and disregard of the U.S. Constitution are more brazen than ever, amplified by endless incendiary rhetoric and reckless actions. From the unwanted and unlawful military deployments of the national guard to U.S. cities to the indefensible and brazenly unlawful kidnapping of a foreign leader for the benefit of fossil fuel corporations, this president’s authoritarianism is a real and living threat to our democracy and it demands vigilance and resistance from us all.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
“Imperial Laboratory”: Alexander Aviña on the “Donroe” Doctrine & U.S. Intervention in Latin America
We take a closer look at the Trump administration’s Monroe Doctrine-based “Donroe Doctrine” — a tightening of U.S. control over the Americas amid weakening global hegemony and internal divisions within the governing MAGA coal...
We take a closer look at the Trump administration’s Monroe Doctrine-based “Donroe Doctrine” — a tightening of U.S. control over the Americas amid weakening global hegemony and internal divisions within the governing MAGA coalition. “As has happened in the past, when the U.S. has faced resistance or defeat elsewhere in the world, they come back 'home' to the Western Hemisphere. They use Latin America as an imperial laboratory, as they have since almost the founding of the United States,” explains Alexander Aviña, an associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University. “It’s just part of this long history of constant U.S. intervention in the region to prevent and not tolerate Latin American assertions of sovereignty and self-determination.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“It’s All About the Oil, Stupid!”: Mehdi Hasan on Trump Attacking Venezuela & Kidnapping Maduro
_Zeteo_’s Mehdi Hasan outlines Donald Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” a throwback foreign policy exemplified by the Trump administration’s shocking intervention in Venezuela. With his claims of U.S. sovereignty over na...
_Zeteo_’s Mehdi Hasan outlines Donald Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” a throwback foreign policy exemplified by the Trump administration’s shocking intervention in Venezuela. With his claims of U.S. sovereignty over nations in the Western Hemisphere, “Trump’s basically saying, 'Well, this is ours, and China, Russia can have their spheres of influence,' and it is very 19th-century-esque. ’Let’s divide up the world between the powers.’” This orientation is a major shift from U.S. foreign policy of recent decades, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when interventionist actions were framed around ideological motivations, explains Hasan. “They said it was WMDs. They said it was democracy. They said it was al-Qaeda. They at least pretended that it wasn’t about the oil.” Meanwhile, Trump is brazen about his aims to seize control of Venezuela’s resources and demonstrate that “might is right.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
WSJ’s David Uberti on Trump’s War on Wind & How AI Data Centers May Be Key 2026 Political Issue
Watch Part 2 of our interview with David Uberti, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, about President Trump’s “war on wind” farms, and backing of AI Data Centers.
Watch Part 2 of our interview with David Uberti, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, about President Trump’s “war on wind” farms. Despite well-established demand for new power, Trump recently paused leases for all large offshore wind farms under construction, which has “thrown the renewable energy industry into turmoil,” Uberti says. He has covered how the U.S. is forfeiting the clean energy race to China after Trump scrapped projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump’s “animus for offshore wind has a personal link, as well,” notes Uberti: He once tried unsuccessfully to stop windmills off the coast of one of his golf courses. Uberti also discuses his piece “What Happened When Small-Town America Became Data Center, U.S.A.” and his coverage of the role AI may play in the modern economy. Uberti expects in 2026, this will move from being “an emerging political issue” among the left to one that is more mainstream. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Headlines for January 06, 2026; “It’s All About the Oil, Stupid!”: Mehdi Hasan on Trump Attacking Venezuela & Kidnapping Maduro; “Imperial Laboratory”: Alexander Aviña on the “Donroe” Doctrine & U.S. Intervention in Latin America; Chevron Stocks Surge After Trump Vows to “Take Back” Venezuela’s Oil After U.S. Attack; Trump Family Businesses Rake in $4 Billion After His Reelection with Focus on AI, Crypto & Nuclear
Democracy Now! 2026-01-06 Tuesday Headlines for January 06, 2026 "It's All About the Oil, Stupid!": Mehdi Hasan on Trump Attacking Venezuela & Kidnapping Maduro "Imperial Laboratory": Alexander Aviña on the "Donroe" Doctrine & U.S. Intervention in Latin America Chevron Stocks Surge After Trump Vows to "Take Back" Venezuela's Oil After U.S. Attack Trump Family Businesses Rake in $4 Billion After His Reelection with Focus on AI, Crypto & Nuclear Download this show This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores Plead “Not Guilty” to Drug and Weapons Charges in U.S. Court, Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodríguez Sworn In as Interim President, U.S. Assault on Venezuela Condemned by Allies and Adversaries Alike at U.N. Security Council, Grand Rapids Police Arrest Protest Antiwar Organizer on TV After She Condemns Trump, WSJ: Trump Tipped Off Oil Executives a Month Before U.S. Attack on Venezuela, Venezuelan Opposition Leader Machado Says She Plans to Return to Venezuela, Danish Prime Minister Warns U.S. Attack on Greenland Would Mean the End of NATO, Israel Launches Airstrikes in Lebanon, Claiming to Target Hezbollah and Hamas, U.S. Drops the Number of Vaccines Recommended for Every Child, Democrats Demand Speaker Johnson Unveil a Plaque Honoring Police Officers from Jan. 6 Insurrection, Defense Secretary Hegseth Censures Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, Trump Admin Deploys 2,000 ICE Agents to Minneapolis to Probe Alleged Cases of Fraud
Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores Plead "Not Guilty" to Drug and Weapons Charges in U.S. Court Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodríguez Sworn In as Interim President U.S. Assault on Venezuela Condemned by Allies and Adversaries Alike at U.N. Security Council Grand Rapids Police Arrest Protest Antiwar Organizer on TV After She Condemns Trump WSJ: Trump Tipped Off Oil Executives a Month Before U.S. Attack on Venezuela Venezuelan Opposition Leader Machado Says She Plans to Return to Venezuela Danish Prime Minister Warns U.S. Attack on Greenland Would Mean the End of NATO Israel Launches Airstrikes in Lebanon, Claiming to Target Hezbollah and Hamas U.S. Drops the Number of Vaccines Recommended for Every Child Democrats Demand Speaker Johnson Unveil a Plaque Honoring Police Officers from Jan. 6 Insurrection Defense Secretary Hegseth Censures Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly Trump Admin Deploys 2,000 ICE Agents to Minneapolis to Probe Alleged Cases of Fraud This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Her Parenting Time Was Restricted After a Positive Drug Test. By Federal Standards, It Would’ve Been Negative.
The post Her Parenting Time Was Restricted After a Positive Drug Test. By Federal Standards, It Would’ve Been Negative. appeared first on ProPublica.
Kaitlin spent the first weeks of her newborn son’s life in a panic. The hospital where she gave birth in October 2022 had administered a routine drug test, and a nurse informed her the lab had confirmed the presence of opiates. Child welfare authorities opened an investigation. Months later, after searching her home and interviewing her older child and ex-husband, the agency dropped its investigation, having found no evidence of abuse or neglect, or of drug use. The amount of opiates that upended Kaitlin’s life — 18.4 nanograms of codeine per milliliter of urine, according to court documents — was so minuscule that if she were an Air Force pilot, she could have had 200 times more in her system and still have been cleared to fly. But for Kaitlin, the test triggered an investigation with potentially life-altering consequences. (ProPublica is using Kaitlin’s first name because her full name has been redacted from court documents. She declined to be interviewed for this story.) The ordeal “tempered what was otherwise supposed to be a joyous occasion” for the family, according to a lawsuit filed in 2024 by New Jersey’s attorney general against the hospital system, Virtua Health. The hospital said in a statement that it has “a relentless commitment to evidence-based, equitable care for every family.” In court documents, it denied the lawsuit’s allegation that it discriminated against pregnant patients and noted that Kaitlin consented to the test. It also said that New Jersey law mandates it to submit reports of “substance-affected infants” to the state’s Division of Child Protection and Permanency. The lawsuit is pending and a judge has referred it to mediation. Drug-testing labs typically report results in black and white: positive or negative. But a little-known fact about the industry is that those results are often based on standards that are wholly discretionary. For example, nearly all states use a threshold of 0.08% blood alcohol content to decide if a motorist is intoxicated. But for other drugs detected in urine, saliva and hair, cutoff levels vary from test to test and lab to lab — including Kaitlin’s test for opiates. There’s no consensus among labs on what level should confirm the presence of codeine in urine, said Larry Broussard, a toxicologist who wrote an academic journal article on “growing evidence” that poppy seeds in bagels and muffins provoke positive test results. (Kaitlin ate a bagel shortly before taking her drug test, according to court documents.) There’s more consensus for some other drugs, but labs still disagree on appropriate cutoff levels for common drugs such as THC (the compound in marijuana that creates a high) and meth, said Broussard. A Hospital Said Kaitlin Tested Positive for Codeine, But the Military Would Have Said the Test Was Negative Even at Levels 200 Times as High <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="937" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?w=752" alt="" class="wp-image-62516" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg 1458w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=241,300 241w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=768,957 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=822,1024 822w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=1233,1536 1233w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=863,1075 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=422,526 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=552,688 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=558,695 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=527,657 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=752,937 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=1149,1432 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251222-codeine-levels_mobile.jpg?resize=1284,1600 1284w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Note: Ng/ml is nanograms per milliliter. Cutoffs are the level at which each organization considers the presence of codeine in urine to be confirmed by mass spectrometry (gas or liquid chromatography). In 2022, the same year Kaitlin tested positive for codeine, the Department of Defense noticed a surge in personnel on military bases blaming positive tests on poppy seeds. Scientists at the military’s labs concluded that a change in the manufacturing process of some poppy seeds had led to contamination, causing service members to be falsely accused of abusing drugs. So far, 62 positive tests for codeine have been “overturned and adjusted in Army records,” an Army spokesperson told ProPublica. In response, the Department of Defense in March 2024 doubled the military’s cutoff level for codeine tests to avoid false positives triggered by poppy seed muffins, bagels and other foods. Service members are now cleared for duty with up to 400 times more codeine in their urine than is used to justify child welfare investigations in some states, ProPublica found. ProPublica reviewed cutoff levels used to confirm the presence of common drugs, including opiates, meth, THC and cocaine, as cited in court records, labs’ contracts with government agencies and scientific journals, as well as in interviews with toxicologists. We found that the cutoff levels used by the child welfare systems vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. One large state agency, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services, contractually required a lab to use levels that it later acknowledged were “scientifically unsupportable.” Ted Simon, an expert toxicology witness and a board member of the nonprofit Center for Truth in Science, which advocates for objectivity in research, said agencies are better off consulting with labs to set cutoff levels. That’s because “some labs do validation testing to ensure the accuracy of their cutoffs based on knowledge of human biology.” But even when labs set levels, they don’t always get them right. Some labs “just use the sensitivity of the chemical analysis to measure vanishingly tiny concentrations with no way to assess the relevance to humans,” Simon said. This can result in situations like Kaitlin’s, where the hospital’s cutoff was near the lower limit of what sophisticated lab instruments can detect, he said after reviewing her case. Meanwhile, “labs tell their clients what they want to hear and are hesitant to disclose the uncertainty inherent in their methods,” Simon said. There’s no industry consensus on what, or if anything, should be done about the differing standards. Some experts see a need for uniform levels but acknowledge it would require lengthy vetting before toxicologists and other stakeholders agree on what’s appropriate. Others maintain that as long as labs are transparent and support their decisions with research, they should continue choosing their own levels. “The labs do what works for the instruments that they have,” said Simon. Child welfare agencies employ a patchwork of drug testing standards, according to contracts and procurement documents. Some, like Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services, require labs to use high cutoff levels that protect against false positives. Other agencies’ contracts with their drug testing services do not specify cutoff levels, leaving the decision to the lab. A few large agencies require labs to use ultra-low levels, which catch more users but come with risks. Incidental exposure to a substance in the environment and over-the-counter medications can trigger positives. “The smaller the concentration that you try to detect, the more likely you are to get false positive results,” said toxicologist Paul Cary, who wrote a guide to testing for drug courts, which aim to address the addictions of people accused of drug-related crimes and avoid incarceration. Some Child Welfare Agencies’ Thresholds for a Positive Drug Test Are Lower Than the Federal Government’s The levels at which various agencies consider a drug test positive for meth vary widely. “The smaller the concentration that you try to detect, the more likely you are to get false positive results,” said toxicologist Paul Cary. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1091" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?w=752" alt="" class="wp-image-62707" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg 1458w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=207,300 207w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=768,1115 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=706,1024 706w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=1058,1536 1058w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=1411,2048 1411w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=863,1252 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=422,612 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=552,801 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=558,810 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=527,765 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=752,1091 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=1149,1668 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-meth-levels_mobile_final.jpg?resize=1102,1600 1102w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Note: Ng/ml is nanograms per milliliter. Squares show the level at which each organization considers the presence of meth in urine to be confirmed by mass spectrometry (liquid or gas chromatography). The federal government sets standards for drug testing 14 million people. These include public-sector employees as well as workers whose performance affects the safety of others, known as safety-sensitive roles, like airline pilots, truck drivers and those working in nuclear facilities. For decades, the program was known for a rigorous scientific review and inspection process to ensure accuracy. In 2025, President Donald Trump’s second administration overhauled the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the federal agency responsible for the testing standards program, and dismissed half of its staff. It also disbanded the expert panel that proposed scientifically valid cutoff levels, the Drug Testing Advisory Board. “There could be issues for national security or safety sensitive issues that might be impacted given the recent changes,” said Hyden Shen, former regulatory and policy oversight lead at the health agency’s division of workplace programs. In the spring, Shen resigned alongside almost half of his division. He spoke to ProPublica after leaving federal employment. Private labs have long been free to set their own standards, independent of the federal government’s recommended levels. The CEO of a laboratory company specializing in testing for probation departments, child welfare agencies and courts testified in a lawsuit that in 2018 the lab had lowered cutoff levels for cocaine in hair follicle tests by a factor of five without amending its contract with the state child welfare agency. The company said that the change was to align its levels with scientific updates and that state agencies were made aware of the new cutoffs when it reported test results. The lawsuit was settled with the lab denying wrongdoing. Federal workers who test positive for drugs can’t be punished until their results are scrutinized by medical review officers, physicians who verify that positive drug test results aren’t being triggered by legitimate medications. (For example, without a special follow-up called an isomer test, over-the-counter Vicks VapoInhaler is indistinguishable from street drugs in multiple types of drug tests.) But medical review of test results is expensive, and few state agencies require it for child welfare cases or for testing people on probation. One lab competing for a contract to test probationers and juveniles in a residential facility in Kansas discouraged the use of medical review officers, saying it would “result in extra expense and extra time for results delivery.” Other state agencies, especially those that oversee parole, probation or prisons, skip confirmation testing entirely and rely instead on cheaper, less accurate immunoassay tests, unless someone contests their result and can afford to pay out of pocket for a follow-up, according to contracts between state courts and labs. Agencies “are effectively saying, ‘Most of these people probably did use drugs. And, yeah, OK, there’s a handful that didn’t. But it would bankrupt us to have to confirm all of these,’” said Karen Murtagh, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, which has represented inmates in drug testing cases. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="683" data-id="62142" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=683" alt="A woman with long brown hair, wearing a jacket and jeans, seated on a playground slide and looking off into the distance." class="wp-image-62142" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 2000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,1152 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,1536 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1365,2048 1365w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,1295 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,791 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,1128 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1724 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_011_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1024" width="683" data-id="62144" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=683" alt="A lone streetlight illuminates a path winding through a park with trees and grass at night." class="wp-image-62144" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 2000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=200,300 200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,1152 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=683,1024 683w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,1536 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1365,2048 1365w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,1295 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,633 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,828 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,837 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,791 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,1128 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1724 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20241125_LisaMarieHerrera_485_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1067,1600 1067w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /> Marie Herrera at the park where she used to take her children to play Liz Moughon/ProPublica In the spring of 2019, Marie Herrera was working to reunite with her four kids in Michigan’s foster care system. (ProPublica is referring to Herrera by her middle name at her request, to maintain her privacy as she moves forward with her life.) At a hearing on her case, a foster care worker testified that it was going well, according to a filing from her attorney: “Mother had attended all eleven parenting times, had procured employment, was in therapy, lived in three-quarters housing, and tested negative for illegal drugs during the current reporting period.” Then that July, Herrera’s saliva tested positive for cocaine. Herrera admitted to being in recovery from an addiction but denied using the drug. Over the next eight months, two more of her drug tests were confirmed positive for cocaine by the state’s lab. She sought testing from an outside lab, which didn’t detect illegal drug use. According to her test results from the state’s lab, which Herrera shared with ProPublica, the levels of cocaine and its metabolite in her system ranged from 1.065 to 1.774 ng/ml, just above the state’s cutoff of 1 ng/ml in saliva. If the positive-test threshold for federal workers had been applied to Herrera’s tests, she could have had more than four times as much of the drug in her saliva and still been cleared to fly a plane. But Herrera’s positive test from December 2019 caused the judge to take away her unsupervised parenting time, according to court records. “The positive drug tests turned my world upside down and ruined my life,” said Herrera. What she didn’t know is that behind the scenes, Michigan’s child welfare agency was reviewing — and preparing to raise — its cutoff levels. Herrera Tested Positive for Cocaine Under Michigan’s 2019 Standard, but in 2020 the Same Test Would Have Been Ruled a Negative Herrera lost unsupervised parenting privileges after the positive test. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="1091" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?w=752" alt="" class="wp-image-62772" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg 1458w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=207,300 207w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=768,1115 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=706,1024 706w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=1058,1536 1058w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=1411,2048 1411w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=863,1252 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=422,612 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=552,801 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=558,810 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=527,765 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=752,1091 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=1149,1668 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20251223-cocaine-levels_mobile_final_d46be7.jpg?resize=1102,1600 1102w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Note: Cutoffs are the level at which each organization considers the presence of cocaine in saliva to be confirmed by mass spectrometry (gas or liquid chromatography). Ng/ml is nanograms per milliliter. Michigan’s levels for cocaine and other drugs in saliva had been set by its drug testing vendor, Forensic Fluids, in 2018, according to public records. (Forensic Fluids did not respond to a request for comment.) Michigan contractually required the same levels when it signed with a new lab, Averhealth, in 2019. But the child welfare agency noticed conflicting results between its tests and those ordered by law enforcement agencies, according to public records. Some individuals who tested positive for a drug with one agency tested negative with another. In November 2020, at the urging of its new lab, the agency raised its levels. Communications between the agency and Averhealth show both were concerned that low cutoffs might not be “forensically defensible” due to “uncertainty around environmental exposure.” “Current levels … are scientifically unsupportable,” Michigan’s child welfare agency wrote in a memo about the change. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="682" width="527" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg" alt="Memo subject: “Drug Screen Cut-Off Levels Change Request.” The memo reads in part: “Although the concerns shared were not specific to testing levels, the correlation between established testing levels and the concerns are clear; current levels result in increased errors, inconsistency and are scientifically unsupportable.”" class="wp-image-62145" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 2318w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=232,300 232w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,994 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=791,1024 791w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1187,1536 1187w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1582,2048 1582w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,1117 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,546 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,714 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,722 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,682 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,973 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,1487 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PPMemo_to_change_cut-off_levels_final_10-20-20_002.doc-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1236,1600 1236w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 527px) 100vw, 527px" /> A 2020 memo from Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services to its Children’s Services Agency recommends raising agency drug testing levels because current levels are “scientifically unsupportable.” Obtained by ProPublica. Highlight added by ProPublica. In a statement, Averhealth, the lab that processed Herrera’s tests, said the mismatch in results that concerned Michigan administrators “in no way calls into question the accuracy or reliability” of its testing. “Inconsistencies occurred when different types of tests were conducted (saliva or hair) or when the individual was tested days later,” the company said, noting that “different types of testing have different limitations.” The company said its test results “simply attest to whether a drug is present in a specimen and, if so, in what quantity. It is left to the courts to decide what, if any consequences, follow.” In Herrera’s case, the lab said, low-level cocaine positives “likely represent ingestion of cocaine” and that “passive exposure as an explanation is highly doubtful.” The company also pointed out that Herrera had several high-level positive tests for methamphetamine in the fall of 2020, nine months after the court took away her unsupervised parenting time. Herrera admits she’s relapsed at times. But she also says that being labeled a cocaine user early on in her case, when she says she wasn’t using, derailed her recovery. Herrera believes it set her up to fail by creating an adversarial relationship with her caseworker and judge. “I wasn’t grateful about what they were doing to me,” she says. Herrera’s parental rights were terminated in 2021, less than a year after Michigan raised its cutoff levels for cocaine in saliva. In denying Herrera’s appeal, a judge cited her refusal to participate in further drug tests, additional failed tests when she did comply, and her lack of housing and income, among other things. When Herrera was told she could never again see her kids, she said, she was devastated and relapsed again. “Fuck it, if they say I’m an addict, then I’ll numb the pain.” “I think about my kids every single day,” she said. “It’s affected me completely.” Even after raising its cutoffs, Michigan’s levels were still far lower than those used for federal workers. The state declined to comment, but a memo stated that officials considered the federal levels inappropriate because they “do not assess the impacts of how those substances may affect a person’s behavior” or “how that use may impact child safety.” Drug testing policy experts say it’s not possible for any test, no matter the cutoff level, to reliably predict child safety. “A drug test doesn’t tell you if a person has a substance use disorder, if they are in recovery, or whether a child is safe,” said Nancy K. Young, executive director of Children and Family Futures, which consults for child welfare agencies, and co-author of a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration policy paper on drug testing for child welfare agencies. Young said administrators should consider test results as “just one data point” and rely more on “casework and a relationship with the family” to determine whether a child is safe and well. Graphics Notes For codeine, meth and cocaine graphics, the cutoff for federal workers is from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs. Codeine Graphic: Kaitlin was tested at Virtua Voorhees Hospital in New Jersey. Source for the Department of Defense cutoff is an agency press release, and sources for test results and hospital cutoff are court records. Meth Graphic: Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services data is from the agency’s 2023 invitation for bids. Orange County Social Services Agency data is from the agency’s 2021-2024 contract with its drug testing provider. Utah Division of Child and Family Services data is taken from an individual’s drug test results from 2022. Georgia Division of Family and Children Services data is from an individual’s drug test results from 2020. Cocaine Graphic: Cutoffs are the level at which each organization considers the presence of cocaine in saliva to be confirmed by mass spectrometry (gas or liquid chromatography). Ng/ml is nanograms per milliliter. The cocaine cutoff levels used by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for testing in saliva are drawn from public records, including contracts, communications between the agency and its labs, and agency employee emails obtained via a public records request. Marie Herrera provided ProPublica with her test results. The post Her Parenting Time Was Restricted After a Positive Drug Test. By Federal Standards, It Would’ve Been Negative. appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Alice Hines.
Tuesday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD
Tuesday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4.
Why forcing people to go green can backfire
A new study reveals a conundrum for climate policy: People hate when you tell them what to do.
Combating climate change can feel particularly difficult these days. Countries, states and municipalities across the globe are missing greenhouse emission reduction targets and, in the United States, President Donald J. Trump has rolled back key elements of his predecessor’s climate agenda. Given the trajectory, it might be tempting for pro-climate policy makers to turn to more aggressive measures of getting people to take action, such as mandates, bans or restrictions. People would then have to save the planet. But a study published last week in the journal Nature Sustainability suggests that approach can carry real risks. It found that climate policies aimed at forcing lifestyle changes — such as bans on driving in urban centers — can backfire by weakening people’s existing pro-environmental values and triggering political backlash, even among those who already care about climate change. The findings suggest that how climate policy is designed may matter as much as how aggressive it is. “Mandates can sometimes get you over a hump and tipping point, but they come with costs,” said Sam Bowles, an author of the paper and an economist at the nonprofit Santa Fe Institute. “There could be negative impacts that people don’t anticipate.” Researchers surveyed more than 3,000 Germans and found that even people who care about climate change had a notably negative response to mandates or bans that did things like limit thermostat temperatures or meat consumption, which they saw as restricting their freedoms. The paper also compared that to people’s reaction to COVID-related requirements, such as vaccine and mask mandates. While researchers found a backlash effect, or “cost of control,” in both instances, it was 52 percent greater for climate than COVID policies. “I didn’t expect that people’s opposition to climate-mandated lifestyle would be so extreme,” said Katrin Schmelz, the other author of the study, who is also at Santa Fe Institute. She said that people’s trust in their leaders can mitigate the adverse impact and, compared to the United States, Germans have fairly high trust in the government. That, she said, means she would “expect mandates to be less accepted and provoke more opposition here.” Ben Ho wasn’t involved in the study and wasn’t surprised by its findings. “This is fundamentally about how a society values individual values of liberty and expression against communal values like safety,” he said, pointing to a sizable body of similar research on the potential for backlash to climate policies. “What is novel about their work is to show that these backfire effects are still true today, and what is especially interesting is to connect their data to how people felt about COVID.” The political consequences of climate-related mandates can be dramatic. In Germany, a 2023 law passed by the country’s then center-left government sought to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels by effectively banning new gas heating systems and promoting heat pumps. Though the policy allowed for exemptions and subsidies, opponents quickly framed it as a ban, dubbing it the heizhammer, or “heating hammer.” The measure became a potent symbol of government overreach, seized on by far-right parties and contributing to a broader public backlash against the governing coalition. “The last German government basically fell because they were seen to be instituting a ban on gas,” said Gernot Wagner, climate economist at Columbia Business School. The current government is attempting to rollback the legislation. Germany’s experience underscores the risks the study identifies. Policies that are perceived as restricting personal choice can trigger resistance that extends beyond the measure itself, weakening public support for climate action more broadly. So far, policies in the U.S. have largely avoided such opposition. That’s largely because American climate policies have historically been much less aggressive, with even progressives rarely turning to outright bans. But there is both precedent for a potential backlash and inklings of potential fights to come. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, for example, laid out the path to gradually phase out incandescent light bulbs. That led to the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice and Better Use of Light Bulbs acts, two 2011 bills that the then-burgeoning tea party movement pushed, without success. Today, methane, also known as natural gas, is at the center of similar cultural fights as cities attempt to ban new hookups and take other steps to curtail its use. Opponents of climate action seem to have become aware of the power of bans to spark backlash, too. President Trump regularly refers to fuel efficiency benchmarks as an electric vehicle “mandate.” The natural gas industry has also framed efficiency standards for gas appliances as bans and used the backlash effect to help successfully delay other explicit bans on gas in new construction, such as in New York state. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?quality=75&strip=all" alt="" class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?quality=75&strip=all 2000w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/woty-2025-merged2.png?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="1125" width="2000" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> One word sums up climate politics in 2025: Greenlash Kate Yoder On its face, research like this can put lawmakers in a difficult position: If a policy isn’t aggressive enough, it won’t do much to combat climate change. But if it’s too aggressive, people could turn against it, or even the entire political movement behind it, as in Germany, and progress can stall. “This doesn’t mean we should give up on climate policies,” said Ho.“It just means we should be more mindful in how policies are designed, and that trust could be a key component.” Schmelz and Bowles both point to a similar conclusion, and say that any policy should at least consider the plasticity of citizens’ beliefs and values. “Ethical commitments and social norms are very fragile and they’re easily destroyed,” said Bowles. Schmelz added that people in power “can upset and reduce willingness to cooperate by designing poor policies.” One way that policies can avoid backlash is by focusing less on banning a particular action and instead on making the other options more abundant, and more attractive (by adding tax incentives or rebates, for example). “Offering alternatives is helping in enforcing green values,” said Schmelz. Another option could be aiming to make climate-unfriendly activities more expensive rather than restricting them. As Bowles put it, “people don’t feel like they are being controlled by a higher price.” The closer a policy gets to people’s personal lives, they say, the more important it is to be mindful of potential missteps. The authors also emphasize that they aren’t claiming mandates or bans never work — seatbelt laws and smoking restrictions have become commonplace, for instance. But those were enacted in a different era and there was little public dissent about their benefits to personal health. “The was always somebody in that person’s family saying ‘No, look, sweetheart, I really wish you would be wearing your seatbelt’,” said Bowles. “We don’t have that in the case of the environment, so it’s a much greater challenge to shift the rhetoric.” But, ultimately, Bowles says the broader message that he wants to convey is that people are generally generous and want their actions to align with their values. This new research underscores the need for policies that help them embrace that inclination, rather than temper it, which mandates or bans can do. “People have a lot of good values,” he said. “When we look at our citizens and are designing policies, don’t take them to be jerks.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why forcing people to go green can backfire on Jan 6, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tik Root.
New journal warns Pacific media near breaking point amid revenue collapse and political pressure
By Monika Singh of Wansolwara News Pacific media are facing one of their most challenging reporting environments in their history, marked by governance issues, political instability, geopolitical pressures and escalating climate threats, while simultaneously grappling with declining revenue streams and threats to their financial survival. This is highlighted in the inaugural edition of the Pacific
By Monika Singh of Wansolwara News Pacific media are facing one of their most challenging reporting environments in their history, marked by governance issues, political instability, geopolitical pressures and escalating climate threats, while simultaneously grappling with declining revenue streams and threats to their financial survival. This is highlighted in the inaugural edition of the Pacific Media academic journal, by co-editors, associate professor and head of the University of the South Pacific (USP) Journalism Programme, Dr Shailendra Singh, and co-founder of The Australia Today, Dr Amit Sarwal. In their editorial, Dr Singh and Dr Sarwal say Pacific media systems — already vulnerable due to their small scale — continue to be hit by the collapse of traditional advertising models that once kept legacy media afloat. READ MORE: Inaugural edition of Pacific Media Pacific Media website They point out that although small and geographically isolated, the regional media have not been spared the ravages of digital disruption, which continues to pose a threat to the media’s traditional advertising-based revenue model. This was compounded by losses from the covid-19 pandemic. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-121980" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PACIFIC-MEDIA-team-680wide-.jpg" alt="Dr Shailendra Singh (from left), Dr Sarwal, and Dr David Robie" width="680" height="235" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PACIFIC-MEDIA-team-680wide-.jpg 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PACIFIC-MEDIA-team-680wide--300x104.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Inaugural edition coeditors Dr Shailendra Singh (from left) and Dr Sarwal, and Pacific Media founder Asia Pacific Media Network’s Dr David Robie. Image: Wansolwara News These issues, and more, re-surfaced at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji. The conference, the first of its kind in 20 years, was hosted by the USP’s School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education (Journalism), in partnership with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), the United States Embassy in Suva and Asia Pacific Media Network. Selected blind peer reviewed conference papers published in Pacific Media highlight how Pacific news reporting is becoming increasingly complex and contentious, even as newsrooms face unprecedented financial and editorial pressures. A key question explored at the conference, and a recurring theme in the journal, is how Pacific media are responding to and reporting on the overlapping challenges in the region, which have compounded the long-standing struggles to achieve sustainable development. In his paper, Frontline media faultlines: How critical journalism can survive against the odds, the journal’s production and managing editor, veteran Pacific journalist and educator Dr David Robie warned that Pacific media face a “plethora of emerging and entrenched problems” — from collapsing business models to the rise of fake news, leadership failures, and political corruption. Despite reporting on these issues for decades, little progress has been made even as new challenges emerge. In The History of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) 1972–2023, Marsali Mackinnon and Kalafi Moala, while paying tribute to the region’s media pioneers, explore enduring questions about the state of Pacific media, especially in the context of digital disruption and revenue losses. They ask whether the industry has lost its vitality and if journalists and media workers still uphold core values like freedom of speech and impartial reporting. <img decoding="async" class="wp-image-121983 size-full" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marsali-Mackinnon-Kalafi-Moala-RNZ-500wide.png" alt="" width="500" height="313" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marsali-Mackinnon-Kalafi-Moala-RNZ-500wide.png 500w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Marsali-Mackinnon-Kalafi-Moala-RNZ-500wide-300x188.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> Marsali Mackinnon and Kalafi Moala . . . examining whether the principles established by postcolonial journalism pioneers in the 1970s have been compromised. Image: Wansolwara News/RNZ Pacific The article, based on their forthcoming book chronicling PINA’s 50-year history, looks at the challenges facing Pacific media — economic, political, technological, and cultural pressures — and examines whether the principles established by postcolonial pioneers in the 1970s have been compromised. Another paper, Women’s political empowerment in the Asia-Pacific region: The role of social media, by associate professor Baljeet Singh, Dr Singh, Nitika Nand and Shasnil Chand, examines how social media positively influences women’s political empowerment across 20 Asia-Pacific countries. Based on their findings, the authors recommend that regional governments and development partners prioritise improved connectivity and online access in deprived areas as a key strategy to empower women and strengthen their participation in politics and political leadership. In his paper, Reporting the nuclear Pacific: Facing new geopolitical challenges, journalist and researcher Nic Maclellan revisits the Pacific’s nuclear testing legacy, highlighting the crucial role of journalists in preserving survivors’ stories. He argues that the nuclear threat in the Pacific is far from over and has re-emerged in new forms, requiring sustained media attention and critical reporting. In his commentary, Behind the Mic: How Sashi Singh’s Talking Point helped shape Fiji’s political landscape, Sashimendra Singh reflects on the impact of his Sydney-based podcast in the lead-up to Fiji’s 2022 General Election. The former Fiji-based broadcaster interviewed key political figures, including Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and the three Deputy Prime Ministers, while they were still in opposition. Singh’s podcast tackled issues that Fiji’s suppressed national media were reluctant to address and went on to attract a large following. The article demonstrates the growing importance of diaspora media and new media technologies, showing how social media can positively circumvent censorship imposed by national authorities. In The “Coconut Wireless”: Ways that community news endures and spreads in a news desert, Krista Rados and Brett Oppegaard address the concept of “news deserts” in the Pacific — areas where communities urgently need local information but lack trustworthy sources. This paper highlights the enduring strengths of social media in fostering journalism in remote, sparsely populated, and underdeveloped communities. <img decoding="async" class="wp-image-120951 size-full" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/PM-Cover-11-July-2025-300tall.png" alt="The cover of the first edition of Pacific Media" width="300" height="455" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/PM-Cover-11-July-2025-300tall.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/PM-Cover-11-July-2025-300tall-198x300.png 198w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/PM-Cover-11-July-2025-300tall-277x420.png 277w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> The cover of the first edition of Pacific Media. Image: PM Pacific Media, launched last year, succeeds the long-running Pacific Journalism Review, which began at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994 and was archived after 30 years of publication. PJR is now a public database for research. The journal is designed by Del Abcede. This inaugural edition is a collaboration between USP, the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), and Tuwhera Open Access platform, aimed at documenting the rapid transformations shaping journalism in the region — and how Pacific media can navigate an increasingly turbulent future. Some other key papers include: Weaponising the partisan WhatsApp group: The circulation of disinformation and artificial intelligence (AI) content in the 2024 Indonesian presidential election by Mochamad Achir Taher. The paper examines the spread of disinformation partisan messages within a politically aligned WhatsApp group during Indonesia’s 2024 Presidential Election. The study finds that presidential candidates used social media platforms to distribute biased and misleading content to influence voters. Blood on the Tracks: Countering symbolic violence — A case study in reciprocal investigative journalism practice by Bonita Mason. In this paper, she examines a six-year investigation by Australian journalist and First Nations man Allan Clarke into the suspicious death of First Nations teenager Mark Haines. Haines’s family never accepted police claims of suicide. On the 25th anniversary of the death, Clarke, moved by the injustices suffered by the dead man’s family, reignited the investigation. Your weather: Digital weather producer WeatherWatch NZ and its Pacific coverage by Melissa Beattie. The paper situates WeatherWatch within the broader digital journalism landscape and then examines its Pacific-focused weekly forecasts in Melanesia and Polynesia. This article was first published by Wansolwara News and is republished by Asia Pacific Report as a collaboration between the University of the South Pacific and Asia Pacific Media Network. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Confronting Genocide with Civil Disobedience
While the secret signals and surveillance facility at Pine Gap in Northern Australia, officially named the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG) is billed as a joint affair between Australia and the United States, it is nothing of the sort. Just as offices direct the callow intern to make the coffee, Australian officials remain America’s […] The post Confronting Genocide with Civil Disobedience first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-164178" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/pine-gap-protest-activists-2025-300x169.webp" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/pine-gap-protest-activists-2025-300x169.webp 300w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/pine-gap-protest-activists-2025.webp 720w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />While the secret signals and surveillance facility at Pine Gap in Northern Australia, officially named the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG) is billed as a joint affair between Australia and the United States, it is nothing of the sort. Just as offices direct the callow intern to make the coffee, Australian officials remain America’s permanent interns, helpful, certainly, but never powerful or given challenging roles. The contempt with which Australians are treated is shown by the level of secrecy that continues to enshroud one of the largest signals intelligence centres outside the United States. It is this secrecy that does, from time to time, make its way into court. For this, we can thank those plucky protestors who have, over the years, sought to expose the role of the base in aiding US military operations against targets in any number of locations unbeknownst to the Australian parliament, and not even the Australian Prime Minister and Cabinet. Two of those protestors, Carmen Escobar Robinson and Tommy Walker, brought attention to the base’s activities when they blocked Hatt Road, the main access route to Pine Gap in October 2023. On November 27, 2023, a second effort was made that temporarily prevented some 100 Pine Gap employees from entering the facility. Robinson and Walker were part of a group of 50 activists, an eclectic makeup of health workers, community members, and the Arrernte Traditional Owners, all steered by the social justice outfit Mparntwe for Falastin. The action had been enlivened by revelations from an ex-Pine Gap employee that intelligence from the base was finding its way to Israeli sources. The revelations, published in Declassified Australia by Peter Cronau, came from David Rosenberg, a veteran of the US National Security Agency (NSA) who performed the role of “team leader of weapon signals analysis” at Pine Gap for 18 years till 2008. “Pine Gap facility,” he stated, “is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel”. Personnel at the base were tasked to gather such signals pertaining to Hamas’s command and control centres in Gaza. “Their aim would be to minimise casualties to non-combatants in achieving their objective of destroying Hamas,” given the proximity of such centres to civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. (This claim proved over time to be aspirational, given the staggering civilian death toll arising from Israeli strikes.) Cronau had previous obtained evidence of the role played by Pine Gap in supplying geolocation data to the US military for targeting purposes from an NSA document from August 2012 entitled “Site Profile G”, stemming from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and first published in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program Background Briefing in 2017. “RAINFALL [NSA’s designation for Pine Gap] detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.” These signals, writes Cronau, constitute “the communications data of radar and weapons systems collected in near-real time”. Pine Gap, “with its satellites so strategically positioned to monitor the Middle East region, along with its targeting and analysis capability” was bound to be valuable to Israel. Robinson and Walker were subsequently charged with summary offences for the second action comprising loitering, causing a hazard on the road and blocking the use of a public road. On September 23, 2025, they pleaded “not guilty” to the charges, arguing that the obstruction had been staged to prevent “the offence of genocide in Palestine”. In his ruling, Judge John McBride found the two protestors “exemplary citizens” in dedication to their cause despite finding them guilty of loitering. (The prosecution dropped the obstruction charges late in 2024.) “I conclude that the conduct of both defendants, deliberate as it was, cannot be accepted by this court as reasonable in justifying their intended commission of a criminal offence.” The defence made by the duo’s lawyer John Lawrence resorted to the Northern Territory’s Criminal Code Act which stipulates that force – in this case a blockade – can be justified in certain circumstances, one of them being to “prevent the commission of an offence”. Robinson and Walker had committed their acts with intent “because it was their view, their belief, their understanding that what was going on in Pine Gap was an offence.” The Crown was unable to “prove beyond reasonable doubt” that the defendants “weren’t moving in order to prevent genocide.” Professor Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute, an untiring student of Pine Gap’s cloaked activities, was called upon to give evidence on the facility’s role. This, argued the Crown prosecutor, Machiko Raheem, was not relevant to the defence of applying force to prevent genocide. But the court did hear her rather startling confession that a genocide was taking place. “A blind person can see that since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the UN Partition Plan in 1947 there has been a systematic annihilation of the Palestinian people.” This annihilation had “only recently [been] labelled […] genocide – which is consistent with human history as a whole. That’s not the issue in these proceedings.” The judge agreed with the prosecutor that “actions taken in Gaza which constituted an offence of genocide” did not excuse the duo’s conduct. Both were given good behaviour bonds lasting six months and made to pay a court levy of A$150. In remarks made to Guardian Australia, Robinson made the salient point that Australia, in the absence of transparency to parliament or the public, “is hardwired into the US military surveillance complex through Pine Gap. The Australian public should be very concerned… how many countries are we unofficially attacking? How many people is Pine Gap involved in killing in Palestine? Lebanon? Syria? Yemen? Iran?” Most Australian politicians, mutely, subserviently, persist in avoiding the matter. The errand boys and girls of the American empire remain an unquestioning bunch. The post Confronting Genocide with Civil Disobedience first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Musician and writer cehryl on the value of being true to your own pace
I’m wondering why you released two albums this year, whether due to your natural creative pace or some intention of defying the music industry’s expectation that artists release albums once every two years.
I’m wondering why you released two albums this year, whether due to your natural creative pace or some intention of defying the music industry’s expectation that artists release albums once every two years. I’ve always been creative at my own pace, even when I had a label for my previous three projects. But I think naturally, even before the internet, I was always a brash, impulsive person. I think my creative impulse all stems from—I don’t want to say mental illness, but extreme impatience. My level of output has always been pretty much consistent, which is, to say, a lot. Working with a label, I have to fulfill certain campaign duration needs for marketing reasons, but I felt really free this year. After I released my final project with my last label in March or April, I just felt like, we live in a dystopia and I don’t care any more about rollouts. At this point in my career, I’m so over rollouts, and I’m so over trying in this non-meritocracy music industry. It’s not really out of a “fuck the music industry” mentality, even though I do think “fuck the music industry” every day. As artists, our duty is to be true to our own pace. Our only duty is to honor the creative impulse. Creating campaigns is so antithetical to that, which is why artists have teams to do all those things that are anti-creative, in my opinion. I’m interested in living in a dystopia being more of an inspiration than something that gets you down or limits you. Can you talk more about that? Everybody who partakes in the arts—in the world—right now is faced with this AI slop paradigm shift where we’re like, “Is our existence needed when there’s all that shit?” Some people listen to Suno music. There’s so much reasonable fear within myself and within everyone. It’s this existential fear of whether or not we have purpose anymore. AI is an attack on purpose, in a way, because AI art, if you can call it that, is not a consequence of lived experience. The duty of an artist is to translate their lived experiences into a different form—hopefully something beautiful, but sometimes really ugly. That is also good, necessary art. AI doesn’t have lived experience. When I was talking about this dystopia, I was trying to get at this existential anxiety of, “What’s the point, then, of art if it’s not valued, if the lived experience of being human is no longer valued?” I don’t think we’ll let that happen. I’m hopeful that we, collectively, as humans, will sense in some invisible fourth-dimension way the necessity of human storytelling. Now more than ever, making art is so intertwined with trying to express or seek truth in this era. Can you talk about why, with You Win Some, You Lose a Lot, you’ve gone in a newer musical direction of mostly instrumental beat work instead of your signature indie-R&B style? I recently did an interview that talked about how the album was so different to my previous work. I think it’s tempting, from a journalistic point of view, to frame it as, “Oh, she went on a detour.” … When an artist needs to be marketed, different players in the industry need to [box them into genres]. This is not their own fault. It’s only human to want to recognize patterns and fit artists into genres. I’m also not trying to be like, “Oh, I’m genre-less, I’m post-genre.” I think that’s really stupid. I know I have a sound, but a recent mentality that has really freed me is, the more confusing your online presence is or your artist images are, the more freedom you have to make things that actually interest you. I’m interested in making things or being in experiences that let me grow. I’m still proud of things I’ve made before, and I might go back to it. I don’t like the idea of making resolute decisions about [the] directions [of] my career. I feel like that is something you do from a journalistic angle, and it helps people understand artists. I think the reason I feel so free recently is because I’ve completely abandoned my self-consciousness and my desire to have my career looked at in that way. I wanted to make [You Win Some, You Lose a Lot] instrumental and electronic because I’ve always loved composing things, and putting my voice over it or not is just one decision away. I could have sang over those beats and it would’ve felt very me as well. I’m interested in challenging and confusing myself, because when you do something you don’t really understand, it proves that you could also do something different and still make it good. Maybe sometimes, you have to take a detour to go back to your original thing, and it actually makes your original thing even more interesting. I think it’s helpful to always feel like anything is possible in terms of style, whether you’re into visual arts, music, or writing. Not thinking about it as a career, but a state of being. From what I can tell, the writing you’ve done in the past, things like zines and essays, isn’t as much of what you do creatively these days. If that’s true, can you tell me about why you’ve shifted mostly toward music? I feel like they’re all the same thing. All of these are just formats. It’s helpful for me to skip around formats when I feel stuck or bored, or sometimes, I feel like every time I open Ableton, I’m creating this similar melody. Sometimes, you get stuck in these loops or tendencies that trap you and make you doubt your ability, or you feel like, “Oh, shit. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the plateau.” Every time I feel that way, it’s so helpful to draw or write just words, and sometimes, that unclogs things for me. Music has always been my favorite form because it’s invisible. It has this element of divinity. It feels like the most magical of all the forms. It’s always been my main focus, but underneath it, I’ve always loved writing. I’ve never been interested in having a career in the other things, which is why I consider them secondary, but I also consider them complementary, because every time I write a big essay or poem, I excavate words that I, later on, steal. I love stealing from myself. It’s all about keeping the flow. So much of creativity is also about association. The more you try to work on something horizontally—when I work on music in the studio or with Ableton open or with a guitar, even after I’m done for the day, I’m still thinking about how to workshop that, tweak that song or line or even just that specific take. I’m thinking about that for the next six months continuously. Well, hopefully not that long, because I’m impatient. The process is ongoing, even when you’re sleeping, at the back of your head. The more different outlets you have to keep your attention in that space in your head, the better it is for an abundance. The more, the more, if that makes any sense. There’s no limit or ceiling of where your creativity can go. The more you go into it, [the more] you can manically get more and more out of it. It just somehow is exponential. There was something you said about stealing from yourself that really stuck out to me. I’d love to hear more about what you mean by that and how that’s been a part of your creative process. The key thing is the idea of preciousness. There have been times in my life when I’m just feeling so precious about everything. I’ve learned that that’s actually worked to my disadvantage. By preciousness, I mean, for example, I write a song, and in a verse, I already use this metaphor or rhyme that I thought of in the shower two weeks ago. Three months later, I write another song that’s better, but I’m like, “Fuck, I already used that line. I can’t reuse it again.” Fuck it. Why can’t you repeat yourself? I’ve let go of the idea of having a perfect discography or a perfect career, or a perfect musician profile on Pitchfork. I don’t care anymore. I think messiness is liberating, and messiness includes repeating yourself and not viewing yourself as having this precious position in the music world. Let’s say someone makes something similar to you. Instead of accepting that or learning about that with a sense of fear and a sense of, “Oh, my God. I’m being replaced,” it’s been so liberating to really not view [myself] as such a precious, neat story. Instead, think of your creative process as a practice. If you approach it as a practice—which is to say you show up, you do the work, you’re a student, you’re not performing a career—if you approach it with that mentality, you make things that are way more interesting and exciting, and things that could surprise you and take you to places you might otherwise not go. By stealing from myself, I mean the idea of, I work on this, I work on that. And then, I’m going to take a little bit from this version of myself and put it there. It’s all a mess on this massive table, and I’m not trying to present it yet. I’m just in the kitchen, everything is messy. How has this all differed for work outside the Cehryl discography, like film scoring and whatnot? How have you learned to do that? What have you learned about yourself from doing it? There’s no separation between anything I do creatively. I put out music [as] Cehryl, but when I’m scoring films, it’s spiritually the same process of entering this trance. Spiritually, the process is the same, when I score films, of entering my imagination. Everything comes back to being in touch with [my] imagination, but the only difference is when I score films, I’m in an imaginary landscape that was sketched out to me by the director or filmmaker. I’m in that landscape and it’s in that space in my head, but it’s the same as when I’m writing songs about my own life. In both cases, I’ve allowed myself to completely exit my physical form, enter this imaginary space, and feel the feeling in that scene and let the appropriate melody for the appropriate scene come out of my hands or voice. I make a lot of other things. It’s almost a problem. Recently, I’ve been making a lot of text keychains. I made 80 of these. This one says, “I love making it worse, so I can make it better.” I have a bunch that say, “Dive now, float later. Love now, cringe later. Listen now, look later.” Which is an important thing, I think, for 2025 musicians. A lot of those are text-based but could have been a lyric. This could have been a tweet. This could have been the header of an essay. The same feeling could have been expressed non-verbally in a film score. To me, all of this comes from being really emotionally sensitive not just to myself but to the world. It’s all the same thing to me. It looks different, but the essence or what I’m trying to communicate or express is the same. Do you have anything else you want to say about creativity and imagination that you haven’t said yet? Or, when you were answering any of the questions I asked you, did you have anything you wanted to say that you didn’t quite get to say? Imagination is the only and final way we can survive this horrible life. … All hope in any circumstance, in our individual and collective lives, comes from imagining. By imagining, it’s like it hasn’t happened yet. Nobody knows what it’s going to look like. The act of imagination is an act of hope. The act of imagination is about possibility. It’s about believing. It’s actually faith. It’s similar, because you’re blindly believing in something that could very well be shit. For example, if tomorrow, I decide to make heavy metal, I need to have enough imagination to believe—it’s delusion also—that I could make something good. Imagination is the final frontier we must all protect. That’s the one thing, whether you’re in a difficult, politically ravaged situation in your hometown or whether—imagination is the only way out, and it’s the only thing you have to yourself. That space is really sacred, and it determines everything you can be that the world tells you that you can’t. All the arts arise from brave people imagining something that has never existed before. It’s magic, and it’s crazy, because it’s free. It’s the only way we can actually surpass our mundane physical form as humans. The imagination is where we go at the most desperate times and the most euphoric times. Whether or not you’re spiritual or religious, I think we all have imagination. It’s totally universal. One final thing that I wanted to add [is that] people sometimes confuse action with a state of being. By that, I mean it’s easy for [record] labels to sign an artist and to push, “Oh, this is an artist. She writes all the songs.” But I think making art is really a state of being, which is a lifetime. It’s not about the individual actions of going to the studio, making a record, or putting out a promotion. It’s all the times in between as well in which you think about, “What is it [I’m] trying to say?” It’s about your sensitivity to the world. ceryhl recommends: Internet Archive PDFs Fluxus movement (especially approaches of John Cage and La Monte Young) anything and everything by David Wojnarowicz Starting new: Instagrams, emails, bands, projects (aka making creative detours) Trying to always always shut my eyes when listening to music This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Max Freedman.
On Seeing the Photo of Nicolás Maduro Aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima
The use of blindfolds and earmuffs to transport Maduro can’t be justified on national security grounds. Did they fear Maduro calling his generals on a cellphone to report his latitude and longitude so they could attempt an ocean rescue? Did they think he’d ever be in a position to reveal the secret assets and vulnerabilities of the battle-tested Wasp Class, Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship? The reason sensory deprivation devices were used was to intimidate, disorient, and otherwise induce in Maduro a sense of helplessness and distress. This is a form of “touchless torture” proscribed by the U.N. Convention Against Torture. More The post On Seeing the Photo of Nicolás Maduro Aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-500x401.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-600x481.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1165px) 100vw, 1165px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1165" height="934" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR.jpeg 1165w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-680x545.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-786x630.jpeg 786w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-768x616.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-500x401.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-600x481.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1165px) 100vw, 1165px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="786" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-786x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-786x630.jpeg 786w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-680x545.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-768x616.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-500x401.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-600x481.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR.jpeg 1165w" sizes="(max-width: 786px) 100vw, 786px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396161" class="size-medium wp-image-396161" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-680x545.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="545" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-680x545.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-786x630.jpeg 786w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-768x616.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-500x401.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR-600x481.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/G9wS3KlXMAAHmBR.jpeg 1165w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Screenshot from Truth Social Authenticating a photograph On Sunday, May 4, a day after the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his compound in Caracas, The New York Times published a short piece about their decision to publish, the day before, a photograph of the prisoner on board the U.S.S. Iwo Jima. The column was written by Meaghan Looram, director of photography at the Times, beneath the headline: “How The Times Assessed That Photo From Trump of Maduro in Handcuffs.” The subhead read: “Hours after President Trump announced that the United States had seized Nicolás Maduro, various photos that appeared to show the captured Venezuelan leader hit the internet.” The column is part of an occasional series, rubricked above the headline, “Times Insider.” (Another in the series appeared on Jan. 5, headlined: “Behind the Scenes of Our Nicolás Maduro Front Page.”) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396074" class="wp-image-396074 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-680x248.png" alt="" width="680" height="248" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-680x248.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-1200x439.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-768x281.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-1536x561.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-500x183.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM-600x219.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-10.16.06-AM.png 1724w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Pair of photos published, Jan. 4 in The New York Times, said to be available from multiple, unidentified online sources. Looram explained that in the hours after Maduro’s snatching, two photos appeared on multiple websites purporting to show the Venezuelan president in custody. The veracity of neither was certain, she wrote, and the Times has no foolproof way of determining if a photo is taken from life or is AI generated. Editors chose not to publish either, for reasons briefly outlined by Looram. The first photograph shows Maduro seated and handcuffed in front. He’s surround by three, U.S. servicemen (two seated, one standing) wearing jungle camouflage, in what appears to be an aircraft. Timesanalysts, according to Looram, were suspicious of the two rows of windows, unknown in any aircraft they could identify. They might also have been put off by Maduro’s white suit. It’s a liqui liqui, considered the national, formal menswear in Venezuela and Colombia, consisting of a white, shirt-like jacket with Nehru-style rounded collar and matching trousers. Judging from published photographs, Maduro wears them sometimes but prefers an all-black version – he may feel it projects a tougher, more anti-imperialist look. I’d be surprised if the first thing he did when he when he heard U.S. troops blasting into his compound at 2:30 a.m. was change into a liqui liqui. The second photo shows the Venezuelan president being escorted away from an airplane by two, DEA agents in desert camouflage. His hands this time are behind his back, presumably handcuffed, and he’s wearing a blue, probably denim jacket over an open necked white shirt. The Times said little about the photo except to note that Maduro’s outfit is different from the previous photograph. It’s possible he was given the blue jacket for warmth prior to deplaning, but there are other anomalies. His white shirt appears to have no buttons—he’d never be able to pull it over his head. Thus, there’s good reason to believe one, if not both photos are bogus; the Times was correct to be suspicious. The newspaper’s decision to to publish the third photo – the one supplied by Trump himself from his Truth Social account was the correct one, though Looram’s discussion of it was inadequate to say the least. She started off well, noting the strangeness of the photo: It’s of poor quality, possibly taken from a printout or screen. Second, it was obviously cropped, probably all around. That suggests it could have been taken long before the events, with dispositive evidence of its inauthenticity removed. But Times editors reasoned that even if it was fake, Trump’s endorsement of it was newsworthy. If it turned out to be bogus, in other words, the U.S. president would be the fool, not the Times. It could be argued, against this, that complicity with a liar can’t be counted as journalistic virtue, but given worldwide interest in the subject, the decision to publish was reasonable. By all accounts, the photograph is indeed authentic, and a slightly bigger one has been published elsewhere, including in Counterpunch. But how do we explain the U.S. paper of record’s failure to discuss the content of the photograph? Surely a photograph of a foreign president, handcuffed, blindfolded, wearing earmuffs to block sound and holding a water bottle, is unusual and worthy of commentary. The only explanation for silence is that editors or staff at The New York Times are still wedded to the quaint notion that the U.S. does not routinely torture, abuse, humiliate or intimidate prisoners in its charge. Blindfolds, intimidation, sensory deprivation and other abuse The use of blindfolds and earmuffs to transport Maduro can’t be justified on national security grounds. Did they fear Maduro calling his generals on a cellphone to report his latitude and longitude so they could attempt an ocean rescue? Did they think he’d ever be in a position to reveal the secret assets and vulnerabilities of the battle-tested Wasp Class, Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship? The reason sensory deprivation devices were used was to intimidate, disorient, and otherwise induce in Maduro a sense of helplessness and distress. This is a form of “touchless torture” proscribed by the U.N. Convention Against Torture (Articles 1 and 16) as interpreted by the U.N. Committee Against Torture through its Istanbul Protocol: Deprivation of normal sensory stimulation, such as sound, light, sense of time, isolation, manipulation of brightness of the cell, abuse of physiological needs, restriction of sleep, food, water, toilet facilities, bathing, motor activities, medical care, social contacts, isolation within prison, loss of contact with the outside world (victims are often kept in isolation in order to prevent bonding and mutual identification and to encourage traumatic bonding with the torturer.) Spranager, Wisdom Conquering Ignorance, c. 1600. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Artist unknown, Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, of uytbeeldingen des verstands, Amsterdam, 1644. The iconography of sensory deprivation – especially blindness, deafness and bound hands – has a long history. They are associated with ignorance and moral failure. In about 1600, the Netherlandish artist, Bartholomeus Spranger engraved Wisdom Conquers Ignorance. It shows a helmeted goddess, Minerva crushing Ignorance beneath her feet. The benighted figure has closed eyes, bound hands and donkey’s ears. In Cesare Ripa’s popular emblem book, Iconologia (1593) “Ignorance” or “Error” is shown as a blindfolded man, feeling his way through a landscape with a long staff. In an etching from 1799, the Spanish artist, Francisco Goya pilloried the blindness, ignorance, greed and uselessness of the Spanish nobility by showing two men with eyes shut, ears closed (with locks), arms restricted by coats of arms, and hands encumbered by useless tools, in one case a rosary and in the other a ceremonial sword. A personied figure of Ignorance, blindfolded and with donkey’s ears, feeds the two men gruel, as if they were children in a highchair. Francisco Goya, “Los Chinchillas,” Los Caprichos, 1799, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Blindfolds for Goya are also associated with executions. In his series Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), he illustrated atrocities committed by the invading French during the Peninsular War (1808-14). In an etching titled “Y no hai remedio” (“There is no help”), he shows executed, or soon-to-be-executed Spanish men in blindfolds. The political vacuum in Latin America caused by the Peninsular War in Spain, directly led to a declaration of Venezuelan independence in 1811 (the first Spanish colony to do so) and a series of subsequent pitched battles and guerrilla wars. If you are a Latin American patriot like Maduro, schooled in what former socialist president Hugo Chavez called the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a blindfold signals the likelihood you will be executed. Francisco Goya, “Y no hai remedio” (“And there is no help”). Plate 15 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), c. 1810. The U.S. has long used hooding, blindfolds, earmuffs and other forms of sensory deprivation as a means of torture and intimidation. Hooding was used on prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and hoods, blindfolds, and earmuffs on prisoners sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The treatment is considered by interrogators to be a way of inducing learned helplessness and making prisoners more compliant during interrogation. Even the water bottle that Maduro holds in his hands in the photograph serves a U.S. purpose – it’s intended simultaneously to persuade the prisoner of his own dependence on the Americans, and to tell a global audience he’s being treated humanely. Maduro’s fate and ours The conditions in which Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores are being held, and the nature of their interrogation at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn are unknown. Though the jail, according to the Legal Aid Society has a “documented history of violence, medical neglect, and human and civil rights violations,” it may be difficult for officers and officials to abuse their prisoners without information getting out. What we can be certain of – based upon the photographs above, and subsequent images of Maduro being escorted off his plane and doing a “perp walk” – is that his public appearances will be choreographed to diminish his stature and weaken his resistance. At stake is the freedom of Maduro and Flores, the integrity of the U.S. criminal justice system, the independence of other Latin American states, the international rule of law (what’s left of it), the success or failure of American neo-imperialism, and the fate of U.S. capitalist democracy. The post On Seeing the Photo of Nicolás Maduro Aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Stephen F. Eisenman.
Sleepless Again: Or What the World of Yesterday Says About Trump’s Attack on Venezuela and the World of Today
Things don’t happen randomly. The shocking news of Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela broke on the 101stanniversary of Benito Mussolini’s announcement to the Italian parliament accepting full responsibility for blackshirt violence and declaring himself dictator of Italy. That gesture—greeted by applause, complicit silence, and opportunistic support—ushered in fascism, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second World War. History isn’t a machine, automatically repeating itself, but it does rhyme, as Mark Twain is said to have commented. And sometimes it rhymes in macabre ways. More The post Sleepless Again: Or What the World of Yesterday Says About Trump’s Attack on Venezuela and the World of Today appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4608" height="3456" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-scaled.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9202-scaled.jpg 4608w, 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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair “[…] our universe had become accustomed to inhumanity, to lawlessness, and brutality as never in centuries before.” – Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday Things don’t happen randomly. The shocking news of Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela broke on the 101stanniversary of Benito Mussolini’s announcement to the Italian parliament accepting full responsibility for blackshirt violence and declaring himself dictator of Italy. That gesture—greeted by applause, complicit silence, and opportunistic support—ushered in fascism, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second World War. History isn’t a machine, automatically repeating itself, but it does rhyme, as Mark Twain is said to have commented. And sometimes it rhymes in macabre ways. Stefan Zweig was one of the first to see this. In his 1914 essay “The Sleepless World” published in the collection Messages from a Lost World: Europe on the Brink and composed before and during the Second World War, he describes a civilisation that can’t sleep because it no longer trusts itself. This insomnia isn’t a malady of individuals but a symptom of systemic collapse. The world can’t sleep when violence ceases to be the exception to become method, and when lying ceases to be an aberration to become state policy. In The World of Yesterday, written in exile and posthumously published in 1942, Zweig develops this insight into his testimony and bequest, with a book that is an ethical autopsy of the liberal, cosmopolitan, and humanist Europe which naively believed that technical progress would automatically lead to moral progress. He describes how aggrieved nationalism, the cult of power, and contempt for truth pave the way for fascism, not as an accident but as the logical product of an epoch. Zweig knew that fascism doesn’t start with bombs. It starts with applause. It doesn’t begin with extermination camps. It begins with legitimation of exception, of “necessary” violence, and of the convenient lie. It’s not impossible to see how all this is at work in today’s world, even when we’re stunned like a deer in headlights. Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela, announced, commended, and legitimised in public statements made by none other than Trump himself, opens up a new level of global lawlessness. An attack on a sovereign Latin American nation, the sequestering of its president and his wife, references to “our” oil, and the demand for political submission now called “transition”, undisguisedly reveal, now it’s dispensing with old rhetorical scruples, how the imperial logic has never ceased to operate. Any moralistic touch of words like “dictatorship”, “freedom”, and “democracy” is sugaring the pill. The focus isn’t hidden: Venezuelan oil, the world’s largest reserves. As in other times, “democracy” is invoked only if it coincides with the empire’s economic interests. Otherwise, it is unceremoniously junked. US hypocrisy isn’t episodic but structural. The country that calls itself the world’s greatest democracy has constructed its hegemony by installing and supporting dictatorships, sponsoring and funding coups, underpinning authoritarian regimes, making deals with all sorts of criminals as long as they serve its policy and, right now, complicity in genocide. Venezuela fits the pattern as just one more chapter in a long history of colonial and neocolonial pillage. In this context, the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado has played a decisive symbolic role. By awarding a person who presents herself as an alternative to the elected Venezuelan government and who publicly expresses her gratitude to Trump for helping her to gain such distinguished recognition, the Nobel Foundation made its contribution to international endorsement of the attack. The Prize, far from fostering peace, once again paves the way for war, as happens so often when supposedly peace-loving institutions, wittingly or unwittingly go along with the logic of power. With characteristic perverse petulance, Trump lobbied for months to be given the Nobel Prize and when it went to an opposition leader of one of his top black-list countries, he claimed that Machado said she was accepting it in his honour because he was the one who really deserved it. But Trump is the world leader with a National Security Strategy that clearly says there are no allies now, but only interests so, after his attack on Venezuela he threw Machado to the wolves, saying she doesn’t have the “respect” of her country to govern. So he says he will “run” Venezuela with his own henchmen, apparently including US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the joint chiefs of staff chair, Gen Dan “Razin” Caine. This isn’t mere bravado but a naked expression of the lesson learned from Mussolini, that violence doesn’t always need to be justified. It only has to be announced. In Latin America, those applauding his coup are no surprise. In Brazil, far-right governors of several states—Ratinho Jr. (Paraná), Ronaldo Caiado (Goiás), Romeu Zema (Minas Gerais), and Tarcísio de Freitas (São Paulo)—flunkies of empire, did what was expected of them and, in their particular nauseating style, rushed to applaud their fellow criminal. In their states they understand these things. Their police, militias, and thugs kill poor Black people in slums, landless workers, and Indigenous people, while in their self-made cesspools they prattle about “freedom” and “democracy” even though liberal verbiage can’t cover up the everyday practice of murder. Of these Four Horsemen, Tarcísio de Freitas, the worst of the bearers of pestilence, is a military man trained in the culture of the coup d’etat, an unscrupulous, profiteering governor, up to his neck in corruption schemes based on privatisation of public assets in São Paulo, a sadist who publicly celebrates police killings, and open admirer of torturers of Brazil’s military dictatorship. This man offers to help the US with the “transition to democracy in Venezuela”. In online sites, today’s platform-states underpinning contemporary falsolatry and plundering neocolonialism, Brazil’s sleazy far-right yes-men are having a field day applauding what mainstream media outlets are describing as Trump’s “audacious” commandeering of Venezuela. Indifferent when their own people are massacred, they rejoice in this latest attempt to humiliate a kindred country. Stefan Zweig would immediately recognise the situation. He knew that fascism never requires intelligence but only blind emotional loyalty. It doesn’t demand truth but only belief. It doesn’t want learning but only rancour. The world is again sleepless because it is now seeing—too late—that barbarism doesn’t gatecrash. It’s invited. The same old fascists. The same vicious fools with no regard for human life. The same vassals who’ve learned and remember nothing. The same coup-plotting trash dressed up as leaders. We can’t recover the world of yesterday, that’s for sure. And today’s insomnia doesn’t let us dream. But we must stay alert and ready for action to defend, in any way we can, true democracy, the sovereignty of peoples, and solidarity. Or, in other words, liberty, equality, and fraternity. The post Sleepless Again: Or What the World of Yesterday Says About Trump’s Attack on Venezuela and the World of Today appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jean Wyllys.
The Minnesota Day Care Fraud Story: Trump Says Fraud is a Big Problem When Black People Do It
Trump has been just fine with public sector fraud in the past. The largest single biggest rip-off in U.S. history occurred under the Paycheck Protection Program created during the pandemic in Trump’s first term. The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration (SBA) estimated that there may have been as much as $200 billion in fraudulent payments in the program, which was administered by the SBA. More The post The Minnesota Day Care Fraud Story: Trump Says Fraud is a Big Problem When Black People Do It appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-600x399.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM.png 2016w" sizes="(max-width: 946px) 100vw, 946px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396175" class="size-medium wp-image-396175" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-680x453.png" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-946x630.png 946w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-768x511.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-1536x1022.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM-600x399.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-4.55.06-PM.png 2016w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Gautam Arora At this point in his second term, Donald Trump has probably pardoned more fraudsters than all prior presidents combined. The list of people Trump pardoned, who were either convicted or plead guilty to fraud charges, is extensive. Clearly, fraud is something that is not a concern for the guy sitting in the White House. The story of fraud in Medicaid and other government programs in Minnesota is also not really news. It was investigated years ago under Biden and has already resulted in more than 60 people pleading guilty or being convicted. And Trump has been just fine with public sector fraud in the past. The largest single biggest rip-off in U.S. history occurred under the Paycheck Protection Program created during the pandemic in Trump’s first term. The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration (SBA) estimated that there may have been as much as $200 billion in fraudulent payments in the program, which was administered by the SBA. Hannibal Ware, the Inspector General who uncovered the fraud, who is Black, was fired by Donald Trump at the start of his second term. Linda McMahon, the head of the SBA under Trump, who is white, was picked by Trump to head the Department of Education in his current term. The reality is that there will always be some fraud in major government programs, just like there is fraud in the private sector. The old-timers here will remember Enron and Worldcom and more recently all the fraud in the financial industry that fueled the housing bubble, whose collapse gave us the Great Recession and financial crisis. When there is big money to be stolen, people will be there to steal it, and that applies to both the public and private sector. We will likely have some great fraud stories when the AI bubble collapses. To paraphrase Warren Buffet’s great line: when the tide goes out, we find who was swimming naked. The question that people need to be asking about the Minneapolis fraud is why the Trump administration is yelling about it now? There is an obvious answer: Jeffrey Epstein. The files are proving to be an even bigger morass for Trump that anyone could have imagined. He clearly was closely tied to the child sex trafficker for decades. That would be a bad enough story in any case, but it is made worse by the fact that the Epstein child sex trafficking ring has been a major theme for the right-wing influencers for years. They have been pushing stories that had Bill and Hillary Clinton and various other Democratic luminaries at the center of it. Now, it turns out that their hero was Epstein friend Number One. We may never know whether or not Trump did anything illegal in his associations with Epstein, but it’s clear his ties were long and extensive. And the Justice Department effort to conceal the Trump-Epstein connection is drowning in incompetence, starting with Attorney General Bondi’s famous claim last February that she had the Epstein files sitting on her desk. Now that we know that there are more than a million documents in the Epstein files, Bondi’s claim doesn’t seem very credible. Trump’s full-court press to block Congress from mandating the release of the file also didn’t help. Nor did the ridiculous and inconsistent efforts at redacting Trump’s name and face from the files. So, when things are going bad, Trump goes for the racism card. And in this case, he even gets to pick on immigrant Blacks. From the Trump perspective, it doesn’t get better than that. When people hear about Minnesota Medicaid or childcare fraud they should be thinking about the Epstein files. This is what the story is about. The fraud stories are old news and already well-reported and were being investigated by Biden’s Justice Department. What needs to be reported now is why Trump is so desperate to push such blatant racism. It looks bad even from a Trumpian perspective. This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog. The post The Minnesota Day Care Fraud Story: Trump Says Fraud is a Big Problem When Black People Do It appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.
Trump, Venezuela and the Roosevelt Corollary
Theodore Roosevelt was one of our most interesting and progressive presidents. Donald Trump is uninteresting and uninterested to the extreme and is a political obscurantist. Nevertheless, Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela will ineluctably link him with Roosevelt and the Roosevelt Corollary from 1904. U.S. citizens are generally familiar with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, particularly More The post Trump, Venezuela and the Roosevelt Corollary appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-680x523.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-819x630.jpg 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" 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1200w" sizes="(max-width: 819px) 100vw, 819px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396176" class="size-medium wp-image-396176" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-680x523.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="523" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-819x630.jpg 819w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Theodore_Roosevelt_by_Tade_Styka.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Painting by Polish artist Tadé Styka circa 1909 – Public Domain Theodore Roosevelt was one of our most interesting and progressive presidents. Donald Trump is uninteresting and uninterested to the extreme and is a political obscurantist. Nevertheless, Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela will ineluctably link him with Roosevelt and the Roosevelt Corollary from 1904. U.S. citizens are generally familiar with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, particularly in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev underestimated President John F. Kennedy’s willingness to deny the deployment of strategic weaponry in the Western Hemisphere. But the Roosevelt Corollary is far less familiar to Americans. The Venezuelan affair in the winter of 1903-1904 marked a European intervention in the New World in order to collect enormous debts that a Venezuelan dictator, Cipriano Castro, had accumulated. President Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine established the United States as an international police power in the Western Hemisphere, entitled to permit military intervention in South America if its nations mismanaged its finances or internal affairs in a way that invited European intervention. The Roosevelt Corollary led to greater U.S. intervention, including military action in Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, and fostered resentment and anti-American sentiment throughout the region. The corollary transformed the Monroe Doctrine from a stance of keeping European powers out to an active U.S. role in maintaining order and economic stability in the Americas. Trump’s intervention in Venezuela last week will lead to greater anti-Americanism throughout the region, and provide greater justification to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping for their own regional goals in Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific, respectively. Trump’s imperial intervention is in step with the sordid U.S. and CIA history of regime change the world over. Interventions in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile led to instability and violence as far more vicious leaders took over the reins of government. Long-term intervention and occupations in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were losing ventures, marked by the loss of blood and treasure. Libya has not recovered from the U.S. and NATO intervention fifteen years ago. Numerous efforts by several U.S. presidents to conduct regime change in Cuba were marked by failure. This history points to the likelihood of greater failure in Venezuela, particularly in view of Trump’s threat to assume long-term control of Venezuela, placing control in the hands of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The inability of Rubio and Hegseth to manage the national security agenda of the United States doesn’t inspire confidence in the future management of Venezuela’s complex domestic environment. Nevertheless, the mainstream media seem to have no problems with Trump’s jingoism to advance America’s national security. Several days before the invasion, the New York Times dropped a long lead editorial titled “This May Be Our Last Chance to Get It Right in Venezuela,” which endorsed roles for the “authorities of the intelligence community and the Treasury and Justice Department” to “take charge of security in Venezuela.” And before the dust has settled in Venezuela, a Washington Post editorial has termed the invasion a “major victory for American interests.” The Post praised the fact that Nicolas Maduro will now spend the “rest of his life in a humane American prison.” The post Trump, Venezuela and the Roosevelt Corollary appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.
Trump has never been a peace president or a principled opponent of aggressive war and imperial looting. His crude rhetoric, with its open acknowledgement of Venezuela’s oil riches, merely removes the polite, decorous language we’ve come to expect from our political figureheads. The U.S. government is not pursuing a new logic or discarding old values. It is reinstating our political-economic system’s commitment to imperialism and extraction, only without any pretense to humanitarian motivations or democracy-building. If the past several years have taught us anything politically, it is that the old categories of identity and ideological narrative are no longer capable of assuaging people’s fears or satisfying their need for answers. More The post Naked Imperialism in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Over the weekend, the Trump administration fast-tracked its efforts to oust Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the successor of Hugo Chávez and his policies of nationalizing key industries and pushing out most U.S. companies. The U.S. government conducted a bombing raid in Caracas, with a swift operation to capture Maduro and his wife, transporting them to New York, where they face federal charges that include using Venezuela’s government to run a narco-terrorism conspiracy. Venezuela is well-known as the home of the world’s largest known oil reserves. In its Annual Statistical Bulletin for 2025, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reported that the country had more than 303 billion barrels in reserves. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s report on the country notes, “Most of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves are extra-heavy crude oil from the Orinoco Belt,” and several recent estimates say that the total oil in place in this region exceeds 1 trillion barrels. Still, industry insiders say that the raw numbers associated with the Orinoco Belt’s vast wells of oil, both oil in place and oil regarded as technically accessible and recoverable, can be misleading given other important factors. The oil in the Orinoco region is thick and viscous, difficult to extract and producing a lower yield of usable finished product. Many in U.S. policy and business circles believe that such difficulties can be overcome with the proper levels of investment and needed updates to the industry’s infrastructure and technologies in Venezuela. As Reuters reports, “[O]utput has plummeted over the past decades amid mismanagement and a lack of investment from foreign firms after Venezuela nationalized oil operations in the 2000s that included the assets of Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.” Trump has never been a peace president or a principled opponent of aggressive war and imperial looting. His crude rhetoric, with its open acknowledgement of Venezuela’s oil riches, merely removes the polite, decorous language we’ve come to expect from our political figureheads. The U.S. government is not pursuing a new logic or discarding old values. It is reinstating our political-economic system’s commitment to imperialism and extraction, only without any pretense to humanitarian motivations or democracy-building. If the past several years have taught us anything politically, it is that the old categories of identity and ideological narrative are no longer capable of assuaging people’s fears or satisfying their need for answers. The new moment in American politics perhaps admits the tried-and-true old strategy: the strength of the United States, even economically and culturally, is at bottom military strength, and our ability to live the way we do here is a function of occupation and extraction, not “free trade.” More than any other individual today, Marco Rubio represents the relationship between the Washington consensus on foreign policy and the approach of Donald Trump, assuming there is a coherent approach to speak of. Both of these schools believe with religious passion that the United States should and indeed must dominate the world militarily and economically. Both have adopted and implemented a view of the supposed rules-based international order that permits the U.S. to aggress against sovereign states with impunity. If this is a mask-off moment for many Americans, then at least they now know the stakes. They are beginning to see what the critics of our government’s lawless aggression and naked imperialism have been pointing out for decades and longer. Trump’s unapologetic aggression has given Americans an opportunity to better understand our history: this episode is part of a pattern whereby the U.S. either invades a country or supports in one or another way the ouster of democratically elected leaders, to install dictators who will be friendly to US geopolitical interests and to American companies. Americans should not be surprised that Congress was not notified prior to the weekend’s attacks on Venezuela’s sovereignty. The executive branch has attacked and invaded dozens of sovereign countries without Congressional authorization in the 80 or so years since World War II. Our government long ago stopped respecting either the Constitution or international law in its foreign policy decisions. Many of our elites were surprised and outraged to learn that Trump currently has no plan of putting María Corina Machado in the Miraflores Palace. But this reflects a point that anti-imperialists often make to deaf ears in Washington: when the political-economic superstructure is founded on illegal wars and scaled resource theft, you get authoritarians and strongmen, not liberal ideals. This is a structural phenomenon that doesn’t depend on how polite elites feel about their own politics; it is a product of war and empire. American liberals rooting for Machado seem to know very little about the person they’re supporting, as usual. Machado is a vocal and consistent supporter of Israel’s genocidal regime, even calling for her country’s embassy to be moved to Jerusalem. The Chávez and Maduro governments severed diplomatic relations and official ties with Israel due to the country’s apartheid regime and brutal occupation of Palestinian territory. This decision has been enormously popular among Venezuelans, as the global community increasingly understands the criminality of the U.S. and Israel. Machado recently spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu, currently a fugitive from justice, to express her support. Meanwhile, Israeli officials have praised Washington’s coup in Venezuela, seeing the opportunity to place an ally, perhaps Machado, into power. The American media and our major universities and think tanks routinely present celebrity opposition figures like Machado using washed-out, meaningless happy words indicating to us that they are “pro-democracy” or supportive of liberal freedoms in some vague sense. But their actual policy agendas and real-world alliances and loyalties are systematically and purposely obscured. This is to say that in our media system, there is often a wide gulf between the TV characters as shown and written and the real people connected with the world’s worst offenders in war-profiteering, stealing natural resources, and destroying the local environment. So we get a sanitized morality play in which the West are the good guys, promoting liberal democracy, and the rest of the world is backwards and authoritarian. Yet it is the United States that has started the vast majority of illegal wars in recent memory, and its domestic policies have long violated the most basic principles of human rights law. This warped morality play, scripted and televised, is how it’s possible to have a person like Machado treated as some great champion of freedom, even as she heaps praise on the Israeli government as it tears the Gaza Strip to shreds, as its leader is indicted by the International Criminal Court, as the entire world raises its voice against this genocide, with the exception perhaps of a tiny and shrinking group of thugs in Washington, London, Tel Aviv and several embarrassed European capitals. Again, the illusions are gone now. “The West” is implicated in the worst crimes of our generation, with or without Donald Trump. U.S. wars have murdered and displaced millions of people and transferred trillions of dollars of wealth to warmongers and powerful industries connected with the U.S. government. Our culture and discourse never deal with the dissonance, because what matters is one’s capacity to conform their statements and actions with the will of Washington, with the strategic priorities and interests of the United States. Beyond any country’s domestic politics, both the U.S. and the European Union blessed this in advance by maintaining the official position that Maduro’s government is illegitimate. During an appearance on BBC News back in December, Machado’s friend, the Venezuelan politician Leopoldo López, called openly for Washington’s military to coup his own country. He foreshadowed Trump’s coup by stating that there were options to remove Maduro “without collateral damage.” Time will tell. As many of you remember, the U.S. government deployed many of Trump’s economic arguments in the lead up to the Iraq war: the country will become prosperous and free, and the resources will pay for the U.S. investment and more. It is long past the time for Americans of all political stripes and teams to put aside identitarian stories and look hard at what the Washington duopoly has been doing since long before any of us were born. Amongst the left in Latin America, there is much less confusion about the meaning of the moment. The reason people like Maduro are politically viable in the first place is because Venezuelans are rightly sick of US bullying and meddling in South America and in Latin America more generally. Venezuelans do not see their country’s oil as belonging to American companies like Chevron. The emancipatory movements of the world will correctly see this moment of open aggression and colonial logic as an opportunity to mobilize and organize. That is the silver lining: the illusion of U.S. government legitimacy is finally gone. The truth is that the U.S. and its allies have long been the world’s greatest violators of international law, whether contained in treaties like the UN Charter or accepted customary principles. We have staged coups in between 20 and 30 countries since the end of WWII, engaged in a consistent pattern of strategies to serve particular industries and economic interests, and to install authoritarian governments who will not question our prerogatives. The relative merits of this strategy to one side, many of us in the anti-war, anti-empire, and anti-nuclear movements have been waiting for a time when we would be able to have an honest conversation about the strategy with our liberal friends and allies. It may be that the time is now, as Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” opens a new era of unhinged American empire. The post Naked Imperialism in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David S. D’Amato.
The poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us. Soldiers don’t. Statesmen don’t. Priests don’t. Union leaders don’t. Only poets. – James Baldwin, “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity” “Poetry can break open locked chambers of possibility, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire.” – Adrienne More The post Mud, Poetry and Political Imagination appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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1966px) 100vw, 1966px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1966" height="1346" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM.png 1966w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-680x466.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-920x630.png 920w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-768x526.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-1536x1052.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-500x342.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-600x411.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1966px) 100vw, 1966px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1966" height="1346" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM.png 1966w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-680x466.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-920x630.png 920w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-768x526.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-1536x1052.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-500x342.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-600x411.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1966px) 100vw, 1966px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="920" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-920x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-920x630.png 920w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-680x466.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-768x526.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-1536x1052.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-500x342.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-600x411.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM.png 1966w" sizes="(max-width: 920px) 100vw, 920px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396180" class="size-medium wp-image-396180" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-680x466.png" alt="" width="680" height="466" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-680x466.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-920x630.png 920w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-768x526.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-1536x1052.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-500x342.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM-600x411.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.08.48-PM.png 1966w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Nick Fewings The poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us. Soldiers don’t. Statesmen don’t. Priests don’t. Union leaders don’t. Only poets. – James Baldwin, “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity” “Poetry can break open locked chambers of possibility, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire.” – Adrienne Rich, “What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics This thinking about the politics of mud started in Clamour, a group of young people in Barcelona who decided to clamour for the rights of living beings and against genocide and ecocide, and to clamour against all forms of dehumanisation and despoliation of nature. But how can we clamour? With what language can we speak when language is increasingly dominated by stifling algorithms, by the addling quantification of almost everything? One answer was given by two Clamour members, poets, one fifty and the other in his early twenties. And the clamour happened in a bookshop, Librería Fahrenheit 451, which has recently opened in my street, a marvellously crazy project in the age of AI and gentrification and Airbnb, which has killed most social life in the old market neighbourhood of El Born. Librería Fahrenheit 451 is a cooperative that began as a mobile bookshop in Sitges. Its focus is independent publishing and good, non-bestseller titles, and it aims to encourage kids and everyone to read. It has a music room, a workshop space, and invites visitors “to dive into the smell of paper, get swept away by mysterious sounds, disconnect from the digital world, and embark on a sensual journey in search of lost senses”. What better place for the two Clamour poets, David Casassas and Neil Sabatés to offer a poetry recital? And that’s what they gave in November, a poetic dialogue between two men of different generations. Everyone, a weeknight audience of about twenty, loved it and there was even some talk of producing a chapbook of the poems they offered. The young people of Clamour have lamented their “Braindead Generation” and a “lack of life”, which is in great part due to the killing of imagination, the abolition of dreaming. How can a head stuffed with useless, increasingly false information bundled in a numerical straitjacket be free to dream? But it isn’t just a personal matter. It’s political, for imagination is essential for political thought and action. My area is human rights and, here, poetry infuses universal feelings like grief and freedom with possibility instead of despair, and it brings numbers to life. The small audience in the bookshop heard the power of poetry to transform things, felt that we don’t have to be captives of hopelessness, even when normalisation of genocide and hatred is our daily bread, even when we’re obsessively trying to make sense of the “news” or to block it out, which are both ways of killing our own imagination, when others are busy killing it for us. Palestine was with us that night in Librería Fahrenheit 451. Although David and Neil were reading their own poems, Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “The Prison Cell” was also present and resonating in their words, telling us, “It is possible especially now/ To ride a horse/ Inside a prison cell/ And run away”. In Darwish’s poem, it’s easy to understand why “The prison guard grew so sad . . ./ He begged me to give him back/ His freedom.” Our listening minds saw the chance to ride away with a freedom that prison guards or enforcers of minds can never have. That chance was also held out by Darwish’s two Catalan brothers in poetry and their kindred poetic dialogue. David and Neil titled their recital “Poetry and Imagination in a Time of Mud”, a reference to the Catalan poet Jacint Verdaguer (1845 – 1902) who once wrote that he tilled mud like a poet, wrote like a tiller of mud, and did each task well. The son of farmers, Verdaguer revelled in the small and large details of the beauty of his rural surroundings, knew mud’s creative power and how close we humans are to it, physically and even emotionally close, a state of being that is very different from what some 25% of UK teens find when a chatbot becomes their best friend, a despot behind a cold glass screen that’s “accessible 24/7”, feeding them answers they want to hear, but noli me tangere, smell me not, taste me not, feel me not, just do as I say. Mud is much more than a simple metaphor. It demands respect for the natural rhythms of nature and, as part of nature, behaves in ways that are not always desired, obliging humans to use their imagination and adapt to new circumstances, to be part of nature. No wonder AI is destroying nature, destroying the mud that answers back and has its own ways. Moreover, for AI, mud and its elements are simply there to be plundered as the source of its burgeoning existence and, since AI is amoral, it comes with horrible environmental and human rights abuse, especially in the Congo which holds in its mud 70% of the world’s coltan reserves. Mud expresses the realities of political power. Poor people, child miners in the Congo, Palestinians watching their babies die of cold with tents collapsing into the icy mud of what remains of Gaza, landslide victims, Indigenous people displaced when forests are flattened, know through suffering what mud can be and what mud can do when abused and misused. In the poetic myths of origin of the ancient world, mud was the primordial material for creating life and especially human life. In Eden, Adam was made of mud. And, in Jewish folklore, so was his first partner Lilith. Thus Adam’s equal, Lilith was free and rejected subservience to him, so a more compliant Eve had to be produced from his rib. Scholars may argue about authenticity of the source of the story. But imagination’s another thing, and the important point is that Lilith’s freedom came from mud, the material of which she was made. In Greek mythology, Prometheusmade humans from clay. The Chinese goddess Nüwa made men and women from mud. In the creation myth of the Ainu people of Hokkaido, the kamuy spirit made the world from mud with the help of a water wagtail. The Indian deity Ganesha is said to have been made from mud, and so were the moon (Gondi people) and all humanity (Garo people). In Vietnamese, Laotian, Central Asian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Yoruba, Efé, Malagasy, Songwe, Dinka, Dogon, Madagascar, Hawaiian, Polynesian, Norse, Indigenous American, Alaskan Inuit, Inca, Aymara, and other mythologies, humans are made from malleable mud, which can also be shaped into many forms ranging from houses and everyday utensils to beautiful figures. Until quite recently, scientists have postulated that Earth’s first cellular life emerged in warm, slimy mud, heated by volcanic steam, a version of Darwin’s “warm little ponds”. If mud didn’t actually produce life, it seems, at least in the findings of Cambridge geologist Neil Davies, that it least encouraged life, as he and his colleagues have found that, “the expansion of land plants between about 458 million and 359 million years ago coincides with a more than tenfold increase in mud on land” not to mention “a significant shift in the ways that rivers flowed”, so the appearance of the first plants and then mud “fundamentally changed the way the world operates”. There is the mud we literally or metaphorically come from, source of creation and life, and the mud wantonly produced as a side product of destruction, the dangerous—or let’s say (from mud’s perspective) vengeful—mud humans make which, as recent images from Gaza show, can be deliberately put to work as a murderous power. At the end of November it was reported that in Sumatra, some 900 people had died, hundreds were missing, one million homeless, and three million affected in floods that buried whole villages in mud. It was described as a disaster caused by “monsoonal rains” but it was a human-caused catastrophe and, needless to say, the poorest people are the hardest hit. “Monsoonal rains” aren’t the bad guys. They’re a source of life for about 20% of the world’s population. They sustain water supplies, cool temperatures, nourish crops, keep wetlands, grasslands, mangroves, and rainforests and their biodiversity alive, thus keeping a natural balance. Without a good natural balance, they can’t do their job. When natural systems are destroyed, “natural” disasters are the consequence of power abuse and injustice. Indonesia’s war criminal president, Prabowo Subianto perfidiously commented in response to the Sumatra tragedy, “We must prevent deforestation and forest destruction”, describing forest protection as “crucial”, even while he designated yet another 560,000 hectares of primary forest, grasslands, woodland, and wetlands, for sugar cane plantations alone, to be cleared with military support. In total twenty million hectares of rainforest in Indonesia and occupied West Papua are to be cleared for monocropping. When rainforest vegetation is cleared, the soil is left bare, ending the generative cycle when there are no leaves or plants to replace nutrients in the soil. Creative mud becomes barren mud where no one can live, with effects that spread to destroy life further and further away in what is called the “climate crisis”, which is really a crisis of human greed. In January 2019 in Brazil, mud became killer mud when the Córrego do Feijão dam of the mining company Vale (meaning Value in Portuguese) collapsed in Brumadinho, spewing out around 10 million cubic meters of tailings, laying waste to settlements, destroying a railway bridge, spilling toxic mud into the Paraopeba River. The immediate death toll was more than 270 people. Then there was the 1999, Vargas catastrophe in Venezuela, where the Los Corales neighbourhood was buried under three metres of mud, where whole towns like Cerro Grande and Carmen de Uria disappeared, and where as much as 10% of the population of Vargas, as many as 50,000 people, died in mud, produced mainly by human mistakes, “by poverty and by the lack of governmental policies on territorial planning of new urban zoning”. In 1987, some 20,000 cubic metres of mud and rock, fell from the deforested, and hence unstable slope of the Pan de Azúcar hill onto the Medellín slum settlement of Villatina where a children’s first communion party was being held. Some 500 people were killed. It was really upsetting to read about in Barcelona, when the city was celebrating the announcement that it had won nomination as the venue of the 1992 Olympic Games, in a supposedly fitting salute to the achievements of Christopher Colombus, which, through a long chain of events included the Villatina tragedy. I wrote a poem, an attempt to link the events that led from Columbus to the dead children of Villatina, from pomp to poverty, from royal crowns all the way to mud that, once rashly dislodged, could only destroy. Only two people have seen this poem but somehow mud has bubbled it up almost forty years later. Spoils of Empire (For the people of Villatina, 27 September 1987) A half millennium: the history makers rode it rough, Columbus to Olympic Games, Christopher, Christbearer, sailed for gold, lost a fleet, Made his monarchs gasp at savage slaves For modesty decked out in skirts of leaves and teeth of jungle beasts, Flesh of El Dorado. The travellers told of llama trains strung from coast to coast Laden with metals and precious stones, Treasure for the coffers of Spain and Christian enterprise. The horsemen held the Saviour high, The new world standard red in pools of death and cries of rape and birth, Children for remembrance. Riders of Spain still pound in veins and boots on stairs, And torture blows, Where Toledo steel for history inscribed Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Who spawned Colombia, famed for killings, kingdoms of cocaine, Landslide terrain. Five centuries were equalled in the mountain’s toll of poor That Sunday of the party. Ravished ground, despoiled of trees and water-gorged, spewed liquid clay With sounds of distant horses’ hooves To murder children at the feast, five hundred from the Villatina shanties, Heirs of El Dorado. “Olympian is Columbus’ fame!” The children are dying “Raise the flags and light the flame!” But the children “Stretch out the hand of brotherhood!” Are screaming “All are equal to compete!” They Are Drowning In Mud. And now, mud has been deliberately produced by the razing of Gaza where cold and mud “hurt more than bullets”, where water is contaminated with mud (“Water, water, every where,/ And all the boards did shrink;/ Water, water, every where,/Nor any drop to drink.”) There are dozens of photos and videos that give an idea of what it’s like to live in freezing cold, engulfed in mud. What they don’t show is the leptospirosis transmitted in running water by the urine of infected rats, causing in severe conditions, liver, lung, and brain damage and failure, especially when medical aid is denied. Managed by genocidaires, mud is a deadly weapon. In the age of ecocide, the word “ichor” vividly tells one story of mud. Once described in The Iliad as the pure blood of the gods (“Blood followed, but immortal; ichor pure”), attacked in the second century by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria in the Protrepticus (“For the ichor of the poets is more repulsive than blood; for the putrefaction of blood is called ichor”) because, for him, art works were “deadly toys”, the word has now been appropriated by oil companies like Ichor Oil LLC and Ichor Energy, LLC. The poetry of ichor was partly restored by the word “petrichor”, coined in 1964 by the Australian scientists Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Thomas, to describe the heady fragrance released into the air by raindrops dancing on dry ground to make mud. “The name… refers to the liquid extracted from… stone… [and] the essence or fluid — ‘ichor’ — which in Greek mythology was the ethereal fluid flowing in the veins of the gods.” Extractive zeal is destroying everything, even words, with promises of progress—at least for the 0.0001% who hold three times the wealth of the bottom 50% of humanity—sucking up petroleum containing the essence of the divine and human dead of ancient times, leaving wounded mud behind, deadly mud that kills the poor. It’s a matter of justice and the only language that can really capture, from the victims’ standpoint, this politics of injustice is poetry. The 0.0001% in their high-rise airconditioned offices have their depleted language of algorithms, which kills human earthiness and its smell of petrichor. Extractivism requires no art. Just machines. Only poetry has the power of imagination to express what humans are doing with their ecocidal madness. Seamus Heaney describes this power: “And then in the foggy midlands it appeared,/ Our mud vision, as if a rose window of mud/ Had invented itself out of the glittery damp,/ A gossamer wheel, concentric with its own hub/ Of nebulous dirt, sullied yet lucent. […]/ What might have been origin/ We dissipated in news. The clarified place/ Had retrieved neither us nor itself – except/ You could say we survived. So say that, and watch us/ Who had our chance to be mud-men, convinced and estranged,/ Figure in our own eyes for the eyes of the world.” It took a poetic imagination to produce a “rose window of mud”. But estranged humans, how did they figure in their own eyes “for the eyes of the world? They concentrated crass financial power and, trying to go beyond their condition of creatures of mud, invented a machine brain, a quantitatively possessed algorithmic brain called AI, perched on the shoulders of what is still a sensual fleshy body. Yet, as Melanie Challenger writes in her brilliant How to Be Animal: A New History of What it Means to Be Human, “It’s to the computer we look to make sense of what we are and what the body does. But these kinds of ideas may one day be viewed in the same light as those of leading physicians of Europe, who used to cut apart frogs to establish the workings of the soul” (p. 135). Drowning in algorithms, we try to understand quantities like the million million dollars of Elon Musk, but if UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese is quoted as saying that the real death toll in Gaza is about 680,000, which would mean that 380,000 of the dead are infants under five, can we feel the difference between 200,000, 300,000, or 400,000 small dead children? Not feeling anything about all those murdered children is the dehumanising armour worn by the Madeleine Albrights of the world for whom half a million dead Iraqi children was the price required by US interests: “the price, we think, the price is worth it”. But take this poem by Khaled Juma, written in 2014. His children are real. We almost know them. We don’t know how many there were but these lost children are our children too. Oh Rascal Children of Gaza Oh rascal children of Gaza, You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window, You who filled every morning with rush and chaos, You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony. Come back – And scream as you want, And break all the vases, Steal all the flowers, Come back, Just come back… Chinua Achebe sums up a vital aspect of poetry. It’s about power and justice, about humanity and the planet. “The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor’s domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes […] But you and I don’t have to agree with the emperor. We have to say no. Our business involves the peace, happiness and harmony of not just people but the planet itself, the environment.” Now I want to return to Librería Fahrenheit 451, its smell of paper, its “sensual journey in search of lost senses”, and its rebellion against emperors. It was here that David Casassas could transform a sound we all know well, so that those of us who heard the poem will always hear in the mournful call of the Eurasian collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) the sorrows of violence and war, and also the injustice of the original myth of the servant girls named Dekaotaó who was so grieved when her master refused to pay her wage of eighteen coins that the gods set her free by turning her into a dove. David’s dove, the original Dekaotaó clamours against war and all its injustice. ROMANCE OF THE GREEK DOVES Eighteen gone! Eighteen gone! Eighteen gone! (In modern Greek: Dekaoktó! Dekaoktó! Dekaoktó!) – cry the fretful doves, decaocto, impassive the sound of wind in courtyards and weathervanes of archipelagos as it buffets the coast, of limestone falling away from fountainheads to the crust of the beach, that beach, the one where heads and trunks roll and it is sand and metal shards, and wetting your toes, you raise up rust and marble dust. Dekaoktó! Dekaoktó! Dekaoktó! Eighteen children I had and savage war came and war slaughtered them all one by one, one by one. Eighteen children I had and I call, I shout for them, firmament of ripped-open gold from which not even embers fall. I well know it is putrid gold, and my children are pushing up daisies but I look up at the sky at the wavy lines of trees and stay there stunned by weathervanes gone berserk in the breeze, wind-thrashed fate. and the stripes of my body, black spots, white shading, have wounds that are you eighteen, sharp and clear, burning, rooted deep in my throat, and I count and count you in your eternal peace Dekaoktó! Dekaoktó! Dekaoktó! There’s something numbing about political texts that speak of numbers of dead children, whether eighteen or five hundred, or of child slaves, or of forests destroyed, or of injustice done, or of freedom robbed, and reading the “news” is a paralysing, desensitising exercise, as young people who speak of burnout well know. But poetry can be rousing. It can stoke the political imagination. It can hold out images of ideas that are worth fighting for. In his poem “Foc d’ocell”, the Catalan poet Blai Bonet writes of freedom. Fire of Bird Freedom is a cantata to freedom. If believed, or it makes you believe it is more than a song, it is because it is not only a hymn. Freedom must be sung by the people as well. Freedom there is not, for it lasts just the time in a reaper’s poppy. What sets aflame the bird of desire is mystery. The mystery of love is time, like the mystery of freedom is the time span of its song, because love made and freedom are the same hymn. The joy of love made is a cantata to love. It is not love. Freedom is just a praise song to freedom. It is not freedom. I see you do not believe it. Do you know why? You want to be free, but wish nothing to befall you, and nothing is not enough, just as all is too many things … Emperors will always try to snatch and imprison freedom, but horses to ride away on still gallop in free minds. Zealots will call works of art “deadly toys”, but pieces of red, green, black, and white cloth in the form of the Palestinian flag keep flying even as their bearers are beaten and arrested in civilised cities. The bright flare of a poppy in a golden field, even when soon to by scythed by a reaper’s blade, still expresses the joy and heartbreak of fugacious freedom as something worth fighting for. Librería Fahrenheit 451 is fighting. Poets are fighting, and their words cradle the humanity of free spirits and, in doing so, they clamour. The post Mud, Poetry and Political Imagination appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julie Wark.
The Moral Bankruptcy of the West Can No Longer Be Ignored
After months of thinly veiled threats, disregard for international law, and the brutal murder of fishermen in the Caribbean Sea, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have achieved what they set out to do – what many on the Left had been warning about for months. On January 3, the US bombed sites across Venezuela and More The post The Moral Bankruptcy of the West Can No Longer Be Ignored appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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After months of thinly veiled threats, disregard for international law, and the brutal murder of fishermen in the Caribbean Sea, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have achieved what they set out to do – what many on the Left had been warning about for months. On January 3, the US bombed sites across Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro in a special operation, killing at least 40 Venezuelans in the process. As repulsive as the imperialist kidnapping of the leader of a sovereign nation is, it is not surprising. Throughout the 20th century, the US carried out coups across Latin America, driven by an unrelenting desire to siphon off resources to feed the belly of the beast. Among the many examples of US-backed right-wing coups are the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, which ushered in 17 years of tyranny under the US-backed Pinochet dictatorship, during which tens of thousands were tortured and disappeared. Or the overthrow of João Goulart in Brazil in 1964, leading to 21 years of military rule. Or Argentina in 1976; El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s. In fact, throw a dart at a map of Latin America, and chances are you’ll hit a country that US-backed missiles have struck in a successful bid for regime change within the last century. What is unique this time, though, is the openness with which the recipient of the oh-so-coveted FIFA Peace Prize has flaunted his violation of international law and overthrow of a foreign leader. There has been no serious attempt to cloak this act in the language of liberation, though stenographers in corporate media and useful idiots masquerading as political analysts have eagerly taken on that role themselves. Trump has openly stated that the invasion of Venezuela – which, depending on developments in the coming days and weeks, could see the oil-rich Bolivarian Republic succumb to US military occupation (as Trump himself implied), the illegitimate rule of the far-right Zionist María Corina Machado, or descend into civil war – is about accessing Venezuela’s vast resources. These include the largest proven oil reserves in the world, accounting for roughly 17 per cent of global reserves. “The oil companies are gonna go in, they’re gonna spend money and then we’re gonna take back the oil that frankly we should’ve taken back a long time ago,” Trump said following Maduro’s kidnapping. “A lot of money is coming out of the ground. We’re gonna get reimbursed for all of that. We’re gonna get reimbursed for everything that we spend.” There is no longer even the façade of democracy or liberation. Only imperialism in its most naked, hypocritical form. Like the coup itself, this moment should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the rapid erosion of international law and the collapse of any meaningful “rules-based order” as a result of the Zionist apartheid state of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, backed by the US empire. So, the refusal to even gesture toward a humanitarian justification for this illegal, destabilising act in Venezuela is merely the latest confirmation of a pattern many have been shouting about for over two years: what is being done in Palestine is laying the groundwork for what will be done everywhere else. Sultan Barakat, professor of public policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, put it succinctly in an interview with Al Jazeera: “This [Maduro’s kidnapping] is probably a nail in the coffin of any international agreement. The very principle of state sovereignty has now been dismantled,” he said. “[This is] in line with some of the operations that Israel has undertaken in Lebanon and Iran jointly with the United States. They are now moving the bar much, much higher than what we are used to – and far beyond international norms and international law.” The permission structure has fundamentally changed. Its most recent manifestation is the imperialist overthrow of a sovereign leader inconvenient to US capital. Two decades ago, this required the fabrication of weapons of mass destruction. No longer. The US government can now carry out coups at will, with no scrutiny or consequence. It may do so in Cuba or Iran next. Eventually, this unaccountable tyranny will reach everyone, including those within the US itself. The greed of the ruling elite knows no bounds. Especially dismaying, amid the chaos of recent days, has been the response of the US’s Western allies, particularly the European Union, which has uncritically embraced this unjustifiable act. It is now abundantly clear that the EU has chosen to contort itself entirely to appease the US and “Daddy” Trump, tethering itself to the sinking ship of the American empire – whether by backing Trump’s economic war with China, committing to militarism, facilitating genocide in Gaza, or now endorsing the overthrow of sovereign leaders. For an entity that prides itself even more than the US on the veneer of liberalism and international law, its refusal to offer even the mildest criticism is telling. Rather than condemn or distance herself from the illegal actions of a rogue state, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas responded to Maduro’s kidnapping by stating: “The EU has repeatedly said that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition.” Emmanuel Macron, France’s deeply unpopular president – who has repeatedly violated democratic norms by refusing to allow the Left to nominate a prime minister despite the Nouveau Front Populaire winning the most seats in the snap legislative elections he called in 2024 – went even further. “The Venezuelan people are today rid of Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship and can only rejoice. By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro gravely undermined the dignity of his own people.” He then added, seemingly oblivious to his own conduct since 2024: “The upcoming transition must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people.” Not even a token reference to international law. The hypocrisy is staggering. The same is true across Europe and among the US’s regional allies, from Keir Starmer to Giorgia Meloni; from Javier Milei to Daniel Noboa. What has been laid bare is not just a shift in the enactment of American imperialism but also the complete demolition of even its rhetorical boundaries. The US and its allies will depose, ravage, and kill with impunity. They will collaborate with war criminals, authoritarian leaders and dictatorships when convenient, and will overthrow “unsuitable” governments when desirable, too. They will sanction Russia for invading Ukraine, then celebrate the US for doing the same in Venezuela. Omar El-Akkad’s searing words in his excellent book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This cut through the hypocrisy of this so-called Western rules-based order: “To preserve the values of the civilised world, it is necessary to set fire to a library. To blow up a mosque. To incinerate olive trees. To dress up in the lingerie of women who fled and then take pictures. To level universities. To loot jewellery, art, banks, food. To arrest children for picking vegetables. To shoot children for throwing stones. To parade the captured in their underwear. To break a man’s teeth and shove a toilet brush in his mouth. To let combat dogs loose on a man with Down syndrome and then leave him to die. Otherwise, the uncivilised world might win.” For anyone who truly believes all peoples and nations are equal, the moral bankruptcy of the West has been utterly exposed. If there was any doubt before, it is now undeniable. The neo-colonial division of the world into haves and have-nots can no longer be rationalised or ignored. The Left, and all people of conscience, must respond accordingly. If the international Left is serious about building a future in which the Global Majority can live with dignity and equality, it must categorically reject the status quo of Western intervention and supremacy. Che Guevara famously said that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. Western imperialism has none – not for the proletariat within its borders, and certainly not for those beyond them. So we must centre a politics rooted in care and solidarity: movements that recognise the wretched of the earth, as Fanon described, as worthy of dignity and respect; as agents of their own futures; as human beings who deserve far more than destabilisation and exploitation by Western leaders in service of the profits of the corporations they are beholden to. The post The Moral Bankruptcy of the West Can No Longer Be Ignored appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Hamza Shehryar.
The (Over)Reach Of Gangster Imperium, from Venezuela to Gaza
The Trump administration’s military aggression against the people of Venezuela proves the dictum: US/Western imperialism is gangsterism on an international level. The World has witnessed an attempted smash and grab/shakedown operation, and extortion racket perpetrated by a gangster state. Of course, Trump is going to strut and preen and sputter braggadocio about his exercise in More The post The (Over)Reach Of Gangster Imperium, from Venezuela to Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396068" class="wp-image-396068 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/mohammed-ibrahim-maQyXPGLfMc-unsplash-1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Mohammed Ibrahim. The Trump administration’s military aggression against the people of Venezuela proves the dictum: US/Western imperialism is gangsterism on an international level. The World has witnessed an attempted smash and grab/shakedown operation, and extortion racket perpetrated by a gangster state. Of course, Trump is going to strut and preen and sputter braggadocio about his exercise in plundering Venezuela’s oil assets. Trump’s personality evinces the traits of a gangster given to ostentatious displays of his criminality, not the smart type who schemes from the shadows. Phil Rockstroh’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The history of the Mob proves the latter’s reign is given to greater longevity. After his moment of (fantasized) glory (early signs point to egomaniacal overreach) the tanking US economy and the shadow of Epstein will continue the (dismal and deranged) undoing of the Bitcon Don. Trump’s increasing cusp-of-Alzheimer’s impulsiveness, his angry outbursts and non-sequitur-laced diatribes mirror Al Capone’s unseemly and pathetic end, undone, as syphilis ravaged the body and brain of the once king of the Chicago underworld. Gangster power is a throne made of shit-dust. Regarding Trump’s lies about Venezuela being a narco-state The Hugo Chavez government halted CIA drug smuggling operations in the nation, decades back. Venezuela presents nada threat to the US on a military nor any other basis. And no, a contrived court case, sans a UN mandate and congressional resolution regarding war powers, does not constitute a legal justification for military action. Trump is simply a congenital criminal, a sociopath born into a rigged system that protects the worst people US empire spawns within its swamp of mendacity. Of course, you recall said swamp…that Trump pledged to drain. Of course, you also remember he was “the peace candidate.” Trump’s word is as real as the lie that is America. As real as the US is “a shining city on the hill.” The nation is a blood-sustained empire built on a mountain of corpses, from genocide-dispatched Indians, worked-to-their-grave African slaves, crushed beneath US empire Latin America and Caribbean peasants, and all the millions upon millions of victims of US Murder Inc. across the exploited globe. Once again, Trump tears down the facade and reveals the blood-drenched architecture of US empire. Do you think when Trump’s rotting carcass shambles from the scene that Democrats will return US plundered oil loot to the Venezuelan people? The belief would display a mind-annihilating case of toxic innocence. Remember, Obama’s deployment of ISIS head-chopping jihadists to coup and kill Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi and smash and grab and abscond with the nation’s oil wealth and gold reserves — a war crime that rendered the once richest nation in Africa a failed state where slaves are sold on the open market. This is the modus operandi of empire. Withal, believing voting can reform a military empire/economic imperium is like a squid applying for a job in a sushi restaurant “to change the system from within.” In regard to the powerless of the earth e.g., me. My social media comment threads are infested by this sort of rage-frothing invective “Phil, you are a Kapo, a self-hating Jew, who enables Hamas terrorists.” In response to the inanity, I posit, slaves who rose up against their masters (including, according to the mythos of the religion of my birth, Judaism — e.g., the followers of Moses who threw off their chains of bondage to Pharaoh, as well as the historical reality of the Jewish prisoners walled within the Warsaw Ghetto who fought to free themselves from Nazi imprisonment and the American slave (who insisted he was guided by God) Nat Turner and his rebellion against his Virginia plantation masters — all are regarded as heroes. Yet Palestinians imprisoned within Gaza by their Zionist overlords — the majority of whom were born and have been confined within the massively militarily surrounded open air concentration camp — have never traveled outside of its precincts. Yet, according to Zionists and their apologists, their uprising was the action of depraved, blood-lusting terrorists. Moreover, the citizenry of Gaza was under constant threat of attack from IDF marauders. Their military assaults on Gaza were termed by IDF raiding parties as “mowing the grass” i.e., acts of killing, terrorizing, and the taking of hostages (including children) back to Israeli torture prisons.So don’t accuse me of being a supporter of terrorism. Israeli terror tactics were in constant play before the Oct. 7 uprising. In fact, they can be traced to the Nakba, then codified into Israeli state policy from 1948 to the present moment. Thus sorry trolls, you cannot both-sides terrorism, in particular state-sanctioned terror that culminated in a genocide. The world has witnessed Israel’s perpetual war criminality; therefore, your compulsion to copy and paste hasbara lies (and spew ad hominem fallacy palaver) in my comment threads will not induce a global, collective outbreak of amnesia. Further notes to Zionist apologists It is not a good idea for Zionist true believers to equate, taking a stand against genocide as being antisemitic. We Jews are tiny in number; therefore, it is a far more propitious position to stand among the powerless and exploited of the Earth, and act as a vanguard of resistance against exploitative power, as opposed to acting as apologists for a brutal, highly militarized ethno-supremacist state, as well as Israel being deployed as a proxy force for Western imperialist agendas. (How is it possible, for a fleeting second, to believe that gentile western culture has developed a fondness for Jews?) History relates, we Jews have all too often been prey. It is not a cogent notion to believe we will be welcome for long in the dominion of predators. “The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens … for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus19:34). IMO: In present day terms, the above passage of scripture, should be translated to, proffering a living amends to the Palestinian people, including a Right Of Return, and the bestowment of generous reparations for their decades of exile and suffering. The damaged soul of Judaism can be restored by the dissolution of the Zionist state and the establishment of a true democracy on the stolen ground where it once stood. Otherwise, perpetually belligerent Israel will continue to be in asylum for the criminally insane disguised as a nation. 2025 played out as a global carnival of grim The planet’s climate continued to rise to “are you fucking humans stupid beyond belief” levels, as the planet’s leadership class proved the declaration dead-on and deadly accurate. Said gallery of grotesques either looked askance at genocide or enabled the abomination with stenographic fealty to Zionist hasbara or with proffered bottomless supplies of weaponry. As noted above, at the advent of the new year, US Gangster Imperium (or what remains of it) has made a move to muscle in on Venezuela’s oil reserves. From all indications, Trump, intoxicated — to the point of grandiosity — from inflicting pain by his gambit to assert dominance on a smaller nation, is poised to double down on his bacchanal of aggression. Malignant narcissist that he is, Trump derives a warped sense of pleasure from the fantasy he can hold a boot on the collective neck of the Venezuelan citizenry. Early indications from the ground in Venezuela, augur, its people are unwilling to take the position of supine submissive in accordance with Trump’s kink for dominance. To wit, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello: “Here, the unity of the revolutionary force is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations. We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed — it was revealed that they only want our oil.” If an Iraq type debacle comes to pass, US economic conscripts, the power-devoid underclass of the empire, will lose their lives, will sustain lifelong injuries, and suffer from psychological afflictions due to their deployment as expendable tools of the Trump administration’s cosplay racketeering and extortion scheme. Attack of conscience, never going to happen As is the case with the powerless in Gaza, criminals (i.e., sociopaths in possession of official titles and the attendant freedom from consequences said titles afford) will attempt to justify the unjustifiable: the taking of human life in an attempt to assuage the appetite of the insatiable monster that rules their psyche. Ours is a painful, anxious time for those of us powerless, little ants, who attempt, Atlas-like, to hold up the World. Ridiculous, right? Yet our status as ants imparts: we are many and they are few; together, we have a chance of enduring; but alone, devoured from within by alienation, we will perish. The post The (Over)Reach Of Gangster Imperium, from Venezuela to Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Phil Rockstroh.
Venal Reactions: US Allies Validate Maduro’s Abduction
On the surface, abducting a Head of State is a piratical act eschewed by States. A Head of State enjoys absolute immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction, known as ratione personae, at least till the term of office concludes. The International Court of Justice was clear enough about this principle in the 2002 Arrest Warrant Case, holding that high More The post Venal Reactions: US Allies Validate Maduro’s Abduction appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-680x510.jpg 680w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9207-600x450.jpg 600w" 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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair On the surface, abducting a Head of State is a piratical act eschewed by States. A Head of State enjoys absolute immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction, known as ratione personae, at least till the term of office concludes. The International Court of Justice was clear enough about this principle in the 2002 Arrest Warrant Case, holding that high ranked government officials such as a foreign minister are granted immunity under customary international law to enable the effective performance of their functions “on behalf of their respective States.” That said, international law has been modified on this score by the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, whose founding Rome Statute stipulates that the official standing of a serving Head of State is no exemption from criminal responsibility. The effectiveness of this principle lies in the cooperation of State parties, something distinctly unforthcoming regarding certain serving leaders. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu springs to mind.) US domestic law puts all of this to side with the highwayman logic of the Ker-Frisbie doctrine. Decided in Ker v Illinois in 1886, the decision overlooks the way, lawful or otherwise, a defendant is apprehended, even if outside the jurisdiction. Once American soil is reached, judicial proceedings can commence without challenge. The US Department of Justice has further attempted to puncture ancient notions of diplomatic immunity by recategorizing (how else?) the standing of a leader – in this case Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro – as nothing more than a narco-terrorist. Maduro was seized, explains US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as part of a law enforcement operation. In addition to being a violation of the leadership immunity principle, the January 3 kidnapping of Maduro and his wife by US forces was an audacious breach of the sovereignty guarantee under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Operation Absolute Resolve involved 150 aircraft, strikes on military infrastructure including surface-to-air missile and communication systems, and various depots. The security fantasists from the White House to the State Department treated Venezuela as not merely a dangerous narco-state but one hosting undesirable foreign elements, but it has never posed a military threat to the US homeland. In the face of such unalloyed aggression – a crime against peace, if you will – the response from Washington’s allies has been feeble and worse. This is made all the more grotesque for their claims to purity when it comes to defending Western civilisation against the perceived ogres and bogeymen of international relations: Russia and China. From the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer could not have been clearer about his contempt for the processes of international law. “The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela,” he declared in his January 3 statement. “We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.” Having given a coating of legitimacy to the banditry of the Trump administration, he could still claim to “support” international law. His government would “discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.” Certainly, judging from this, the will of President Donald Trump. An official statement from the European Union released by its high representative, Kaja Kallas, was even more mealy-mouthed: “The EU has repeatedly stated that Nicolás Maduro lacks the legitimacy of a democratically elected president and has advocated for a Venezuelan-led peaceful transition to democracy in the country, respectful of its sovereignty.” The tactic here involves soiling the subject before paying some false respect for such concepts as democracy and sovereignty. We can do without Maduro, and won’t miss him, but make some modest effort to respect some cardinal virtues when disposing of him. All those involved should show “restraint […] to avoid escalation and to ensure a peaceful resolution of the crisis.” The arrogance of this position is underlined by the concession to diplomacy’s importance and the role of dialogue, when there has been no dialogue or diplomacy to speak of. “We are in close contact with the United States, as well as regional and international partners to support and facilitate dialogue with all parties involved, leading to a negotiated, democratic, inclusive and peaceful resolution to the crisis, led by Venezuelans.” From the Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, there was not a whisper of Maduro’s abduction, or the US breach of the UN Charter. The phantom conveniently called the Venezuelan People stood as an alibi for lawbreaking, for they had a “desire to live in a peaceful and democratic society.” And there was the familiar call “on all parties to exercise restraint and uphold international law”, marvellous piffle in the face of illegal abductions. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did little to improve upon the weak formula in his shabby statement, similarly skipping over the violations of the UN Charter and Maduro’s abduction. “We urge all parties to support dialogue and diplomacy in order to secure regional stability and prevent escalation.” A bland acknowledgement of “the need to respect democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms” is made, along with the risible reference to supporting “international law and a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.” Who, then, are these idealised people? Presumably these Venezuelans are the vetted ones, sanitised with the seal of approval, untainted by silly notions of revolution and the poverty reduction measures initially implemented by the government of Hugo Chávez. But if EU officials and other states friendly to Washington thought that a Venezuelan appropriately representative of the People’s Will might be the opposition figure and travesty of a Nobel laureate, María Corina Machado, Trump had other ideas. To date the Maduro loyalist Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, has caught his fickle eye. “I think,” he said with blunt machismo, “it would be very tough for [Machado] to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect”. The Venezuelan people’s choice will be, putting democracy and dialogue to one side, the same as Trump’s. The post Venal Reactions: US Allies Validate Maduro’s Abduction appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
How This Federal Legislation Would Save Veterans’ Lives
Marcelo Assis served as an Army medic from 1998 to 2002 and went on to build a purpose-driven civilian career as a licensed plumber, gas company worker, and union activist. Assis, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 12000 at Southern Connecticut Gas, wants to see other veterans thrive like he has. He knows that they More The post How This Federal Legislation Would Save Veterans’ Lives appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1680" height="1268" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM.png 1680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-680x513.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-835x630.png 835w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-1536x1159.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-500x377.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="835" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-835x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-835x630.png 835w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-680x513.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-1536x1159.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-500x377.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-600x453.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM.png 1680w" sizes="(max-width: 835px) 100vw, 835px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396185" class="size-medium wp-image-396185" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-680x513.png" alt="" width="680" height="513" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-680x513.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-835x630.png 835w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-1536x1159.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-500x377.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM-600x453.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.24.52-PM.png 1680w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Stephen Tafra Marcelo Assis served as an Army medic from 1998 to 2002 and went on to build a purpose-driven civilian career as a licensed plumber, gas company worker, and union activist. Assis, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 12000 at Southern Connecticut Gas, wants to see other veterans thrive like he has. He knows that they have the guts and the skills, often sharpened in combat, to succeed on the home front. Yet many former service members struggle to find their way, observed Assis, who counts two of his own friends among the <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BAmxyb6VGl88IkNFQmLR5RVU6rIcMiFSHDnQeehV2nqhn-2BTUqOLEpF2mlMAJlb1zjE-2BTJdZMyN3TH7WJPwSVADozcHnduXSxUd78KuLcOt3D7CB5Io-2BDSVnHVD4xtM9wxONzu-2BTdGFIelm9HlhkTWWUr-2F6UYLkhsCLCtWvMhIoDvmFz0hJ-2B3ntwgfb6NPsk3wNZpZxztP8iBZX2nuC2EG-2Bcl4DNfZ5KlFPWw9MfAh5PfLTmq_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeKXmBOPMnUcCDzmxQP8Jj7VYq2UkCFNrTrMDTQ-2FEUgwrWfwLg53fY-2BczLs4ttJaHn3e8xADMSyiAVoxfbDit8ohu9Zu83c1q9ev8XfNs-2BL7ffzcJggD8pro5WQo03PSyjf1yCk8UJYGNaB53OV-2B6NgjYNrk3imk1a28ksjZctUYGodQsGhthnGEN4HlgvFsR3xZlqeQ6FkPwiBPrzE7l5WY-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BAmxyb6VGl88IkNFQmLR5RVU6rIcMiFSHDnQeehV2nqhn-2BTUqOLEpF2mlMAJlb1zjE-2BTJdZMyN3TH7WJPwSVADozcHnduXSxUd78KuLcOt3D7CB5Io-2BDSVnHVD4xtM9wxONzu-2BTdGFIelm9HlhkTWWUr-2F6UYLkhsCLCtWvMhIoDvmFz0hJ-2B3ntwgfb6NPsk3wNZpZxztP8iBZX2nuC2EG-2Bcl4DNfZ5KlFPWw9MfAh5PfLTmq_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeKXmBOPMnUcCDzmxQP8Jj7VYq2UkCFNrTrMDTQ-2FEUgwrWfwLg53fY-2BczLs4ttJaHn3e8xADMSyiAVoxfbDit8ohu9Zu83c1q9ev8XfNs-2BL7ffzcJggD8pro5WQo03PSyjf1yCk8UJYGNaB53OV-2B6NgjYNrk3imk1a28ksjZctUYGodQsGhthnGEN4HlgvFsR3xZlqeQ6FkPwiBPrzE7l5WY-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw0H-WFpNKIoY6ksGVJQa01a">thousands of veterans who take their own lives every year. While the difficulties that veterans face are numerous and diverse, Assis fervently believes the nation needs to do a better job of reaching out to those who served and connecting them to the assistance they earned. That’s why he and other USW members support federal legislation that would require employers across the country to post notices in plants, offices, and other workplaces outlining the benefits and services available to veterans. USW members seek legislation that mirrors the workplace poster laws they already helped to <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BPrkXaihXTIEmjJtl7oW9mToU0K-2BJLpXDbZBSl6nsMELvht8O2Rc5vd0OPFCoWQg8IXkOblQk74P-2FKDNX-2F-2BAg-2BVvxtRPw9p3xyVAMpFzB1Zma1ay_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeEk0gcXNJe8oxfrhmWGjI2-2FMtjIr49BPySqgACY8yC8PzJl-2Fj2LSumSggzIxDuk-2FT-2F1ZnYiRvqPH78OKf9d3ep81DwOYEWHLV7Jzhqu-2BGr8MYNLtwbfrq-2FeOX9mHzQiIb1QkkGLGbVqPx3LbtWIRv7JAFnOA2IJfnel3-2B-2BhbE2BVEAOGylqDLKUIb9s5vXiuJkDrlujAAjz-2F0MkWyAuFrY8-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BPrkXaihXTIEmjJtl7oW9mToU0K-2BJLpXDbZBSl6nsMELvht8O2Rc5vd0OPFCoWQg8IXkOblQk74P-2FKDNX-2F-2BAg-2BVvxtRPw9p3xyVAMpFzB1Zma1ay_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeEk0gcXNJe8oxfrhmWGjI2-2FMtjIr49BPySqgACY8yC8PzJl-2Fj2LSumSggzIxDuk-2FT-2F1ZnYiRvqPH78OKf9d3ep81DwOYEWHLV7Jzhqu-2BGr8MYNLtwbfrq-2FeOX9mHzQiIb1QkkGLGbVqPx3LbtWIRv7JAFnOA2IJfnel3-2B-2BhbE2BVEAOGylqDLKUIb9s5vXiuJkDrlujAAjz-2F0MkWyAuFrY8-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw2WZfU-t3GB5ObzqD31TrJ5">enact for veterans in New York and 14 other states over the past couple of years. While those state-level laws continue to make an impact, explained Assis, it’s clear that uniform, nationwide outreach is essential to the mission of leaving no veteran behind. “One life being saved is priceless,” noted Assis, who still wonders not only about what went wrong for the friends he lost but also what might have made a difference. “It’s hard to know exactly,” said Assis, who provides free plumbing services to veterans in his community and advocates for veterans’ issues at both the state and federal levels. “What I can tell you is that, if they knew what they needed, they didn’t know how to access it.” Union members began working with U.S. Representative Chris Deluzio, a Navy veteran and former USW member, on the federal poster legislation several months ago. They have since built bicameral, bipartisan support and anticipate the bill’s introduction in January 2026. It would require federal agencies, such as the Department of Labor and the Department of Veterans Affairs, to create the posters and make them available to employers. The posters would be displayed in commonly frequented areas of a workplace, such as lunchrooms, and provide information on <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BIyavg9QakTeMMSYNI28EmxCogrYkdQnShkk8tYGrZr6kr03yxqSxPtzlKJf24GHw0pS0q85d8RNV4s74clrxWjL1EvQCCXjejGiyepeBDeOC5y-2FFYphKHVawameEB530A-3D-3DN32G_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeFknhOOMK7p3gSBcLzsMw4D4b-2FCFCAn6hk5TaIDb2-2BhrkTO-2FUjoPv8n-2FAgVtdC3mxbcGaLdBk2kuGsFXImMjY6tBRwJJMgveDx3BEf-2Fl3bOTNLcXopCLtpbBJrgNe6nzGbhLwmf4sVj0-2FAUSCfS3niMgRjR27ZuPs5wJpwnKQAzcFf7XVRmTLBJl0i2Zj4jBVdT-2F31sCrc67c07HJQpTfzw-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BIyavg9QakTeMMSYNI28EmxCogrYkdQnShkk8tYGrZr6kr03yxqSxPtzlKJf24GHw0pS0q85d8RNV4s74clrxWjL1EvQCCXjejGiyepeBDeOC5y-2FFYphKHVawameEB530A-3D-3DN32G_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeFknhOOMK7p3gSBcLzsMw4D4b-2FCFCAn6hk5TaIDb2-2BhrkTO-2FUjoPv8n-2FAgVtdC3mxbcGaLdBk2kuGsFXImMjY6tBRwJJMgveDx3BEf-2Fl3bOTNLcXopCLtpbBJrgNe6nzGbhLwmf4sVj0-2FAUSCfS3niMgRjR27ZuPs5wJpwnKQAzcFf7XVRmTLBJl0i2Zj4jBVdT-2F31sCrc67c07HJQpTfzw-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw3Qv91sOi_Sx3zP6o6YV98O">how to access a mental health crisis line and Veterans Administration health care, as well as educational, legal, housing, and other key services. The name of the bill, the Thomas M. Conway Veterans Access to Resources in the Workplace Act, honors the late USW international president and proud Air Force veteran. Conway established the USW’s <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BG3GYtTjVH4xhNwiUDd4MsZbEFQkUQVdTN5-2FZ23JwjqfyHrcKG60EYn7o0pPd0u1Zg-3D-3DzjzW_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeKiogqE-2BdaGLNNsGi7oZ5Mt9dhMvPdw-2BOoulydW2aZge5B4QZgwbDNg7g7S2XReGz-2B47yFO8LHMG3OCKAVPxtxqqG1VFcmmgFSXzjH18QvxSBvxgvCslh8hacWetsZMIeKR-2BBoKQ0sAYWKP3xngpWrUiFLn9PxKK5XwH-2F7IG98WDj7m3ZwUXtE8j8MZusJy-2BGqYJ7epqXG2wZYfnIdUoNSg-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BG3GYtTjVH4xhNwiUDd4MsZbEFQkUQVdTN5-2FZ23JwjqfyHrcKG60EYn7o0pPd0u1Zg-3D-3DzjzW_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeKiogqE-2BdaGLNNsGi7oZ5Mt9dhMvPdw-2BOoulydW2aZge5B4QZgwbDNg7g7S2XReGz-2B47yFO8LHMG3OCKAVPxtxqqG1VFcmmgFSXzjH18QvxSBvxgvCslh8hacWetsZMIeKR-2BBoKQ0sAYWKP3xngpWrUiFLn9PxKK5XwH-2F7IG98WDj7m3ZwUXtE8j8MZusJy-2BGqYJ7epqXG2wZYfnIdUoNSg-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw2BsCuzOpQ-NAC4QqOuaU59">Veterans of Steel program to empower union members with military backgrounds—those separated from the service as well as those still in the Guard or Reserve—and to ensure their fair treatment on the job. Vets of Steel also helps to lead the union’s advocacy for pro-veteran laws. Assis credits his own success to lucky breaks, an ability to relate to others, and a strong sense of purpose. He missed the camaraderie—and the sense of being part of something important—when he left the Army. “But a lot of those feelings were resolved when I joined the union,” he said, noting USW members stand together like soldiers, sailors, and airmen do. Unfortunately, many veterans struggle to adjust to civilian life because of service-related trauma, substance abuse disorders, loss of identity, the challenge of adapting to new responsibilities, or other reasons. At the same time, however, the government services specifically established to help veterans often go unused. For example, <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BFOg5DWp25LfG1o-2B7qbye8S-2BcIBJT0jGYJskHaUNhvOagpUOmnh7k00WfQLyHqlWEKyCHz8rkgqnXG7gXu7gNBZ3uxOJFEH65pa6DasZyWyQMlUJ7-2BD5IMfKUVXjPcPIt-2FB2GxvNLaZ8WsPVuGMOx1Sb598D9KANjMiQYeYxcZODEDe-2BM2BG2YAuzdXXxTqjHA-3D-3D0Oy__pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeOBkN4GHChugc63WPZDrH8Vd7FX-2BtLnvrGOAbhx2RrU8-2FIaiMJNucELC6lRF-2FPAUY1yAqQ3JuReI-2FTpgMn60T9h1iY0794lKemEWJf7jHOBgftPshwkNN2nQLWj4nDZ71-2BuKcvvxTZECdAwnZVaMt7uqjghsr1gvH1x4NXzsMtn6oivC3sC6hGDxw8yPUo-2B1GE6owKJ1NTaZhJ4XIEyf9wM-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BFOg5DWp25LfG1o-2B7qbye8S-2BcIBJT0jGYJskHaUNhvOagpUOmnh7k00WfQLyHqlWEKyCHz8rkgqnXG7gXu7gNBZ3uxOJFEH65pa6DasZyWyQMlUJ7-2BD5IMfKUVXjPcPIt-2FB2GxvNLaZ8WsPVuGMOx1Sb598D9KANjMiQYeYxcZODEDe-2BM2BG2YAuzdXXxTqjHA-3D-3D0Oy__pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeOBkN4GHChugc63WPZDrH8Vd7FX-2BtLnvrGOAbhx2RrU8-2FIaiMJNucELC6lRF-2FPAUY1yAqQ3JuReI-2FTpgMn60T9h1iY0794lKemEWJf7jHOBgftPshwkNN2nQLWj4nDZ71-2BuKcvvxTZECdAwnZVaMt7uqjghsr1gvH1x4NXzsMtn6oivC3sC6hGDxw8yPUo-2B1GE6owKJ1NTaZhJ4XIEyf9wM-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw33OGhyjP28y0yQah_8kqhq">only about 3,500 of the more than 12,000 veterans in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, avail themselves of food vouchers and assistance with rent and utilities, among other benefits, despite America’s growing <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BD-2F1-2FFZWDmyfn0ScTTa-2BqvpHjVZYDCe1HnSU8mQFrldTW8rJ_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeHdGMps8rTniorDiz5k3fxvePsquh3juUV81YkCNbrli53ykPrNRB5LECVKBOkcb5XldzP24YZu03KBN1hQP9zdAlZDsRFLwL8tUC4J60OxASnHhqvXDk7reFp3QT1aidvYOSKU-2Fci5ml-2BFt-2B3N1nM37brNRzJH7R6c2guZVBW9rOb0AeQI54lFkbOyqSINupc41pl-2Fyhag-2FcX2MBLrs7ww-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BD-2F1-2FFZWDmyfn0ScTTa-2BqvpHjVZYDCe1HnSU8mQFrldTW8rJ_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeHdGMps8rTniorDiz5k3fxvePsquh3juUV81YkCNbrli53ykPrNRB5LECVKBOkcb5XldzP24YZu03KBN1hQP9zdAlZDsRFLwL8tUC4J60OxASnHhqvXDk7reFp3QT1aidvYOSKU-2Fci5ml-2BFt-2B3N1nM37brNRzJH7R6c2guZVBW9rOb0AeQI54lFkbOyqSINupc41pl-2Fyhag-2FcX2MBLrs7ww-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw0n9PBHkA5dFhWNJu_kjOts">cost-of-living crisis. Other studies found surprisingly few veterans taking advantage of social services, legal resources, or mortgage benefits. Veterans left <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BFwKx3SyJBJbv40CBf60XyQPB2agCynS3z7SJsFIAm5tqMJ8J-2Bfb4o8IuexahPB4he5Uabdp4JDX2IsAlYjbZhU-3DqKp4_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeD6D-2F3XwbsZ44bb3s78RksfRJqmWnHVvuoLigl2LZ2yWLmLPp4P7n2yZotuSBuKZiIaUngd-2Bd4-2FyU4FOCMWbHSY7iMRwkX-2BAQIH4uNeLuGUXdCiW2KBVZM7LufQm-2FzBXrJRYSCMszLAn3YqGQCy9J-2BmduamYDSAoPLAZsIWoG2HUmbwPR9BfyR0jg7CP87QznftEy0eBmjuGuzUQhHdmTkY-3D" 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data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BFwKx3SyJBJbv40CBf60XyQPB2agCynS3z7SJsFIAm5tqMJ8J-2Bfb4o8IuexahPB4he5Uabdp4JDX2IsAlYjbZhU-3DqKp4_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeD6D-2F3XwbsZ44bb3s78RksfRJqmWnHVvuoLigl2LZ2yWLmLPp4P7n2yZotuSBuKZiIaUngd-2Bd4-2FyU4FOCMWbHSY7iMRwkX-2BAQIH4uNeLuGUXdCiW2KBVZM7LufQm-2FzBXrJRYSCMszLAn3YqGQCy9J-2BmduamYDSAoPLAZsIWoG2HUmbwPR9BfyR0jg7CP87QznftEy0eBmjuGuzUQhHdmTkY-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw2jXd-l6x_v-P5keX4jUCGm">billions in VA home loans on the table in 2024, passing up the <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BGubbj3HDEWO-2F1JMkiykTswhQhq-2BWxFsZrA-2F9kdhXw1V6uNkuRjyh6D89QGljMuTXQ-3D-3D-Lp8_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeNqohAvIqhD1A7rO1OHc8Jhs0hzu2JJERorxN1jNXoNEFC1XLOqWAv9c3al0ls9J7gKMSlX5C9PFxFLqQ5Vpew4beooP3l5V4m605aB0ipDzChfKwRUX3qZyCgTdqO-2FMndB2y2rk6M6KzxUUzsb5-2FulYSosyyrnOEnSVjKvn-2FFc81tD-2F7zbMNFavMbIzg3LELdT9alXyJ7IzTVLv3ZaNI3w-3D" 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terms despite <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BHYMl1c2cxsDZKcvXHAwOxnVV-2Br1f8NkFmjyEG2bQxV7BvmX_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeAzTJGIw-2BPXOq3SxR7Q4gajlf5XpeiyhF-2FGa6dp-2FDBN6IIvMi8e6uq3-2FmiTEIkjndVsEChbqpO-2B4Y7qsNdl6S0kyy5qNP8xqXCWon7CUhBZe3S16OwUAxrUsDJoFAMiiaGPS5xJK6LXE7rSc5-2FAVps-2BGih7iNWyFOu9pLoqkG7esirCy7utJctJ91nQeC0OexYYIm7jJg8AADwMcHKw-2Fpo8-3D" 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data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BHYMl1c2cxsDZKcvXHAwOxnVV-2Br1f8NkFmjyEG2bQxV7BvmX_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeAzTJGIw-2BPXOq3SxR7Q4gajlf5XpeiyhF-2FGa6dp-2FDBN6IIvMi8e6uq3-2FmiTEIkjndVsEChbqpO-2B4Y7qsNdl6S0kyy5qNP8xqXCWon7CUhBZe3S16OwUAxrUsDJoFAMiiaGPS5xJK6LXE7rSc5-2FAVps-2BGih7iNWyFOu9pLoqkG7esirCy7utJctJ91nQeC0OexYYIm7jJg8AADwMcHKw-2Fpo8-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw1MXVZ-ou7U57Db-inoSRi3">skyrocketing home prices and insurance costs that squeeze many Americans out of the market. The VA itself, alarmed by the high suicide rates among former service members, says it relies on “partners and communities nationwide <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BPl4DKopEQkYroTf1nExhxfbMNfV1kL4U4sPnKxEdOYCUvJYVdmLntQJxiU8ioUehhIc35w9izvO0qT-2FySRCKU8209HZxB1BWmCapBfYPgbpCvpZ_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeBIFj5dTNwTSvrhKFG-2BL0WOAq8dInG6O4C5Giy-2B5HH4tAG7m0b8qv-2B9pvg8XmjywXiPGXYFHvIL0HaSEFEY7-2Fv5iTVSh8mMW8aCBULCInWgOl-2F5zm4CprX08ZxGYooohMH7SgMG4qkEO7bxOm7QEKLlmP5rZHK46L4qzCkpUa3PYchXRzX89x23oo2wDVnDiCeJYtmu3YxkqFIXfWN3r7vg-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BPl4DKopEQkYroTf1nExhxfbMNfV1kL4U4sPnKxEdOYCUvJYVdmLntQJxiU8ioUehhIc35w9izvO0qT-2FySRCKU8209HZxB1BWmCapBfYPgbpCvpZ_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeBIFj5dTNwTSvrhKFG-2BL0WOAq8dInG6O4C5Giy-2B5HH4tAG7m0b8qv-2B9pvg8XmjywXiPGXYFHvIL0HaSEFEY7-2Fv5iTVSh8mMW8aCBULCInWgOl-2F5zm4CprX08ZxGYooohMH7SgMG4qkEO7bxOm7QEKLlmP5rZHK46L4qzCkpUa3PYchXRzX89x23oo2wDVnDiCeJYtmu3YxkqFIXfWN3r7vg-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw3aoFxGNRnoi93fR159z0Vz">to reach veterans where they are.” Some veterans may simply be unaware of the benefits and services available to them, Assis said, noting the government doesn’t always do a good job of preparing service members for life after discharge. In other cases, he pointed out, veterans may not want to discuss mental health challenges or other needs with family, friends, or coworkers. They may not want to ask someone where to seek help or know where to look for it. That’s where workplace posters make a crucial difference, enabling veterans both to understand what’s out there for them and to pursue those opportunities with as much privacy as they may desire. “If you see something on a poster, you view it as information you found, and you take care of it yourself,” Assis said, stressing that it makes no sense for veterans to walk away from benefits the government owes them in exchange for their service. “This is part of the promise back to us,” he said. “This is something every soldier, sailor, Marine, and airman signed up for and should take part in.” This article was produced by the <a href="https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BFH7-2B890eq7B4TYN9OBfEsmpkidmlI3xZEv0ZDp49UtihqFL_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeM972VW-2FekDj5LnPcEhLzWh5Cv0ncibdc9FD3melY-2F6-2FBKstlEZH3F53DQ3QxtdCsj-2Fv6lA55e6OsBvWHGQcjWWcDBsKYyZTKRl3gFZTkxlWybuWkaNiBZxJNNYnl8NMyP7ztqzVJ4ZEH1wjt25aDe6pqo7l9uslBvodYHTMTh7Pt899uWTsR8giTkhhpObFwaIprxmDqgkQGbWzow7arVA-3D" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://u36605228.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn%3Du001.irwnA1ZB8N-2BHNL3jUmYY-2BFH7-2B890eq7B4TYN9OBfEsmpkidmlI3xZEv0ZDp49UtihqFL_pb-2B40bGv8VszgSLSxZSae2hniLAOGi35ajohLqdIu8wIVCP-2FjsifAGPrnz8TzLY-2BMUz6Eq-2FVy3U9gcbUpWfceKmCIe12vtKEwGCus9uFys-2F-2FkepJHi09LqcrVmBcNjWTP75N4lfxXrJMJOO17ujCDirUSjAc-2B8voU0Y9-2BxFyxFZ7gqzUKQoxKxu7y4CIyqgiv-2B4Wcn2rsK1PUqDaI-2B5fWUeqpzCNrWK-2F8itWyQNLIlMqIJkhV1qZuFINvDWyaOLa933WxhA6DZjRZmusaJq3YeIQ-2FvC84JHmg00wPBbW-2BO08-2BC0inrnSZoKMAn1PkNzNaGxYPv-2FwMtp9WjJMAt5zZ6UBZktkwUNMOY3VuSHCRkDUroJoA069CiK00eheqUPf6KHwxE5to5AkFjzsnIzklkqvZgYa2Dj0pb0-2FomBjCilkJrWRv69eXBd8syGlzxXc4V0IkbX2RPz8yfU-2B337ZlVYYjT6AU57YF-2FHxejZudVhtf1zSy1Tm7KusTxkxhNBlgk34QW6Gej3nQ2Yoe0P-2FJ-2FHZQhKCqCsxvE8h2SwF-2BBUau6KF2wC-2BTeBsnebOzd04XXVwZWUNDcXE8vMlGWzCeM972VW-2FekDj5LnPcEhLzWh5Cv0ncibdc9FD3melY-2F6-2FBKstlEZH3F53DQ3QxtdCsj-2Fv6lA55e6OsBvWHGQcjWWcDBsKYyZTKRl3gFZTkxlWybuWkaNiBZxJNNYnl8NMyP7ztqzVJ4ZEH1wjt25aDe6pqo7l9uslBvodYHTMTh7Pt899uWTsR8giTkhhpObFwaIprxmDqgkQGbWzow7arVA-3D&source=gmail&ust=1767739708016000&usg=AOvVaw24O_ew7iArrwI88wkgT91l">Independent Media Institute. The post How This Federal Legislation Would Save Veterans’ Lives appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David McCall.
The Perilous Shift in Weapons Sales to Taiwan
The recent announcement by the U.S. government of a record-breaking $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation that threatens to shatter the fragile peace of the Taiwan Strait. Although Washington cloaks these transactions in the language of “regional stability,” a deep analysis of the hardware and the timing reveals a predatory strategy. More The post The Perilous Shift in Weapons Sales to Taiwan appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2016px) 100vw, 2016px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2016" height="1344" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2016px) 100vw, 2016px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2016" height="1344" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2016px) 100vw, 2016px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2016" height="1344" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2016px) 100vw, 2016px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2016" height="1344" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2016px) 100vw, 2016px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2016" height="1344" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2016px) 100vw, 2016px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396182" class="size-medium wp-image-396182" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-680x453.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-945x630.png 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-500x333.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM-600x400.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-05-at-5.16.46-PM.png 2016w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Timo Volz The recent announcement by the U.S. government of a record-breaking $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation that threatens to shatter the fragile peace of the Taiwan Strait. Although Washington cloaks these transactions in the language of “regional stability,” a deep analysis of the hardware and the timing reveals a predatory strategy. This is no longer about maintaining a “defensive” balance; it is a calculated effort to turn Taiwan into a front-line arsenal, pushing the region toward the brink of a conflict that neither the people of Taiwan nor the world can afford. For decades, U.S. arms sales were ostensibly limited to short-range, defensive platforms. The current package includes 420 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) with a range of 300 kilometers, paired with over 80 HIMARS launchers. These are not tools for coastal defense; they are long-range precision-strike weapons designed to reach deep into the Chinese mainland. By providing these systems, the United States is signaling a pivot toward “offensive deterrence,” granting the Taipei authorities the capacity to initiate or escalate conflict far beyond the island’s shores. Perhaps most striking is the massive investment in “loitering munitions”—effectively kamikaze drones. With over 1,000 Altius and Switchblade systems included, Washington is attempting to operationalize the “Hellscape” strategy. This approach seeks to saturate the Strait with autonomous, low-cost killing machines. By shifting to unmanned systems, the United States aims to create a high-attrition “meat grinder” on China’s doorstep, treating the Taiwan Strait as a laboratory for modern warfare while avoiding the immediate risk to American personnel. The delivery mechanism has also become more aggressive. By increasingly utilizing “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (PDA) to fast-track weapons directly from U.S. stockpiles, Washington is bypassing conventional oversight and accelerated the construction of a permanent “munitions depot” on the island. This is “salami slicing” at its most cynical: a series of “unprecedented” steps that, when viewed together, seek to normalize a de facto military alliance. It is a “warm water frog” tactic designed to hollow out the One-China principle until it is nothing but a historical footnote. The arms sales are the primary tool for a two-pronged strategy: the United States “using Taiwan to contain China” and supporting the Lai Ching-te administration’s secessionist goals. Washington’s primary interest is not the “democracy” or “well-being” of the Taiwanese people but rather the strategic utility of the island as a “stationary aircraft carrier” to hem in China’s maritime rise. By flooding the island with weapons, the United States is essentially outsourcing its containment strategy. The goal is clear: create a “porcupine” that consumes China’s resources and focus, regardless of the cost to the people living on the island. Taiwan is being groomed not for prosperity but for sacrifice. This strategy finds a willing, albeit reckless, partner in Lai Ching-te. Since taking office, Lai has consistently pushed a separatist agenda, cloaking “Taiwan independence” in the language of “strength” and “asymmetric defense.” By committing to a $40 billion total arms procurement plan, Lai is gambling with the island’s future. He operates under the delusion that more missiles equal more security. In reality, Lai’s relying on foreign forces for “independence” is a dead end. Every new shipment of HIMARS or drones only serves to heighten the risk of miscalculation. By kowtowing to U.S. strategic interests and ignoring the legislative and public outcry within Taiwan regarding the “hollowing out” of the island’s economy for the sake of weapons, the current administration is not building a shield; they are building a powder keg. Beijing’s response to this $11.1 billion provocation has been swift and systematic, moving beyond diplomatic protest to a phase of active legal and military counter-retaliation. On December 26, 2025, the Chinese Foreign Ministry invoked the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, blacklisting 20 U.S. defense firms—including Boeing’s St. Louis branch, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris—alongside 10 senior executives such as Anduril founder Palmer Luckey. By freezing assets and enforcing a total ban on Chinese entities doing business with these firms, Beijing is signaling that the era of consequence-free interference is over. These sanctions serve as a stark warning to the U.S. industrial complex: participation in the militarization of Taiwan will result in a permanent loss of access to the world’s second-largest economy. Simultaneously, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has transitioned to a state of heightened “combat readiness,” framing the shift toward offensive systems like ATACMS as a direct threat to national sovereignty. The Ministry of National Defense has vowed to utilize “forceful measures” to frustrate the “Taiwan independence” agenda of the Lai Ching-te administration. By intensifying joint-strike drills and “hellscape” counter-drone exercises, China is demonstrating that it will not be intimidated by the “warm water frog” tactics of the West. This multifaceted response—combining economic decapitation of defense contractors with a resolute military posture—underscores a clear reality: Washington’s attempt to “use Taiwan to contain China” is not only failing to provide security but is actively accelerating the very confrontation it claims to deter. Each U.S. sale intended to “boost morale” in Taipei instead triggers a tightening of the strategic circle, reminding the world that the “One-China” principle is backed by the credible and growing capability to enforce it. True peace in the Taiwan Strait cannot be purchased from a defense contractor. It can only be maintained through the recognition of historical reality and the cessation of separatist provocations. If Washington continues to arm the “Taiwan independence” forces, it will eventually find that it has sliced the salami so thin that nothing remains of the peace it claims to protect. This first appeared on FPIF. The post The Perilous Shift in Weapons Sales to Taiwan appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jianlu Bi.
West Coast Levee Failures Show Growing Risks From America’s Aging Flood Defenses
In recent weeks, powerful atmospheric river storms have swept across Washington, Oregon and California, unloading enormous amounts of rain. As rivers surged, they overtopped or breached multiple levees – those long, often unnoticed barriers holding floodwaters back from homes and towns. Most of the time, levees don’t demand attention. They quietly do their job, year More The post West Coast Levee Failures Show Growing Risks From America’s Aging Flood Defenses appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395741" class="wp-image-395741 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_6983-1-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Flooded field, Washington State. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. In recent weeks, powerful atmospheric river storms have swept across Washington, Oregon and California, unloading enormous amounts of rain. As rivers surged, they overtopped or breached multiple levees – those long, often unnoticed barriers holding floodwaters back from homes and towns. Most of the time, levees don’t demand attention. They quietly do their job, year after year. But when storms intensify, levees suddenly matter in a very personal way. They can determine whether a neighborhood stays dry or ends up underwater. The damage in the West reflects a nationwide problem that has been building for decades. Across the U.S., levees are getting older while weather is getting more extreme. Many of these structures were never designed for the enormous responsibility they now carry. As a civil engineer at Tufts University, I study water infrastructure, including the vulnerability of levees and strategies for making them more resilient. My research also shows that when levees fail, the consequences don’t fall evenly on the population. Levees became critical infrastructure almost by accident Many people assume levees were built as part of modern, carefully engineered flood-control systems. In reality, many of the levees still in use today began much more humbly. Decades ago, farmers built simple earthen embankments to protect their fields and livestock from seasonal flooding. These early levees were practical solutions, shaped by experience rather than formal engineering. They were not constructed using rigorous design standards, and they did not follow consistent construction or maintenance guidelines. Over time, the landscape around these levees changed. Farmland gave way to neighborhoods. Roads, railways, factories and ports expanded into floodplains. Populations grew. What were once modest, local structures protecting farms gradually became the first line of defense for millions of people in homes and workplaces. <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710322/original/file-20251224-56-sfryo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /> During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the river poured over and broke through levees, flooding thousands of square miles of land. Both overtopping and a breach are visible in this photo. National Weather Service Archival Photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS Without much public debate or planning, these semi-engineered levees took on a critical and unintended role. The question that still lingers is whether they were ever prepared for it. Vast, aging levee system now protecting millions Today, the National Levee Database counts more than 24,000 miles (38,600 kilometers) of levees in the U.S., with an average age of about 61 years and many of them much older. Together, they protect over 23 million people, around 7 million buildings and nearly US$2 trillion in property value. That’s an extraordinary level of responsibility for a system that is unevenly maintained with varying oversight. Some levees are inspected regularly. Others are owned by small local agencies or private entities with limited funding. In some cases, responsibility is unclear or fragmented. One levee that was breached along the Green River in Washington state during storms in mid-December 2025 had been due for repairs for several years, but disagreements among governments had recently held up needed work, The Seattle Times reported. The breach forced thousands of people to evacuate <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710345/original/file-20251225-56-tvyjro.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A map shows many breaches in the Midwest, as well as in Washington state and the Northeast." /> Many states have at-risk levees. The map shows all levees in the U.S. National Levee Database (in red) and 478 levee segments where overtopping is known to have occurred in the previous 15 years (in blue). S. Flynn, et al., 2025 The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2025 Report Card for American Infrastructure, which I contributed to, gave the nation’s levees a D-plus grade, citing aging infrastructure, inconsistent monitoring and long-term underinvestment. A new dataset that colleagues and I created of levee damage includes 487 cases where rivers poured over levees, known as overtopping, in the past 15 years. That doesn’t mean levees are failing everywhere; it means that many are operating with little margin for error. How levees fail Levee failures are rarely sudden collapses. More often, they start quietly. The most common reason levees fail is overtopping, when water from a river, stream or lake behind the levee flows over the top. Once that happens, erosion can begin on the landward side, weakening the structure from behind. What starts as a slow trickle can quickly grow into a breach, creating a large gap in the levee where water can pour in. <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710334/original/file-20251224-56-y5amsb.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="Two illustrations. One of overtopping points out that age, height and the materials used can weaken the levee, leading to a breach, which cuts into the levee allowing a faster, deeper steam of water to pour through." /> An illustration shows the difference between overtopping and a breach, and some of the reasons a levee can fail. S. Flynn et al., 2025 Atmospheric river storms make the risk of overtopping and breaches much higher. These storms deliver enormous amounts of rainfall across wide areas in a matter of hours, often combined with snowmelt. Rivers rise faster and stay high longer. Many levees were never designed for that kind of sustained pressure. When a levee breaches, flooding can be rapid and deep, leaving little time for evacuation and causing damage that spreads far beyond the floodplain. Who relies on levees today? Millions of Americans live and work in area protected by levees, often without realizing it. Homes, schools, highways, rail corridors, ports and power facilities depend on the integrity of these structures. A recent national study found that across the contiguous U.S., urban expansion into floodplains occurred more than twice as fast after levee construction as it did in surrounding counties, highlighting how levees can affect communities’ perception of danger. In fact, when levees fail, flooding can be worse than in areas without levees, because water rushes in quickly and drains slowly. The risks are also uneven, shaped by history, economics and policy decisions. That reality became painfully clear during an atmospheric river storm in March 2023 when a levee along California’s Pajaro River failed, flooding the town of Pajaro. Pajaro is home to many low-income farmworkers. Floodwaters forced hundreds of residents to evacuate, and some people were trapped as water levels rose. How the Pajaro Valley flooded after intense rainfall from an atmospheric river in March 2023, breaching a levee protecting a small California town. What made the disaster especially troubling was what emerged afterward. Officials and engineers had known for decades that the Pajaro River levee was vulnerable. Reports documented its weaknesses, but repairs were repeatedly delayed. Interviews by The Los Angeles Times and public records showed that part of the reason was financial. Decision-makers did not prioritize investing in a levee system protecting the low-income community. The risk was known, but the protection was deferred. Pajaro is not an isolated case. Across the country, disadvantaged communities and communities of color are more likely to rely on older levees or levees that are not part of major federal programs. Rural towns often depend on agricultural levees. Urban neighborhoods may rely on structures built for a much smaller population. When levees fail, the impacts cascade, closing roads, knocking out power, contaminating water supplies and disrupting lives for years. <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710342/original/file-20251225-56-q8vt1b.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A map shows highest disparities in Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont." /> Disparity refers to the percentage of each state’s residents protected by levees who are considered disadvantaged, based on the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. All levees in the National Levee Database are counted. F. Vahedifard et al., 2023 Why this moment matters Advances in engineering, monitoring and risk assessment have improved how levees are evaluated and designed. Hurricane Katrina marked a turning point in 2005 when its storm surge broke through levees protecting New Orleans. Hundreds of people died in the flooding. The disaster exposed the consequences of neglect and fragmented responsibility for levee upkeep. At the same time, there has been real progress. Over the past two decades, significant federal investments have strengthened the condition and management of many of the nation’s levees, particularly through the work of federal agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Still, the legacy of decisions made decades ago remains, and climate change is raising the risks. Heavier rainfall, fast snowmelt and rising seas are pushing water control systems beyond what many levees were designed to handle. Events once considered rare are becoming more frequent. As atmospheric rivers test levees in the West and flood risks grow nationwide, the challenge is no longer just technical. It’s about how society values protection, communicates risk and decides whose safety is prioritized. Levees will continue to play a vital role in protecting communities. Understanding their history, and their limits, is essential as the storms of the future arrive. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/272556/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post West Coast Levee Failures Show Growing Risks From America’s Aging Flood Defenses appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Farshid Vahedifard.
The elements behind Trump’s war on Venezuela are fourfold. They center on the theft of Venezuela’s oil; the removal of Cuba’s primary lifeline; the protection of the dollar-based petrodollar; and Trump’s desperate need to deflect attention from the deepening quagmire that is the Epstein scandal. And the ultimate question they raise is: will his blatantly More The post Venezuela and Congress’s Duty to Act appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396071" class="wp-image-396071 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/elijah-mears-E94nZORR5qc-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Elijah Mears. The elements behind Trump’s war on Venezuela are fourfold. They center on the theft of Venezuela’s oil; the removal of Cuba’s primary lifeline; the protection of the dollar-based petrodollar; and Trump’s desperate need to deflect attention from the deepening quagmire that is the Epstein scandal. And the ultimate question they raise is: will his blatantly illegal violation of U.S. and international law finally result in the impeachment and removal of Trump from the White House or the 2026 mid-term elections lead to an end of his destructive control of the U.S. government. The lethal litany of reasons for Trump’s invasion is led by the U.S. seeking Venezuela’s huge reserves of oil—it supposedly has 303 billion barrels compared to the U.S. with but 45. After Venezuela is Saudi Arabia with 267 and Iran with 208 and then the list drops by 100. “Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platform, costing us billions and billions of dollars,” said Trump after the U.S. struck Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, and flew them to New York to be tried on drug charges. Venezuela “did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property….The socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations.” “Seizing a nation’s oil provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder,” said David Swanson, executive director of the organization World BEYOND War as he announced a “Global Day of Action on January 17” named “No War on Venezuela.” Swanson said: “We need to be protesting at every U.S. embassy the world over, at every state and local government in the United States, and in Washington D.C. in a manner to prevent the functioning of the Monrovian [for Monroe Doctrine] mafia.” Swanson also said: “We can call it refreshing and exciting that Trump makes no pretense about hiding this motive. But ugly reasons for crimes don’t legalize them any more than beautiful ones.” U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, on the “Face the Nation” TV program Sunday said that “you don’t invade a country to grab their resources….This, from the beginning, has been about getting rid of Maduro, grabbing Venezuela’s oil for American oil companies and Trump’s billionaire buddies. That’s what this is about. That’s why Donald Trump spent so much time yesterday talking about oil….They took out the leader, and now they’re demanding access to Venezuela’s oil. That’s what this has been about. I mean, Donald Trump, you know, claimed that he’d been against the war in Iraq from the beginning. That wasn’t true, but what we do know is he said, well, having gone into Iraq, we should have gotten their oil….I think it’s outrageous that the president of the United States puts American lives at risk so big American oil companies and his billionaire buddies can profit.” As to eliminating the flow of oil from Venezuela to Cuba, this represents a high priority for the U.S. and especially Trump and Marco Rubio, his secretary of state and also national security advisor from a family that are exiles from Cuba. As NBC News reported Sunday: “Just one day after the U.S. conducted a military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated a warning to Cuba, telling NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ that he thinks “they’re in a lot of trouble.” “I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard, Rubio said. But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big bans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro.” “Rubio’s latest remarks come after he and President Donald Trump signaled at a new conference Saturday that the administration could begin targeting Cuba’s government next, with the secretary of state issuing a stern warning to Cuban officials: ‘If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.’” Then there is keeping the petrodollar U.S. dollar-based. “The Minority Report” ran a piece Sunday on Substack headed: “The Real Reason Why the U.S. Overthrew Venezuela. And why it all started in China in November 2025.” The article explained: “In November 2025, something extraordinary happened in Hong Kong that most people missed entirely….Chinese bonds began trading at ‘lower yields’ than United States Treasury bonds….In the hierarchy of global finance, this is roughly equivalent to a challenger brand outselling Coca-Cola at a higher price. It simply doesn’t happen. Until it did. One month later, the United States began mobilizing for potential intervention in Venezuela.” “If you think these events are unrelated, you’re missing the most important geopolitical story of our generation. This is about the slow-motion collapse of the architecture that has supported American power for half a century: the dollar’s role as the world’s dominant reserve currency. And Venezuela, improbably, has become ground zero in the fight to preserve it….” “Since the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, and especially after the 1973 arrangement with Saudi Arabia that created the ‘petrodollar,’ the U.S, dollar has functioned as the world’s primary reserve currency. This status grants the United States an almost supernatural economic power. When you need dollars to buy oil, settle international debts, or participate in global trade, you create automatic demand for American currency…. More importantly, dollar dominance became America’s most powerful geopolitical weapon. Control the dollar system, and you control access to the global economy. Step out of line, and the United States can cut you off from SWIFT (the international banking communication network), freeze your reserves held in dollars, or impose sanctions that amount to economic excommunication….” “Which brings us, inexorably, to Venezuela. On the surface, American interest in this South American nation might seem driven by concerns about authoritarianism or humanitarian crisis. Dig deeper, and you’ll find something more fundamental: Venezuela represents an existential threat to the petrodollar system, and by extension, to American global power itself.” “Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves; 303 billion barrels….And since 2018, Venezuela has sold 100% of its oil exports to China, with transactions settled in yuan, not dollars. Moreover, Venezuela became an official BRICS+ partner nation in 2024, gaining access to the bloc’s alternative payment systems, development financing, and diplomatic protection.” “Here’s what makes this particularly dangerous from Washington’s perspective: Venezuela isn’t just surviving outside the dollar system; it’s functioning. Despite what the U.S. Treasury Department characterizes as ‘unprecedented sanctions,’ Venezuela has maintained oil production, secured financing, and sustained trade relationships. It’s become a living, breathing advertisement that the dollar system is optional, not mandatory….” “The timing of U.S. military mobilization; just one month after China’s Hong Kong bond proved the viability of dollar alternatives; is no accident. It’s the empire’s immune system responding to a pathogen it recognizes as lethal.” Then there’s the “wag the dog” factor: Trump seeking to divert public attention from further disclosures about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal involving him—and doing it with military action. This message about the Venezuela situation and how people should “never underestimate what Trump will do to draw to draw attention from Jeffrey Epstein” is being delivered by the long-time Democratic political strategist James Carville. “Wag the Dog” was the 1997 film, a political satire, centering on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer fabricating a war in Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. A corollary of that is the claim Saturday by former U.S. Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg on X about: “An unpopular president—failing on the economy and losing his grip on power at home—decides to launch a war for regime change abroad. The American people don’t want to ‘run’ a foreign country while our leaders fail to improve life in this one.” Meanwhile, in an article in The New York Times, White House correspondents David E. Sanger and Tyler Page wrote about how Saturday Trump said that the U.S. planned to “’run’ Venezuela for an unspecified period, issuing orders to its government and exploiting its vast oil reserves.” They wrote that Trump’s “actions on Saturday cast America back to a past era of gunboat diplomacy, when the United States used its military to grab territory and resources for its own benefit. A year ago this week, he openly mused, also at Mar-a-Lago, about making Canada, Greenland and Panama parts of the United States. Now, after hanging in the White House a portrait of William McKinley, the tariff-loving president who presided over the military seizure of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, Mr. Trump said it was well within the rights of the United States to wrest from Venezuela resources that he believes had been wrongly taken from the hands of American corporations. The U.S. operation, in seeking to assert control over a vast Latin American nation, has little precedent in recent decades, recalling the U.S. military efforts of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Mexico, Nicaragua and other countries.” Meanwhile, the New York Review of Books published a piece Saturday by David Cole headed “Trump’s War” with a subhead: “The invasion of Venezuela is not law enforcement; it is imperialism, pure and simple.” It began: “’It was a brilliant operation, actually.’ So claimed Donald Trump early this morning in a phone call with The New York Times about the US military’s overnight invasion and bombing of Venezuela, culminating in the abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who have been brought to New York to face an indictment for drug smuggling.” “It was an illegal operation, actually. Illegal on so many fronts that it can be challenging to keep them straight. First, and most importantly, it violates the bedrock rule of international law, which prohibits nations from attacking other sovereign states except when authorized by the UN itself or when acting in self-defense. Trump has invoked self-defense for all his aggressive actions against Venezuela, from summarily executing at least 115 people in unprovoked assaults from the air on boats alleged to be carrying drugs in international waters, to destroying a loading dock in the country itself and, now, bombing Caracas and abducting Maduro. The basis for that claim, Trump insists, is that Maduro has facilitated the smuggling of drugs into the United States, and that those drugs in turn kill thousands of Americans each year. But self-defense applies only in response to an actual or imminent armed attack, and whatever else drug smuggling might be, it is not even conceivably an armed attack. (According to US records, moreover, Venezuela is not even a source of fentanyl, the lethal drug that has been the agent of many of those overdose deaths and that Trump recently labeled a ‘weapon of mass destruction.” It mostly comes from Mexico.) Quite simply, Venezuela has not attacked the United States. The only nation with a self-defense justification here is Venezuela.” The piece continued: “The attack also violated the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war and authorize the use of military force. The only situation in which presidents can constitutionally conduct unilateral military action is, again, in self-defense against an ongoing or imminent armed attack. The Venezuelan operation also violated the War Powers Resolution, which requires the president to notify Congress before introducing troops into any situation of ongoing or imminent hostilities.” The question for the Congress, the people of the United States and the world now becomes: will this violation of all tenets of U.S. and international law finally lead to the removal of this madman from the White House? The post Venezuela and Congress’s Duty to Act appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Karl Grossman - Harvey Wasserman.
Six reasons why Trump’s attack on Venezuela and kidnap of Maduro was very wrong
Asia Pacific Report Amid widespread condemnation of the United States over its brazen weekend attack on Venezuela around the world and in the UN Security Council today, Senator Bernie Sanders has posted on social media six reasons why the operation to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro on Venezuela was very wrong. Abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told
Asia Pacific Report Amid widespread condemnation of the United States over its brazen weekend attack on Venezuela around the world and in the UN Security Council today, Senator Bernie Sanders has posted on social media six reasons why the operation to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro on Venezuela was very wrong. Abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told a packed New York City courtroom that he was “innocent”, a “decent man”, and that he had been “kidnapped”, in his first public comments since the US attack, reports Al Jazeera. Members of the 15-strong UN Security Council (UNSC), including key US allies, condemned Washington and warned that the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife by US special forces could be a precedent-setting event for international law. READ MORE: ‘I’m still president,’ says Venezuela’s abducted leader Maduro in NYC court US critics and allies condemn Maduro’s abduction at UN Security Council Trump’s gift-wrapped Maduro package has done the world a favour – revealing what a lie US foreign policy really is The reasons Senator Sanders (Democrat-Vermont) has given why Trump’s actions were wrong are: It is illegal and unconstitutional. Congress did not authorise or even know about this military action. It will make the world less safe. If international law is ignored, any nation or terrorist organisation can justify violent attack by pointing to Trump’s actions in Venezuela. This was Putin’s logic in Ukraine. It is blatant imperialism. Powerful nations do not have the legal or moral right to invade smaller countries to steal their natural resources. Venezuela’s oil belongs to the people of Venezuela, not US corporations. At a time when the entire world is moving away from fossil fuels for cheaper and non-polluting sustainable energies, protecting the interests of Big Oil is bad for the climate and bad economics. Maduro is corrupt and anti-democratic. So is MBS of Saudi Arabia. So are many other leaders around the world. Just because we do not like a country’s leader does not mean we have the right to overthrow their government. Trump ran for president as a “peace candidate” who believed in “America First”, not someone who was going to “run” another country. At a time when 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, maybe he should try doing a better job running this country [United States], not taking over Venezuela. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Out-scooped by Trump – the US attack in Nigeria did indeed point to the operation to kidnap Venezuela’s Maduro
ANALYSIS: By Walden Bello US President Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming. Shortly after
ANALYSIS: By Walden Bello US President Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming. Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote an article that said his real aim was to send a message to Maduro and that among the options he was entertaining was a SEAL-type operation to capture or kill Maduro. How did I come to this conclusion? I have no assets in the US intelligence community. I was completely running on instinct, and my instincts told me that the egomaniac Trump wanted to eclipse Obama’s feat in sending in the SEALS to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011, just as he wanted badly to get the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got. READ MORE: US corporations are ready to cash in on Venezuela Global Battlefields: My close encounters with dictatorship, capital, empire, and love But it was the holidays and, out of consideration for the folks that run my stories, who deserved a New Year’s break to be with their families, I sat on it after I finished it on December 27 and only sent it to Foreign Policy in Focus on January 2, eight hours before the Caracas operation that kidnapped Maduro, in violation of all the norms of civilised conduct among states. But though out-scooped by Trump, I still think that there are elements in the unfiled article that could be useful in helping us anticipate what could unfold in the days and weeks ahead. So here’s the scoop that wasn’t. Trump strikes Nigeria but real target is Venezuela The Trump regime’s air strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day may have had symbolic significance but no strategic value. There will likely be no impact on the efforts of the militant group called Lakurawa, allied to ISIS, to establish a base in Sokoto state. Many have been puzzled by the attacks that involved the use of Tomahawk missiles, especially given the relatively minuscule space given to Africa in the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025. That brief section focuses on transforming the US relationship with Africa from one based on aid to trade, though it does say, “we must remain wary of resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in parts of Africa while avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments.” It is likely that the attacks were carried out for reasons unrelated to Africa. One is to appease Trump’s Christian evangelical base. As Joshua Keating, an expert in crisis areas, has noted, “Trump’s sudden interest in Africa’s most populous country was likely motivated less by any particular event there — these are all longstanding issues — than by developments in Washington. Though it doesn’t get a ton of mainstream media attention, the plight of Christians in Nigeria has been a galvanising issue for evangelical Christians in the US in recent years.” On his internet platform Truth Social, Trump has cited figures from the international Christian rights NGO Open Doors, claiming that of the 4476 Christians killed for their faith globally in 2024, 3100 were in Nigeria. In her recent book on the key groups that make up the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Furious Minds, Laura Field says that non-establishment Christian groups have an outsized influence in the Trump administration. With the Republicans struggling in the lead-up to the mid-term elections in 2026, these groups’ muscle on the ground can determine whether the Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives. The main target: Venezuela However, the main goal of the strikes, in my view, had to do mainly with developments thousands of kilometres away. It was to signal to the government of Nicolás Maduro that it will face not just attacks on Venezuelan boats at sea but also air attacks on ground targets. This interpretation would be consistent with NSS 2025. NSS 2025 is an iconoclastic document. It literally dumps the 80-year-old strategy of liberal containment that guided the United States from the post-Second World War years through the Cold War years to the post-Cold War years, which was to meet challenges to global capital wherever and whenever the US state saw its interests threatened or challenged. Next to its overthrowing the 80-year-old American “Grand Strategy,” the most significant departure in NSS 2025 is its break with the key assumption of US security policy since the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2008), including the first Trump administration (2017-2021): that Washington must focus its resources on containing China, which was defined as the principal US strategic competitor. Replacing China and the Asia Pacific as the main US concern in the Western Hemisphere, the document comes out with a reiteration of the Monroe Doctrine, but one fortified with what it calls the “Trump corollary.” It states that Washington “will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.” There is no more stark expression of the rude replacement of the liberal containment doctrine by a “spheres of influence” approach. Meantime, the debate goes on in Trump administration on whether a ground invasion of Venezuela is the best way to implement the Western-Hemisphere-first strategy. Air strikes are one thing, boots on the ground are another, and one opposed by much of the MAGA base that is tired of the “forever wars”. The “Molotov Cocktail” throwers in that base have made known their opposition or disquiet regarding a Venezuelan adventure. Laura Loomer, an influential firebrand, has challenged Trump’s rationale for the attacks on Venezuelan boats, which is to prevent the opioid fentanyl and other drugs from being shipped to the United States. “Fentanyl isn’t being manufactured in Venezuela,” she said, urging that the Pentagon target the Mexican drug cartels responsible for most shipments instead. She has also criticised María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize awardee for 2025 and the leader of the opposition in Venezuela, for “actively stoking and promoting violent regime change”. Steve Bannon, a key official in the first Trump administration, said “neoconservative neoliberals” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing for a Venezuelan intervention that would derail the administration from its domestic priorities. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the volatile Georgia congresswoman, has posted on X that “People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it.” My fearless forecast Trump will limit attacks on his perceived adversaries globally to air strikes or naval bombardments to keep them off balance and not risk triggering another forever war with a ground invasion. Of course, Trump’s people are probably weighing a SEAL-type special op — like then-President Obama’s killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011 — to murder or capture Maduro, but Maduro is likely to be already very well prepared for such a contingency. He’s not stupid. Frankly, if you ask me, Washington has dug itself into a hole with its focus on Venezuela, one from which there is no easy exit. If one gives a broad interpretation to Che Guevara’s dictum that the best way to defeat the United States was to create “two, three many Vietnams,” then Venezuela has the potential for becoming the third phase of the death rattle of the empire, Vietnam being the first and bin Laden’s dragging Washington to eventual defeat in the Middle East the second. Dr Walden Bello is co-chair of the board of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South and senior research fellow at the sociology department of the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is also author of Global Battlefields: My close encounters with dictatorship, capital, empire, and love (2025). This article was first published by Foreign Policy in Focus and is republished with permission. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Climate change and human rights demands telling our Pacific stories with clarity and impact
ANALYSIS: By Dr Satyendra Prasad Internationally, we are marking the 2025 Human Rights Day at a time of extraordinary retreat from human rights protection across the World. Every human right, every breach of human right and every advance in the protection of human rights must matter equally to us. The frameworks for human rights protection
ANALYSIS: By Dr Satyendra Prasad Internationally, we are marking the 2025 Human Rights Day at a time of extraordinary retreat from human rights protection across the World. Every human right, every breach of human right and every advance in the protection of human rights must matter equally to us. The frameworks for human rights protection are well established internationally reflecting the genesis of the international system in the horrors of the Second World War. Social, cultural, political, women’s, indigenous, children’s, and all fundamental human rights are well protected in international laws that have evolved since then. What may seem like a paralysis in protection of fundamental human rights internationally today does not arise from the absence of protections in international law but from the fractures that characterise the international interstate system in a phase of severe disruption. READ MORE: How climate change is threatening human rights Climate change demands a step up on human rights protection <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="wp-image-120808 size-full" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Dr-Satyendra-Prasad-WN-300tall.png" alt="Fiji’s former ambassador to the UN Dr Satyendra Prasad" width="300" height="402" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Dr-Satyendra-Prasad-WN-300tall.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Dr-Satyendra-Prasad-WN-300tall-224x300.png 224w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Fiji’s former ambassador to the UN Dr Satyendra Prasad . . . “When the Blue Pacific discusses human rights impacts of climate change, it is shaped by our lived realities..” Image: Wansolwara News The significant advances in protection of human rights internationally arose from a rare postwar geopolitical consensus. That global consensus is dead. Though the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have their origins in this context, it was not until 2008 that the UN made an explicit resolution on human rights and climate change stating that climate change posed a real and substantial threat to the full enjoyment of human rights. The Pacific’s human rights story When the Blue Pacific discusses human rights impacts of climate change, it is shaped by our lived realities. The fundamental right to life in the Pacific is persistently harmed by heat stress. It is estimated that more than 1200 deaths annually are now attributed to heat stress. The fundamental right to health is eroded by growing illnesses and diseases arising from rising temperatures. Across the Pacific, well in excess of 1000 deaths are already attributed to climate change related illnesses annually. The fundamental right to water faces worsening pressures arising from sea water intrusion into ground water, more frequent and prolonged droughts and sewage contamination of water systems as a result of floodings. The fundamental right to food is persistently harmed by rising surface and ocean temperatures and experienced through failed crops, subsistence farms destroyed by winds and rains, collapse of coral reef systems and with that oceanic foods. Indigenous people’s rights are similarly persistently harmed as communities across Melanesia undertake climate change induced migration without corresponding transfer of land and other social and cultural rights. In Tuvalu and atoll states these are likely to lead to more unsettling outcomes as their small and culturally compact communities get thinly dispersed across larger countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Fiji. Policy choices are needed to respond to worsening human rights protection that are a consequence of climate change. Climate change and human rights in Pacific education The right to education is one of foundational rights in international law. Having access to continuous, safe and quality education is the foundation for the enjoyment of this right. Every time a student misses school because the river that she crosses is flooded or at risk of flooding, that student is denied the full enjoyment of this right. Learning days lost are increasing in Fiji and Melanesia generally. This has lifelong consequences. The more painful reality is that learning loss is felt so unevenly. It is often people in our poorest households who stay in most flood-prone areas. In Fiji’s case it is also the case too many I-Taukei settlements/villages are in flood prone areas or in areas more likely to be cut off from school access roads and bridges. The average day time surface temperatures has increased between 1-3 degrees Celsius across the Pacific within a space of four decades. It may be much higher in schools in urban areas. The safe classroom temperatures for children are 24-26 degrees Celsius at the upper end. In many schools, classroom temperatures are well above 30C for days on end. The health impacts of prolonged exposure to these temperature are seen through general weaknesses, fainting, headaches and fatigue. I know of no school that systematically monitors classroom temperatures. I have heard of schools closing down for a day or two when the risks of flooding are high. I have not heard of schools being closed when temperatures are in the mid-30s during periods of high humidity. Quite shockingly, school building and major repairs are still being carried out in so many schools in exactly the same way as they were done 4-5 decades ago. The human rights context in education is profoundly gendered. Some of these simply arise from the fact that decisions are made by male leaders. When reconstruction of several schools in Vanua Levu happened a few years back, boys’ and girls’ hostels needed to be rebuilt following one of the recent cyclones. The boys’ hostels were reconstructed within a year of two back-to-back cyclones. A 100 percent of the hostel boys were back in school. The girl’s hostel took another year to be up and running. Only one girl returned to school from those who were resident in hostels during the cyclone year. A whole generation of girls in the middle to high schools from one of the most disadvantages regions of our country and from some of the most economically disadvantaged communities had simply dropped out of school. This is a story that repeats itself in so many ways each across the Pacific. Health, human rights and climate change As with education, universal access to the sufficient health care constitutes yet another core human right. One of the worst and least understood aspects of the health and climate change interface in the Pacific is its impacts on mental health. Following extreme weather events — mental health consequences linger for long periods and most intensely among young children. When winds pick up ever so slightly, many children in schools get frightened — scared — quietly reliving their trauma in full view of teachers who are poorly trained to understand what is happening. But the health consequences of climate change are far broader. Influenza, dengue including in off seasons, leptospirosis are profoundly impacting our communities. Loss of concentration, performance and worsening learning outcomes are some of these harsh trendlines inside classrooms. Growing food insecurity The right to food is a core part of our global human rights architecture. A few years back I had the great pleasure of visiting several schools in Vanua Levu. I have taught in Fiji’s high schools. I know what I am talking about in a deeply personal way. Nothing prepared me for this. The numbers/percentages of children who came to schools without lunch was just shocking. Nearly a third of students in one the classes that I visited came to school without lunch that morning. Rates of stunting rates of children in primary schools (in peri and urban areas) in Fiji can be as high as 10 percent. Stunting rates are much higher in PNG at nearly 50 percent — one of the highest in the world. Nutritional deprivation leads to delayed cognitive development and over time harms performance. Damage from stunting has life long and intergenerational consequences. How does climate change feature in this? The most obvious one is that global warming impacts on our coral reef systems. There is a near collapse of oceanic foods across so many Pacific’s coastal communities. Equally on the high lands of PNG, delayed precipitation, prolonged rains and droughts harm and overtime irreversibly erode food security. This has widespread consequences. Food insecurity, gender violence and inter-community conflict are a growing part of the Blue Pacific’s climate story. Human rights, climate change and cultural and political rights Nowhere does climate change demonstrate the scale of its destructiveness as in our closest atoll state neighbour. Tuvalu may be uninhabitable within 4-6 decades even with the adaptation measures underway. It is forced to contemplate the real prospects of near total loss of land. The state has taken protective measures by amending its constitution to preserve sovereignty under any scenario. Fiji and fellow PIF members have undertaken to respect its sovereignty under any climate scenario. Compared with PNG, Solomon Islands and Fiji where communities are being relocated, the human rights and climate story of Tuvalu is of a different order altogether. Land rights, cultural rights are rooted and grounded. They do not move when communities are relocated. Relocations are deeply disrespectful of all rights — including cultural, social rights. It is indeed possible that its whole populations in time may come to be dispersed outside of Tuvalu — in Australia through the Falepili Treaty, in Fiji and in New Zealand. Small and dispersed communities will over time lose their language. They are over time likely to lose many elements of their Tuvaluan identity. Indigenous and cultural rights are rooted to land and oceans in such deep ways. These rights are recognised as fundamental human rights internationally. Global warming and rising seas treat these rights with callous disregard. From a 1.5 to 2.8C world The Blue Pacific has to fight the battle of our lives to return the planet to a 1.5C pathway. No one will do this for us. All our economic forecasting today are based on 1.5C temperature increase. But the reality is that we are on course for a 2.8C or perhaps even a post 3.0C world. The consequences of a 3.0C future on human rights of people across the Pacific Islands are unimaginable. For a start, most of the existing infrastructure, school buildings , health centres, data centers are simply not built to withstand 450 km/h winds. Most of the Pacific’s towns and settlements are coastal. Our entire tourism infrastructure is barely a few metres above sea level. In Melanesia alone there are more than 600 schools that need to be relocated and/or rebuilt. Several hundred health centres need to be moved. These are estimates based on 1.5C — not twice that. The near total collapse of coastal fisheries is almost a foregone conclusion at anywhere above 2.0C. The silliest thing we can do as a region and as a people is to not prepare for a 3.0C world. Shaping our story of hope On the 2025 Human Rights Day, I have reflected on the broad and deep impacts on human rights that directly result from climate change. Ours is a story of hope. <img decoding="async" class="wp-image-121937 size-full" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Pacific-climate-activists-Wans-500wide.png" alt="Members of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change movement" width="500" height="384" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Pacific-climate-activists-Wans-500wide.png 500w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Pacific-climate-activists-Wans-500wide-300x230.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Pacific-climate-activists-Wans-500wide-80x60.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> Members of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change movement. Image: Wansolwara News On this day, then let me celebrate the extraordinary leadership shown by Pacific’s students who took the world to court — to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and won. We owe such an extraordinary gratitude to Fiji’s Vishal Prasad, Cynthia Houniuhi, Solomon Yeo from Solomon Islands and that small group of university students at USP who decided to take on the world. We celebrate Vanuatu’s leadership on all our behalf. Collective action matters. We make a difference as individuals. We make a difference as a people and as large ocean states. I urge that we deepen our shared understanding of the unfolding universe of elevated human rights vulnerabilities across the Pacific. Sharing our stories, deepening our understanding of interlinkages between human rights and global warming and beginning honest conversations about things taboo are foundational starting points. In universities, this may mean adding climate change and human rights legal studies so that graduates leave with a firmer understanding of the world they will enter into. At medical schools, this means integrating climate change into how human health is studied and researched. In social science schools, that means advancing our understanding of the rapid evolution of kinship, leadership and culture in traditional Fijian and Pacific societies in a climate changed context. In communications and journalism programmes, this may mean preparing students to communicate climate crisis with humility, sensitivity and empathy. As responsible employers, we may be able to lead by ensuring that human rights protection arising from climate change are as mainframed as is possible. Being able to provide the level of sociopsychological support to students and staff bearing the silent scars of slow onset or climate catastrophes would be another great start. This may include, as well, the simplest of things such as allowing paid compassionate leave for staff to recover from climate change related extreme weather events. In the longer term, the employment laws of Pacific Island states will need to catch up. I have advised many Pacific island countries to take a hard look at even their school calendar. Few schools measure class room temperatures today. Our colonial legacy has shaped the school year. We today subject our students to their final examinations when the temperatures inside class rooms are the highest. We today pressure students to prepare for their exams in the months when the chances of catastrophic events are the highest and the chances of illness that are climate change induced are the highest. A school calendar that is climate informed and that protects human rights in the education context is more likely to commence the school year in September (third term) and conclude exams by August (end of second term). All of these things are within our gift. We do not need international conferences or even international assistance to do all of these as the changes needed are so simple and so basic. Building blocs for advancing human rights in a climate changed world: First is that individual and communities need to know how their fundamental rights are impacted by climate change. This is a task for all of us — not governments alone. Across the region, so many laws and legislative frameworks need to be revised to reflect how climate change and human rights play out. How many hours should an agricultural worker or road construction worker be working when temperatures are higher than 1.5C. For employers and service providers, what are the human rights obligations in a climate changed context? What does the waiting room in a health care facility look like in a 1.5C temperature increase and in a 3.0 degree world? They surely cannot be the same. National human rights and legal settings need to pay systematic attention to human rights and climate change. This means ensuring that national human rights agencies and courts build up their capabilities to provide the necessary jurisprudence; and our citizens both supported and empowered to approach courts and relevant agencies. Internationally, the Pacific Island states including Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) are well advised to ramp up their presence internationally. The next decade must be the decade when the region pushes the boundaries of international law. The decade following that may just be too late. A Pacific Pre-COP31 I am delighted to have been invited to deliver my remarks so soon after COP30 and well in time for reflections for Pacific’s preparations for Pre-COP31. This climate conference to be held in the Pacific next year will be a great opportunity to bring a consolidated understanding of how fundamental human rights are being harmed by runaway climate change. Shape this well — together, respectfully and with humility. We can present our agenda for advancing human rights protection in the Pacific powerfully at this Pre-COP. As a region, we need to begin to win the argument about climate change in the theatres of international public opinion. Lobbyists and interests groups — including much of the global mainstream media — so wedded to petro interests appear to be winning. We need to tell our stories with clarity and with impact. We need to back that with strategic bargains in all our international relations. A Pre-COP in the Pacific gives us a real chance of doing so. Thank you for marking the 2025 International Human Rights Day in this way. This speech about climate change and human rights was delivered by Dr Satyendra Prasad, the climate lead at Abt Global and Fiji’s former ambassador to the United Nations, during the 2025 Human Rights Day on December 10 at the University of Fiji. It is republished from Wansolwara News as part of Asia Pacific Report’s collaboration with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The United States and its ally incite new levels of international chaos.
The United States and its ally incite new levels of international chaos. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Nyki Duda.
Trump says he’ll unleash Venezuela’s oil. But who wants it?
As oil prices fall and demand nears a peak, exploiting Venezuela’s heavy crude reserves won’t be as easy as Trump thinks.
Shortly after launching a dramatic raid in which U.S. forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump justified the action with a promise to revive Venezuela’s moribund oil industry. The country has by far the largest claimed reserves of crude oil in the world, accounting for almost a fifth of the world’s remaining known crude oil, but its production has plummeted under Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in which he announced Maduro’s capture. This intervention comes at a pivotal movement for the global oil industry, which continues to stare down the prospect of a broad transition to renewable energy. For this reason, it’s not obvious that future markets can justify a surge of investment in Venezuela. On one hand, the country’s extra-heavy crude oil is perfect for diesel and jet fuel, which are helpful in hard-to-decarbonize industries. This makes it less threatened by the meteoric rise of electric vehicles displacing gasoline-powered cars. On the other hand, the world is already experiencing an overall glut of oil, and analysts expect demand to peak in the next decade. While there are buyers for additional oil that could be pumped in Venezuela — some of them on the U.S. Gulf Coast — experts say a total revival on the order that Trump is promising may not be in the cards. “There’s a guaranteed market for it, but a market that has its limitations in size,” said Antoine Halff, the founder of the climate and data analysis firm Kayrros and a non-resident fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. As electric vehicles and renewable energy continue to expand, the world appears to be approaching a peak in oil demand. While the exact timing of that peak is disputed — it could happen within four years or in more than 15 years — almost all analysts agree that it is coming. At that point, there may no longer be sufficient demand to keep exploiting new oil fields, no matter how large. And given that it will take many years just to update the infrastructure that will allow for increased oil production in Venezuela in the first place, investors may decide that the juice is not worth the squeeze. Then there’s the matter of predicting future prices in a notoriously volatile industry. Oil companies only make a profit when global oil prices stay above a certain level. For the American companies that produce oil from Texas shale, for example, that number is around $60 a barrel, which is close to the current benchmark price. For Saudi Arabia, it’s closer to $90 a barrel, because oil revenues back almost all the kingdom’s government spending. In the newest oil fields, such as those offshore of Guyana, it’s as low as $30. There are already concerns that an oversupply of oil worldwide could send prices tumbling over the next year, making new fields less palatable to investors. If demand plateaus, a surge of Venezuelan crude would push prices even further down. Since Venezuela is a member of OPEC, it would have to coordinate production along with Saudi and other major producers, who would likely prevent Venezuela from flooding the market. Even so, there will likely be long-term demand for the specific kind of oil that Venezuela produces. That’s because any energy transition will not happen at equal speed across all parts of the transportation sector. The expansion of electric vehicles will first replace passenger cars and mopeds, which rely on lighter oil from fields like those of the Texas shale. Larger vehicles like airplanes and heavy-duty trucks are harder to replace — they need more power than EV batteries can feasibly provide at present — and they rely on heavy oil like Venezuela’s. A report from the oil trading firm Vitol found that “the initial pace of decline [for diesel] is expected to be slow compared to gasoline, but begins to gather pace from 2035 onwards.” Few other countries boast the same kind of extra-heavy reserves that Venezuela has, and those that do, like Canada, have much higher production costs. “These are the hard-to-abate segments,” said Halff. “It’s the part of oil demand that looks like it’s not going to shrink quickly. Venezuela pumped more than 3 million barrels of oil per day at the turn of the century, but production totals have plummeted since then. After the government of Hugo Chávez nationalized major oil infrastructure in 2007, the United States imposed financial sanctions that forced Venezuela to sell its oil at steep discounts. Under the Maduro government, the state-owned oil company racked up debts and saw an exodus of skilled workers. Pumps and pipelines decayed out of service, storage tanks collapsed, and production bottomed out at around 500,000 barrels per day during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump has promised that his aggressive raid on Venezuela will lead to a revival of this industry, and he has reportedly urged American oil producers to aid him in the effort. In remarks following the Maduro raid, he promised that American companies would return to Venezuela and help export oil to other countries. Given how inefficient the state-run oil sector has become, analysts believe it would be easy to restore some production in the short term with outside investment and sanctions relief. “Our assumption is that there are a lot of wells that just need a workover,” said Adrian Lara, the lead analyst for the Latin American oil industry at the research firm Wood Mackenzie, in a brief published last month before Maduro’s capture. “You can boost production through opex [operational expenditure], without needing much new capex [capital expenditure]” — in other words, a tune-up rather than a full surge of new investment. In the short term, there is ample demand. The oil in the country’s vast Orinoco Belt is very heavy and viscous, like molasses, in contrast to U.S. shale oil which is about as thin as vinegar. This makes it more expensive and more carbon-intensive to produce, but also makes it well-suited for conversion into diesel fuel in trucks, and for other uses like asphalt. There are several refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast that were built to process this kind of heavy crude, and these refineries are operating below capacity. Right now, Venezuela exports most of its oil to China, which would also likely purchase more for its own refineries. An industry expert who spoke to the Wall Street Journal said access to those reserves could be a “game changer” in terms of increasing Gulf Coast refiners’ profits. “Right now there’s plenty of appetite for heavy crude globally,” said Robert Auers, a refined fuels market analyst at the energy consultancy RBN Energy. “Even if Venezuelan production were to come back real strong, the global market could easily absorb that.” But a grand revival like the one Trump has promised would be a much taller order, given that it would take decades to unfold. The energy analysis firm Rystad Energy projects that a return to pre-Maduro levels would require an investment of $110 billion, and these investments would not bear fruit for a decade or more. Even Chevron, the only American oil producer that operates in the country, would need to invest an estimated $7 billion in order to add another 500,000 barrels, according to a former executive who spoke with The New York Times. The climate pollution stemming from this crude might also play a factor in its market appeal. Right now, the heavy oil extraction in the Orinoco Belt is some of the most carbon-intensive in the world, in part because enormous amounts of methane are flared during the process. As governments continue to pursue Paris Agreement targets, however fitfully, they might shy away from such fields wherever possible and instead import lower-carbon barrels. (The European Union has already committed to do this.) Many experts believe that oil majors will hesitate before taking the plunge on a resource that is far tougher to handle than the crude in U.S. shale fields or the Middle East. That’s all in addition to the political uncertainty that has followed Trump’s attempt to depose Maduro. It remains unclear what shape the new government of Venezuela will take. Given that other producers like Exxon lost billions of dollars when the Chávez government nationalized their assets, it’s far from obvious that these oil companies would want to invest under continued political instability. Past U.S. interventions have demonstrated similar dynamics: Oil production in Libya has still not recovered since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and it took almost a decade for Iraqi oil production to rebound after the U.S. invaded in 2003. “I do not believe in a significant increase in the short term,” said Rudolf Elias, chair of the supervisory board of Staatsolie, the state oil company of Suriname, which is pursuing an offshore oil project in the waters east of Venezuela. “It will take years before the industry is revived … then it is dirty oil, and heavy, so it will not be first in the row.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump says he’ll unleash Venezuela’s oil. But who wants it? on Jan 5, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.
The Americas will never be the same after Trump invasion of Venezuela
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Supporters of the Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) and the Student Federation of India (SFI) take out a protest rally towards the American embassy in Kolkata, India, on January 5, 2026, against the USA's attack on Venezuela and the capture of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Photo by Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto via Getty Images" data-attachment-id="340022" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/us-trump-invasion-of-venezuela/gettyimages-2254204113" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="GettyImages-2254204113" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Supporters of the Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) and the Student Federation of India (SFI) take out a protest rally towards the American embassy in Kolkata, India, on January 5, 2026, against the USA’s attack on Venezuela and the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Photo by Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> “Suddenly the power went out and I had a feeling something was going on. Then there was a huge boom, like you know something I'd never felt before,” says journalist Ricardo Vaz. This is Season 2, Episode 2 of Under the Shadow.
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Supporters of the Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) and the Student Federation of India (SFI) take out a protest rally towards the American embassy in Kolkata, India, on January 5, 2026, against the USA's attack on Venezuela and the capture of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Photo by Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto via Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340022" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/us-trump-invasion-of-venezuela/gettyimages-2254204113" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="GettyImages-2254204113" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Supporters of the Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) and the Student Federation of India (SFI) take out a protest rally towards the American embassy in Kolkata, India, on January 5, 2026, against the USA’s attack on Venezuela and the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Photo by Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254204113-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> In the early hours of Saturday morning, January 3rd, Venezuelans were awoken by the sounds of bombs falling. US helicopters whirled overhead. Explosions struck across the capital Caracas and in surrounding states. Hours of chaos, fear, and uncertainty. President Donald Trump would post over social media that the US had “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores amid a “large-scale” strike against the country. This is the first US invasion of another country in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, when the US kidnapped and detained Panamanian President Manuel Noriega under charges of drug trafficking. The Trump administration used the same excuse to detain Maduro, despite lack of evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking. With this strike, the United States has taken an unprecedented step: This is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country. Today, we go to Caracas to look in-depth at the January 3rd US invasion of Venezuela. Host Michael Fox speaks with Caracas-based reporter Ricardo Vaz. Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump Administration’s onslaught in Latin America. Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox. This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA. Theme music by Monte Perdido and Michael Fox. Monte Perdido’s new album Ofrenda is now out. You can listen to the full album on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions. Resources: Under the Shadow You can check out the first season of Under the Shadow by clicking here The Beginning: Monroe And Migration | Under The Shadow, Episode 1 Panama. Us Invasion. | Under The Shadow, Episode 13 The Legacy Of Monroe | Under The Shadow, bonus Episode 4 Michael Fox’s recent reporting on the boat strikes and the ramp-up for war in Venezuela: With the Strike on a “Drug-Carrying Boat,” Trump Returns to a Dangerous US Policy for Latin America Caribbean Leaders Call for Unified Latin American Resistance to US Attacks Trump’s Monroe Doctrine 2.0 Outlines Imperial Intentions for Latin America Other Resources You can check out Ricardo Vaz’s reporting at www.venezuelanalysis.com. You can follow them on X at https://x.com/venanalysis For more English-language reporting on Venezuela, you can follow the Orinoco Tribune, Kawsachun News, and Sovereign Media. Support Under the Shadow: Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox’s reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews. You can check out Michael’s recent episode of Stories of Resistance about the protests against US intervention in Venezuela. Written and produced by Michael Fox. Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. In the early hours of Saturday morning, January 3rd, Venezuelans were awoken by the sounds of bombs falling. Videos shared widely over WhatsApp and social media are shocking. US helicopters whirl overhead, missile strikes, explosions across the capital Caracas and in surrounding states. Hours of chaos, fear and uncertainty. [CLIP BEGINS] RICARDO VAZ [RECORDING]: The power went out and I mean, of course, hindsight is 20-20, but I had a feeling something was going on. And then there was a huge boom, like, you know, something I’d never felt before. [CLIP ENDS] MICHAEL FOX [NARRATOR]: President Donald Trump would post over social media that the US had “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores amid a “large-scale” strike against the country. That news was confirmed by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who would soon be sworn in to serve as interim president. This is the first US invasion of another country in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, when the US kidnapped and detained Panamanian President Manuel Noriega under charges of drug trafficking. The Trump administration used the same excuse to detain Maduro, despite lack of evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking, Trump’s attack on Venezuela marks a return to a terrifying, not-so-distant past when the United States felt emboldened and entitled to carry out unilateral military action against sovereign nations to achieve its goals. But with this strike, the United States has taken an unprecedented step: this is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country. People across Venezuela and the region are trying to figure out what happens next… That… in a minute [THEME MUSIC] This is Under the Shadow — an investigative narrative podcast series that looks at the role of the United States abroad… in the past and the very present. This podcast is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA. I’m your host, Michael Fox — longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist. The producer and host of the podcasts Brazil on Fire and Stories of Resistance. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years in Latin America. I’ve seen firsthand the role of the US government abroad. And most often, sadly, it is not for the better: Invasions, coups, sanctions. Support for authoritarian regimes. Politically and economically, the United States has cast a long shadow over Latin America for the past 200 years. It still does…. This is Season 2 of Under the Shadow. Trump’s Attack. If you listened to Season 1 about the US role in Central America, you know that in each episode I take you to a location where something historic happened, diving into the past to try and decipher what it means today. I’ll still do that here. But Season 2 is also going to be a little different. Because my goal is to respond in real time to the Trump Administration’s onslaught in Latin America. Today… that is more important than ever. Just in recent months, we’ve seen the boat strikes, threats of a US invasion of Venezuela, the seizure of multiple tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, US intervention in the Honduran election, tariff war and… on early Saturday morning, a US invasion of Venezuela. The United States deployed 150 aircraft. More than 40 people were killed. Buildings destroyed. The president and his wife, kidnapped. In the last episode — the first of this season — I looked at the Trump administration’s new National Security Doctrine and how Trump is now justifying intervention in the region with his new “Trump Corollary” of the Monroe Doctrine. Today, I take you to Caracas to look in-depth at the January 3rd US invasion of Venezuela. You’ll note that today is a little different than usual. In order to respond quickly to the US attack, I’ll be speaking this whole episode with Caracas-based reporter Ricardo Vaz. [CLIP BEGINS] RICARDO VAZ [RECORDING]: I’m an editor at Venezuela Analysis, political analyst and journalist here working on the ground in Venezuela. [CLIP ENDS] MICHAEL FOX [NARRATOR]: I spoke with Ricardo on the afternoon of Sunday, January 4th, the day after the invasion. He spoke from his home in Caracas, where his electricity has just returned. Power was presumably cut by U.S. forces across Caracas during the invasion. Here is our conversation in its entirety. [MUSIC] MICHAEL FOX: Ricardo, let me just start by saying thank you so much for being with me today. I really, really appreciate it. RICARDO VAZ: Hey, Mike, thanks for the invitation. It’s actually, I’m a bit calmer and better right now. I mean, yesterday it was just, it still feels a bit like a surreal dream and I had no electricity and trying to deal with the whirlwind of news and speculation. Now it seems things are settling down a little bit and maybe we can start to, you know, take stock at least of some things that have happened. MICHAEL FOX: Exactly. Well, let’s just start off with what is the feeling on the ground in Venezuela? RICARDO VAZ: I mean, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. I mean, first of all, how many people died in the US bombing campaign. We still don’t know that. There have been, I mean, obviously information starts to circulate and there are pictures, gruesome pictures of people killed and maimed in these attacks. Some preliminary reports of at least 40 killed, although you know other people suggest that the figure might end up being a lot higher. But it seems that there is an effort from the government here, Delcy Rodriguez, taking over to kind of restore normalcy. So she had the Supreme Court endorse her in a way or so saying that she is the one according to the constitution that should take over as interim president. The armed forces have issued a statement backing her. So there is a sense of trying to get things back to normal as quickly as possible while we try to process everything. MICHAEL FOX: Wow. It’s just crazy, Ricardo. It’s just crazy. Walk me back to yesterday. I mean, I’m sure for you, it must seem like a week ago, but it was literally just a day ago. Can you describe the invasion? Were you awake for it? What happened? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, so my New Year’s resolution was to go to bed a bit earlier, but I’m still working on that. So it was 2 a.m. I had actually just shut off work for the day. And I was just, you know, doing some last minute errands in the house. And then suddenly… the Power went out and I mean, of course, hindsight is 20-20, but I had a feeling something was going on. And then there was a huge boom, like you know something I’d never felt before. I’d never been in a war zone or anything like it. So it was clear. This was no remnant of New Year’s fireworks. So there was a loud boom and then a sequence of others. So, I mean, I have a balcony, I immediately went out, I couldn’t actually see it, not in my line of sight. But then, I mean, you go on social media and there immediately lots and lots of reports, you know, Caracas is being bombed, airplanes are flying. And we we continue to hear these explosions and then we see photos of Fuerte Tuna, that’s the largest military installation here in Caracas with fires and large columns of smoke. Also that the Francisco Miranda Air Base in La Carlota had also been bombed. And then and then other that other bombings that turned out not to be confirmed. One of them was Miraflores Palace, also the Cuartel de la Montaña, where Chávez’s mausoleum is being held. And we were trying to to make sense of it. And then the scariest part was videos of helicopters, helicopters flying in Caracas and bombing targets on the ground around Fuerte Tuna. So, you know, what are these helicopters? Analysts saying, you know, this is the 160 SOAR Special Operation Tactical Team. What are they here for? And then, so this was from 2:00 a.m. to around 3:30 when we stopped hearing bombings. And then what happened to the helicopters? Are they still here? Have they left? Are there troops on the ground? Who knows? And then 5:00 a.m. there was this announcement from Trump that they had captured Maduro and first wife, Cilia Flores. So there were five minutes where people were wondering if this was fake until it was confirmed by other sources. And that was basically the end of the bombing campaign and the operation. We saw first defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, come out. I think he made this statement before he had any idea that Maduro had been captured, saying that we are preparing resistance, we reject this cruel and illegal attack and then Diosdado Cabello also called on people to go out on the streets. So that was, let’s say, the night portion of, or the early portion of the events. MICHAEL FOX: Crazy. How big was people’s responses? Did many people hit the streets? Did you go see some of the protests that were happening yesterday during the daytime? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, so I walked around for a bit. You know, people went out from the early hours, but there wasn’t a lot of them. I mean, a crowd in the hundreds, maybe low thousands around Miraflores Palace. But also, I mean, keep in mind, there was no public transportation, so it wasn’t that easy to get around. But mean, people made a point of showing up, and that’s always the gathering point, you know, where to protect the Bolivar Revolution. It’s around Miraflores Palace. But there was… I mean a few hours of really not knowing what was going on because I mean people started together in the morning and then the question is you know where is Delcy Rodriguez is she going to say something there were rumors that that turned out to be false that she she was in Russia and then we had this, I mean, all Trump press conferences are inexperienced, but this press conference where Trump’s saying he’s going to run the country and the people behind him, presumably Rubio, is going to run the country and we’re going to take all the all the oil and we’re going to get back what they owe us. [CLIP BEGINS] PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [RECORDING]: We’re there now. We’re ready to go again if we have to. We’re going to run the country right. It’s going to run very judiciously, very fairly. It’s going to make a lot of money. We’re going to give money to the people. We’re going to reimburse people that were taken advantage of. We’re going to take care of everybody. [CLIP ENDS] RICARDO VAZ: I mean, just a sequence of bluster. But with the quote-unquote ‘triumph’ of having secured Maduro’s arrest in this special operations raid. And then the most critical part of what he said regarding what happens next, it was very surprising that he was so forceful in dismissing far-right leader Maria Corina Machado, just saying, you know oh, we like her, but she basically has no prospects of holding power right now. I think he said she doesn’t have the respect of the country, something like this. [CLIP BEGINS] PRESS [RECORDING]: Is the US aware of the location of opposition leader Machado and have you been in contact with her? PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [RECORDING]: No, we haven’t really. I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect. [CLIP ENDS] RICARDO VAZ: And then he talked about Delcy Rodriguez, saying that you know she’s the one in charge right now. She was sworn in. She actually wasn’t sworn in. And you know [Marco] Rubio talked to her and she said she’s going to do everything we demand. I’m kind of paraphrasing, but it was something to this effect. And then, I mean, still, we had to wait at least a couple more hours before Delcy herself gave a press conference. And her tone was very defiant, saying that Maduro is the president and we demand Maduro’s release and return. And that a lot of emergency mechanisms that had been set in place before were activated. This state of external commotion and this National Defense Council is also active. And basically she emphasized that the situation is calm. I think that’s one of the priorities for the government is not having any kind of internal chaos that can inspire lot of control. So basically getting things to work and a good sign, I mean, also from my narrow perspective, was the restoration of electricity in parts of central Caracas because that’s always an issue and always a worry whether you know the state retains functions, retains the capability to do these important things. And it seems that at least there’s some sense of normalcy returned. MICHAEL FOX: So Ricardo, can you just tell me again who Delcy Rodriguez is? She’s now the acting interim president. RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, so this is, let’s say, the final step in a very strong and quick ascendancy for Delcy Rodriguez. So she wasn’t, I mean, she’s also younger, but she wasn’t very prominent during the Chavez presidency. But under Maduro, she has taken an ever more important and ever present role. So first, she was foreign minister. And she was foreign minister when Venezuela had these recurring battles in the OAS, as you’ll as you’ll remember. And then she actually was president of the Constituent Assembly in 2017. And then she became vice president. And a few years later, she also took over as finance minister and then as oil minister. So she is clearly the strongest person when it comes to Venezuela’s economic policy and the oil industry, which for better or worse is still the heartbeat of the Venezuelan economy. So she is clearly a key person in that regard. And as vice president, she, I mean, and the Supreme Court gave this interpretation. She’s the one that takes over as interim president in the, you know, they call it temporary absence of the sitting president, which is Maduro. So for Delcy, I mean, she was already calling the shots in many regards in terms of international relations. She was the one that went very regularly to India, to China, to talk with counterparts and try and negotiate investment deals. And also inside, I mean, it’s no secret that under these crushing sanctions, the Venezuelan government has offered plenty of concessions to the private sector and also undoing some of the regulations. And Delcy is the person who has had this rapport with the private sector guilds, with Fedecamaras. So she’s the one that has the relations right now, both domestically and abroad, to take over the reins of the country. So in that sense, it wasn’t any surprise. And now, I mean, of course, it’s different to be sitting on the big chair as opposed to advising and having someone else have the final word. But I mean, let’s see now what Delcey does in terms of policy. Also, I mean, how does she handle this US, not pressure, it’s outright blackmail while also denouncing the kidnapping and this illegal trial against Maduro. So she has a lot on her plate. So let’s see how she handles it. MICHAEL FOX: This is one of the things that I thought was really interesting also, because you saw Trump’s press conference and it’s like, basically, we’ve taken over Venezuela. These are the guys who are going to run it. Like you said, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, the defense minister. But then on the flip side, when it comes to Venezuela, then you see Delcy Rodriguez and she’s very strongly defiant. What does that tension mean for the US-Venezuela relationship going forward, what does that mean for Venezuela’s path ahead? RICARDO VAZ: I mean, it’s clearly a very tricky path ahead, but we now have a bit more clarity. Marco Rubio gave some statements just a while ago. And again, surprising that Marco Rubio would dismiss the opposition’s prospects. He basically said, you know, ‘we like them, but they’re basically all abroad. So then there’s nothing they can do right now.’ And he said, I mean, he kind of explained what this run the country is going to mean. So he said, ‘we are in touch with the new authorities and we hope they will make the right decisions. And if not, we have,’ I think he said, ‘levers of leverage.’ So these economic sanctions, this naval blockade that he said was going to remain in place. So basically they want to coerce the new administration and they have this threat of just coming back and bombing again if it doesn’t go according to what they want. And basically what they want, and I’m not guessing anymore, it’s just Trump in his own words, I mean, they want the oil. So they want some very favorable oil arrangements for US corporations. MICHAEL FOX: Do we have any idea of a timeline of what things could look like in the coming weeks, in the coming months? Did Delcy give any sense of if US oil corporations might actually get the beneficial treatment and things like that? RICARDO VAZ: She didn’t give anything specific, but she did say something that seemed a bit out of place. I mean, she said that Venezuela was prepared to have relations with the US so long as they are based on respect, which is something a bit unusual to say, you know after the US has just bombed your country and kidnapped your president. But I mean, that has been a common line in the Venezuelan discourse. So maybe it’s not that out of place. If there are going to be deals, I would expect them to be maybe not in the next week, but maybe very, very soon. And it will take some effort to kind of… I mean there will be, I’m sure there are negotiations going on right now, but then they will have to realize how they’re going to, you know on both sides, how they’re going to present it because it is undoubtedly a concession. So even though you can try to say that, oh, you know, the US companies are coming in and they’re bringing investment, it’s still something that was forced upon you, forced upon Venezuela on the back of missiles. So that’s the tricky balance that the Venezuelan government and Delcy Rodriguez in particular now being in charge has to navigate. MICHAEL FOX: Ricardo, just real quick, because I feel like this is one of the things that is not well-understood. Trump keeps repeating that this is our oil and it was stolen from us. Can you just give some context to that? Like, what’s the actual reality and why is that just ridiculous? RICARDO VAZ: Trump says something and then there are propagandists who come and try and explain what Trump should have said. So Trump says, you know, it’s our oil and they stole it from us. And then I think it was… one of one of one of the administration officials who said, oh, you know, the Venezuelan oil industry was built by US investment and ingenuity. And US corporations were involved almost from the start, but I mean, they had such a favorable arrangement of just taking the oil and not paying anything that, I mean, on the look of it, I mean, actually Venezuela could charge for illegal profits retroactively. But what Trump is referring to, and again, this is a guess because Trump doesn’t really bother to make sense. So what Trump is referring to is probably the 1976 nationalization, which was a partial nationalization that was then partially reversed in the 1990s with what’s called the oil opening, the Abertura Petrolera that allowed, again, great benefits for foreign corporations. And then the Chavez government, first with the hydrocarbons law of 2001, and then with the decrease in 2007, reasserted, let’s say, the state’s hegemony over the oil industry by demanding that Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA hold at least a majority stake in oil in oil joint joint ventures and perhaps 60% stake in in some of them. And there were corporations that accepted the new rules. Chevron was one of them, and then they are still around. But others, and the most important ones are ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, rejected. But they didn’t just have their assets confiscated. I mean, confiscated is a word that doesn’t make any sense in this context. So there were offers of compensation. Some companies accepted it. These two in particular and others, many others did not. And they took Venezuela to international arbitration. you know, this state investor courts that somehow always rule in favor of the investors. And so Exxon Mobil was already paid. I mean, they wanted 20 billion in compensation, Venezuela appealed and it was brought down to one billion, which was seen as a major victory. And that was paid. Venezuela doesn’t owe anything to ExxonMobil. And ConocoPhillips, there were some settlements already achieved. There were others that were not able to be fulfilled because of sanctions. But ConocoPhillips is one of the companies that’s going to profit from the corporate plunder of Citgo. So in a sense, these corporations are already or have either been compensated or in the process of being compensated for these nationalizations. So Trump’s discourse doesn’t make any sense. It’s not really about looking back and getting back what was quote unquote owed because there is nothing owed. And also, I mean, the oil is a sovereign resource. It’s about going forward and securing a strategic a resource that’s very close and in the most favorable and affordable conditions. to you know bolster US hegemony and prepare for future, perhaps inevitable confrontation with China. MICHAEL FOX: You know, there was something that someone said in my last episode of Under the Shadow that was along the lines of the fact that this is no longer America first for US interests or for the people of the United States. This is America first for corporations. This is neoliberalism on steroids. This is not just a return to the Monroe Doctrine of the past, but rather a Monroe Doctrine that is explicitly defending US corporate interests. And it’s fascinating how Trump speaks that language, right? When he’s there on the tarmac speaking about oil, he doesn’t say, ‘well, this was US oil companies’ oil,’ and then these things happen. He says, ‘this is our oil,’ as if the US oil companies is the United States. [CLIP BEINGS] PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [RECORDING]: You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil from not that long ago. And we want it back. But they took it. They illegally took it. [CLIP ENDS] MICHAEL FOX: I just think that’s a, it’s like this really terrifying, but also really interesting nugget of truth in this moment as Trump is pushing, not just in Venezuela, but in so many other places. Ricardo, what is like, what are people feeling now? What are Venezuelans that you’re talking to or on the streets? Are there concerns of a new Trump bombing? Are people just shocked? What’s the feeling on the ground in that sense? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, I mean, there’s still a lot of shock and still trying to process everything that went on, as you can imagine. And there is, of course, now a looming fear that this might happen at any moment because it happened without any warning and in the middle of the night when people were really not expecting it. So that’s clearly you know on the back of people’s minds. But I think there is a sense of outrage even from from Venezuelan opposition figures of you know what is a very blatant violation on one hand of international sovereignty but then of our international of international law, but in what concerns Venezuela of national sovereignty, of of just you know going into another country and bombing without any kind of mandate and kidnapping the country’s sitting president. So even people who wanted Maduro out of power, unless they are really US agents, they cannot tolerate something like this because you know who’s to say that it doesn’t happen again tomorrow. And the same goes for other Latin American countries, who’s to say that at some point Trump will not flip a switch and do this to them. So I think it’s also important, and there are signs in that direction, that there be a unified response in condemning this. and also not just condemning, because these statements only take you so far, but actually demanding some action in return. So that’s that’s so certainly a feeling right now on the ground and it was very it was kind of a common thread in the people who took the mic yesterday in these spontaneous demonstrations saying that you know what are international agencies going to do? Are they just going to stand by is this going to be the new normal i mean the line has been crossed a while ago i mean at what point do we see a reaction And actually, there’s a UN Security Council meeting, I think, today, and there were two of them before that only produced statements and condemnation of US escalation. you know I would guess very generously that a red line has already been crossed. So is there at least going to be a resolution that forces the US to to use its veto? MICHAEL FOX: Right, exactly. For you, could how shocking was this US invasion? Could you have imagined it even with all of the talk and the rhetoric about the potential of the United States invading going back 20 years and all of the buildup in the Caribbean? Was it still like a shock when it was actually rolling out and was actually happening? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, I mean, of course, we all made our predictions based on what we had seen and where things were going. I actually thought that this was no longer really on the table after the US imposed this, what they called an oil quarantine and the naval blockade. I saw that as perhaps an admission that this kind of thing was not possible. And so they were going back to the kind of slow death asphyxiation to, you know, extract whatever concessions they want in also, I mean, also in the near term, but with a different approach. So it was definitely unexpected. And I mean, we had spent a lot of time watching these radars and seeing the US warplanes waltzing around close to Venezuelan shore. So maybe that created a false sense of security that it was just you know one show of force after another. But there were no signs that this was actually on about to happen. I mean, we knew that the US aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, was relatively close. But again, I mean, and also, I mean, we have to talk about the reaction or the response from the Venezuelan armed forces because there was supposed to be some kind of deterrence. You know, some kind of force that would make the US think twice before not just bombing, but, you know, doing this kind of land incursion. And in the end, perhaps there was so much preparation and Venezuelan armed forces were caught off guard, but there was really not much resistance put when these helicopters came in and then executed the operation to kidnap President Maduro. I’m guessing we’ll know more details in the coming days and weeks. But that’s, I mean, I think I was caught by surprise as an outside analyst, but by the looks of it, the Venezuelan armed forces were also not ready to confront it. MICHAEL FOX: Yeah. Ricardo, what do we know right now about the tankers and the oil sanctions? I know Trump has said he’s going to continue with those sanctions and continue blocking the tankers in the blockade. But is there hope that that might be rolled back in the coming weeks? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, so I’m guessing that if US corporations are going to come in, there’s going to have to be some kind of relaxation. So at least the lifting of this physical naval blockade. Right now, I think everyone is still in a wait and see pattern. So, there are oil operations going on, of course, but we haven’t seen neither and another attempt to seize a tanker nor you know anything blatant like a blacklisted tanker going in and out. I’m guessing in the coming days, we’re going to see if there’s a new pattern emerging here on this front. My guess is that… I mean, Trump already has his political victory. I mean, he already did this very daring raid and did something that, I mean, it’s the most blatant violation of international law you can think of. You know, he kidnapped another country’s sitting president. So in one sense, he can already gloat about it and do his victory lap. And perhaps he can loosen a bit the naval blockade as he prepares to force the entry of US corporations. MICHAEL FOX: Have we heard anything from Maria Corina Machado and any response? I know she was a big supporter of actual US intervention. And then of course, like you mentioned, Trump kind of really gave her the sidestep during his speech on Saturday. RICARDO VAZ: In honesty, I haven’t had time to really keep up with her. She was very enthusiastic in the early morning saying, you know, the hour of freedom has arrived. And she wasn’t shy about saying, you know, we are prepared to take power at any moment and we have a plan for the first 100 hours, 100 days and whatever. And I mean, right now, her political prospects are a bit shaky because Trump said quite openly, you know, she doesn’t have conditions to rule the country. And the one the approval that she needs is not from the Venezuelan people because it can be imposed at the end of a gun, she needs Trump’s approval. And if Trump says she’s not being considered, then basically what does she do now? She’s abroad. I’m guessing she’s going to kind of regroup and then try and piggyback on the US success and claim that you know it’s boosting her prospects in the future. But she has, perhaps out of everyone, she has a lot of spin, of political spin to try and become relevant once again. But it’s clear that right now the opposition is not a factor. I mean, during the bombing and late morning, there were stories, you know, Venezuelans are going out to celebrate, but I mean, that wasn’t really happening. So their mobilization capacity is very diminished right now. and the administration knows this. I mean, that’s why they say the opposition doesn’t have any conditions to take power because if it was up to them, they would put a surrogate in power without thinking twice. But for their prospects and they want stability and they want the oil, this is the scenario that they find gives them the best possibilities. MICHAEL FOX: Wow. Ricardo, is there anything else to add in particular having to do with kind of what this means for US imperialism, US intervention, Monroe Doctrine, kind of in the region. You know, the significance of this invasion? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, I mean, this is definitely a new chapter in the US projection of force in the region. I mean, this kind of direct intervention we haven’t seen since Panama, really. So there is, of course, a worry, and I hope that Latin American countries take it seriously, that this is going to, I mean, they have to stop it from becoming the norm once again. And even Panama was already kind of the last part. breath of the plant condor and everything we had seen in the decades prior. So it is really, I mean, it is no longer a moment when you can just call for dialogue and just look at your own narrow interests and trying to stay on the Trump administration’s good graces, because we see how quickly that can flip. you know Trump will just turn his focus somewhere else and issue threats. And now he has shown that it’s not just a bluff. I mean, it comes in and it comes in with deadly force. So that on one hand. And on the other, the other front that’s going to be open for a few weeks is Maduro’s trial. I mean, right now he’s in the US, he’s in custody. I mean, I think everyone knows by now these quote unquote, narco terrorism charges have no ground on reality. And perhaps that’s why Trump just ditched it at a moment’s notice and started talking about the oil. But still, I mean, it’s a US court and it has sealed evidence and it has these carefully groomed witnesses. So it’s also a precedent of you know, just going in and kidnapping another country’s sitting president and forcing them to face U.S. justice when there is no jurisdiction. You know, the US justice system does not have universal jurisdiction. So that’s going to be another precedent in terms of violations of international law that, you know, either it’s going to be imposed and no one is really going to want to do anything about it, or there’s going to be some pushback and some consequences. MICHAEL FOX: Can you just talk really quickly about these drug trafficking charges on Maduro? I mean, like we’ve heard from so many different people and so many analysts, they are ridiculous, but it’s still there. He’s still in a Southern court. They actually came and invaded Venezuela for this. So what’s this based on? Do we have any sense? RICARDO VAZ: I think the one thing to realize is how the US wants to frame this, because keep in mind that 70% of the US public, according to polls, was against any kind of intervention. And there were these two war power resolutions, in one in the House and the other in the Senate, that were narrowly rejected. And the word behind the scenes was that Rubio and Hegseth had given assurances to Republican congressmen that something like this was not going to happen. So their effort is to say that this was not an act of war. I mean, it’s absurd, but I mean, it’s the discourse. This was not an act of war, but an act of law enforcement. You know, we went in to apply US law and bring to justice someone who had been accused of doing whatever. So that, I mean, in one part is the construction of a legal, very narrow and a very dubious, to say the least, legal argument. But as for the charges themselves, I mean, they accused Maduro of conspiring to flood the US with drugs. And this is absurd on many counts. But on one hand, just the overall reality is that drugs that enter the US don’t really come from Venezuela. It’s just a very small fraction of cocaine that flows through Colombia to Venezuela and then through the Caribbean. But then even that most of it goes to Europe. It doesn’t actually reach the US. That on one hand. On the other, the whole war on drugs reloaded was about fentanyl. And there’s nothing. Venezuela has absolutely nothing to do with fentanyl. So again, that’s really a you know shifting shifting the goalposts. And third, there has never been any credible evidence of Venezuelan leaders having any kind of direct ties to any narcotics activities. I mean, of course, with sanctions and the diminishing of state capacities, there is a kind of an increase in illegal activities. And there are, of course, parts of the armed forces that might turn a blind eye or be bribed or you know even collaborate with drug trafficking. But that happens at a kind of and In the way the drug enterprise expands. I mean there’s no evidence at all, and in fact it would have been against the Venezuelan government’s interests to actually participate actively in any kind of activity like this. But again, they can just have some witness that says Maduro was directly involved. There are people who have been arrested and will want to get their own sentences reduced by producing these kinds of false allegations to say that Maduro was actively sending drugs into the US. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. But I think that’s the way they’re going to try to construct the case. MICHAEL FOX: Ricardo, thank you so much. Anything else to add that you think is important? RICARDO VAZ: No, I think the most important thing is, you know, first keep up and try and not be convinced by the dishonesty that’s going around in the media establishment and also mobilizing. I mean, right now, this is Sunday afternoon, there’s mobilization outside the place where Maduro is being detained. So, I mean, there is an unprecedented new chapter of imperialism, so there should be a matching anti-imperialist response. MICHAEL FOX: Ricardo, where can people find more of your work? RICARDO VAZ: I mean, just go to Venezuelanalysis.com. We’re trying our best to keep up with everything and keep people updated. So Twitter is where we will be posting most regularly and then you know eventually on the website. Maybe later today, we’re going to publish something on you know everything we know so far and where things stand. And of course, news and analysis in the coming days as always. MICHAEL FOX: Fantastic. And then last question also, what are your suggestions for, you know, of other other individuals, journalists, outlets that people should be following at this moment if they want actual news on the ground? RICARDO VAZ: Yeah, so, I mean, English speaking is always hard to find. We have great friends here at the Orinoco Tribune. They’re also on the ground. And also, both VenezuelaAnalysis and Orinoco Tribune are part of what’s called the Sovereign Media Coalition. This is a group of, a new new initiative, a group of alternative independent outlets coming together to challenge the media establishment’s narrative. So we’re going to be producing a lot of content on Venezuela through that as well. MICHAEL FOX: Excellent. Ricardo, thank you so much for all of your work. Thank you for being on the ground. And thank you so much for joining me here today. RICARDO VAZ: Thanks, Mike. It’s always a pleasure. And I hope we get in touch again soon, hopefully in better circumstances. MICHAEL FOX: Absolutely. [THEME MUSIC] MICHAEL FOX [NARRATOR]: That is all for this episode of Under the Shadow. Next time… We continue to look at the fallout from this US invasion of Venezuela. We’ll speak with others on the ground, dive into the devastating history that has led up to today. And look deeper into what Trump is now calling his own “Donroe Doctrine” for the region — Donald Trump’s Monroe 2.0. That’s next time on Under the Shadow. I’m your host Michael Fox. Thanks for listening. A couple of things before I go… First… If you’re interested in Ricardo Vaz’s work, I’ll add a link in the show notes to Venezuelanalysis and some of the other outlets that he mentioned. I highly recommend you check them out. Venezuelanalysis is one of the top sources for independent on-the-ground news in Venezuela. Their reporting is more important, now, than ever. Second… If you are new to this podcast series, I highly recommend you check out the first season of Under the Shadow. It looks at US intervention in Central America, in particular throughout the 1980s. It’s still super relevant today. I’ll add links in the show notes or you can find that by searching for Under the Shadow wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, if you like what you hear, please head over to my Patreon page… Patreon.com/mfox. There you can support my work, become a monthly sustainer, or sign up to stay abreast of the latest on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America. This really helps me to continue to do this important work. Under the Shadow is a co-production of The Real News and NACLA. Thanks for listening. See you next time… This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.
What’s Next in Trump’s War on Venezuela?
CPJ, 37 others urge respect for human rights, press freedom in Venezuela’s transition
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 37 other civil society and press freedom organizations in a joint statement calling on Venezuelan authorities to guarantee a peaceful and democratic transition that respects human rights and freedom of expression after President Nicolás Maduro was captured by the United States in a January 3 strike. As documented by CPJ, Maduro’s administration launched a media...
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 37 other civil society and press freedom organizations in a joint statement calling on Venezuelan authorities to guarantee a peaceful and democratic transition that respects human rights and freedom of expression after President Nicolás Maduro was captured by the United States in a January 3 strike. As documented by CPJ, Maduro’s administration launched a media crackdown following the country’s disputed July 2024 elections that saw several journalists arrested in connection with their work. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have since been transported to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. The statement calls for an “immediate, firm, and coordinated international response grounded in human rights and democratic principles, upholding multilateralism and constructive dialogue to preserve Latin America as a region free from war.” Read the full statement in Spanish here. This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
CLARA YSÉ "Lettre à M" (La Simfonia de Santa Maria, Cadaqués, 2025)
Venezuelans deserve democracy not fossil fuel-driven regime change
Global Witness has criticised the US attack on Venezuela in what the Trump administration says will enable US companies to exploit the country’s vast fossil fuel reserves. The investigative campaigning organisation has called for a peaceful and democr...
Global Witness has criticised the US attack on Venezuela in what the Trump administration says will enable US companies to exploit the country’s vast fossil fuel reserves. The investigative campaigning organisation has called for a peaceful and democratic solution that allows the people of Venezuela to decide the future of their country and resources. After the US conducted an attack on the Latin American country and abducted Maduro, President Trump said that: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies – the biggest anywhere in the world – go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country. We’re going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil… we’re going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump stated. Global Witness CEO Mike Davis said: “Trump’s attack on Venezuela reminds us that a world dependent on fossil fuels is one that’s riven with conflict, instability and human rights abuses. “Much of the oil and gas the world uses is controlled by regimes that are undemocratic and systematically abuse human rights. We know that these qualities breed instability but the global addiction to fossil fuels entrenches that harmful power and condemns us all to the impacts of further conflicts. “Switching to renewables is great for the climate but it is also a form of liberation, as it frees us all from dependence on dictators and warmongers. “At COP30 in Brazil, 80 countries pledged to develop national plans to phase down their use of fossil fuels. Events of the past two days in Venezuela underscore how urgently not just plans, but action, to end dependence on oil and gas are.” A history of oil and power Following Venezuela’s nationalisation of its oil industry in 1976, there has been tension between its government, the US and the foreign oil companies operating in the country. In the late 90s and 2000s, Venezuela introduced policies aimed at increasing state revenue from the oil industry to support social programs, including bringing the oil industry under control of a state-owned company. In 2007, then President Hugo Chavez introduced a decree requiring a foreign-owned oil operations be converted to 60 percent ownership under the country’s state-owned oil company. Foreign companies that resisted these changes – including ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil – had their assets seized. The two US companies and Chevron spent years in legal battles seeking compensation following the seizures. After last week’s attack Trump said the seizures were the “largest theft of property in the history of our country” and that “massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies, and we didn’t do anything about it”. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
CLARA YSÉ & LOU DU PONTAVICE "La Malagueña" (La Simfonia de Santa Maria, Cadaqués, 2025)
AI’s Imperial Agenda With Karen Hao ⎹ The Intercept Briefing
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 5, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 5, 2026 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
‘Hands off Venezuela!’: Baltimoreans protest Trump invasion
<img width="1024" height="686" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=1024%2C686&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Around 100 local residents and organizers march through the streets of downtown Baltimore, MD, reciting chants and holding protest signs, on Jan. 3, 2026. Photo taken by Maximillian Alvarez." data-attachment-id="340001" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/hands-off-venezuela-baltimoreans-protest-trump-invasion/baltimore-venezuela-invasion-rally" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=2107%2C1412&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2107,1412" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="Baltimore Venezuela Invasion Rally" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Around 100 local residents and organizers march through the streets of downtown Baltimore, MD, reciting chants and holding protest signs, on Jan. 3, 2026. Photo taken by Maximillian Alvarez. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=300%2C201&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=780%2C523&ssl=1"> “This war, every bomb dropped, is not for us. This is for Trump and the billionaires. And we are here to stand against that and say that Baltimore stands with the people of Venezuela”
<img width="1024" height="686" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=1024%2C686&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Around 100 local residents and organizers march through the streets of downtown Baltimore, MD, reciting chants and holding protest signs, on Jan. 3, 2026. Photo taken by Maximillian Alvarez." decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?w=2107&ssl=1 2107w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=300%2C201&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=1024%2C686&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=768%2C515&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=1536%2C1029&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=2048%2C1372&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=1200%2C804&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=2000%2C1340&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=780%2C523&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?resize=400%2C268&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=1024%2C686&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="340001" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/hands-off-venezuela-baltimoreans-protest-trump-invasion/baltimore-venezuela-invasion-rally" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=2107%2C1412&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2107,1412" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Baltimore Venezuela Invasion Rally" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Around 100 local residents and organizers march through the streets of downtown Baltimore, MD, reciting chants and holding protest signs, on Jan. 3, 2026. Photo taken by Maximillian Alvarez. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=300%2C201&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Baltimore-Venezuela-Invasion-Rally.jpg?fit=780%2C523&ssl=1" /> Around 100 Baltimore residents and local organizers marched through the streets of downtown on Saturday, Jan. 3, to protest the Trump regime’s lawless military invasion of the sovereign country of Venezuela and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Numerous organizations were represented at the protest, including: Party for Socialism and Liberation – Baltimore, the People’s Power Assembly, Black Alliance for Peace, Veterans for Peace, and more. Here’s what the protest looked and sounded like on the ground… Additional links/info: Michael Fox, The Real News Network, “Trump invades Venezuela, kidnaps Maduro, and hurls the Western hemisphere into chaos” Credits: Production/Post-Production: Maximillian Alvarez Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Crowd Chants: No more coups, no more war. Venezuela is it yours. Venezuela isn’t yours. Venezuela isn’t yours. Hands off Venezuela. Hands off Venezuela. Maximillian Alvarez: I’m here in downtown Baltimore on Saturday, January 3rd. It’s a little after 3:00 PM and dozens and dozens of Baltimore residents and local organizers are marching through the streets of downtown in protest of the Trump regime’s lawless invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president Nicolas Maduro earlier this morning. I’m here on the ground for The Real News Network. Protestor 1: I’m just out here today because I’m outraged because I’m in disbelief that our country’s being run by this person that does whatever the F he wants and it’s shocking, it’s scary and I’m terrified. So this is what I’m doing. I’m doing what I can. Protestor 2: I’m a cadre member of an organization called the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. My comrade here, Nancy is also a wife and comrade in the party. We’re out here because we’re a socialist revolutionary organization. This is about Venezuela here today. And we know that they’re after the damn oil and that’s all it is. They just know that they can’t count on oil coming through the Persian Gulf. They got too many other forces to deal with. They got to take some domination in the Western hemisphere so they can just go straight through the Gulf of Mexico. And that’s where all the refineries are. I see, understand that Venezuelan oil is all crude oil. And those refineries set up in the Gulf of Mexico, not the Gulf of America. The Gulf of Mexico said what were developed to refine crude oil. And that’s where the crude oil, that’s why they say that’s their oil, that the people of Venezuela stole it from them. Anyway, thank you so much. I’m getting too long winded. Thank you. Protestor 3: This country for hundreds of years has been doing shit like this. And now people are finally aware of it, I feel like. And I’m glad so many people have come out here, but it just has to stop. And the more people that show up to stuff like this, the better. So please keep coming out to events. Share with everyone you know. Hadley Anthony: My name is Hadley Anthony. I live here in Baltimore. I’m running for a Maryland Seventh Congressional District in the Democratic Primary. It’s so important that we’re out here today because we are watching the Trump administration commit murder out in the open seas, illegally invade and attack a sovereign nation and undermine security, not just for us, but also for all of the region. Because these illegal attacks are going to cause so much death and destruction. We cannot just go into these countries time and time again. We have seen how we have failed when we have tried to overthrow and do coups throughout the past decades. And so we have to make sure that we are out here consistently. Our Democratic leaders, we have to have an opposition party. They have to be calling for the impeachment and removal of these war criminals because even if it’s not going to happen immediately, the American people have to see actual resistance and being able to stand up to that. And so I’m so grateful to see over a hundred plus people here in Baltimore seeking up and standing up for not just our ability to provide for our own people, right? We’re spending all this money on foreign entanglements when we don’t even have our residents here in Baltimore, our unhoused, do not have their food insecure. All of these things are compounding on top of each other and we waste all this money. Crowd Chants: US out of everywhere. US out of everywhere. No boots on the ground. No bomb in the air. US out of everywhere. Jake Ecker (PSL – Baltimore): Kidnapping the president ahead of state, a clear war crime was tried by the US in 2002. They kidnapped Hugo Chavez. He was back in the presidential palace within 48 hours. Venezuela knows how to defeat an attack like this. And we will stand with them every step of the way to say that this war, that every bomb drop is not for us. This is for Trump and the billionaires. And we are here to stand against that and say that Baltimore stands with the people of Venezuela, that we are against war. Ellen Barfield (Veterans for Peace): Another war based on lies that killed millions just like Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. We see through the familiar justifications just as the weapons of mass destruction narrative led to the horrors in Iraq. That continue today. It is a destroyed state. Today’s war on drugs, “The rationale rings exceedingly hollow, especially after Trump’s recent pardon of a major drug trafficker.” Please. A war of Venezuela is patently illegal. The UN charter declares no country has the right to intervene overtly or covertly in internal affairs of another nation, but the US does it all the time. Often semi-quietly, sometimes blatantly like now. Veterans repeats demands that the US government withdraw its military forces from the Caribbean and abandon its campaign of regime change and war against Venezuela. We call on all US military personnel to fulfill their legal and obligation to refuse unlawful orders to participate in illegal wars or war crimes. Milan (Black Alliance for Peace): The Black Alliance for Peace strongly condemns the international lawlessness of the neofascist US, the violent aggression and blatant attacks from the people- centered human rights of Venezuelans and violations of Venezuelala sovereignty. The Rogue Empire has also kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicola Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores and is allegedly taking them to New York to prosecute them in US courts. This cowardly and blatantly illegal act reminds us all of the kidnapping of John Bertrand, Aristid from Haiti in 2004. A move that kicked off the ongoing US-led occupation of Haiti, as well as the US invasion of Panama in 1989. The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, attempting to break the nation’s political independence by force. This imperialist intervention has been made possible because of the complete abdication of any semblance of international law after over two years of genocide in Gaza. The development of methods of imperialist intervention tested on nations like Haiti that have long violated the Declaration of the Americas as a zone of peace, the acquiescence of regional governments to the Americas to US military buildup in the Caribbean and subversion throughout the hemisphere, the ongoing colonial occupation of Puerto Rico and the bipartisan intensification of repression domestically throughout the United States. Presence (All-African People’s Revolutionary Party: We demand an anti this imperialist aggression in Venezuela. We demand an immediate halt to all US aggression in Venezuela through its military attacks. We demand the immediate lifting of all illegal sanctions, blockades, and other forms of imperialist aggression. We demand accountability for the attack that resulted in the deaths of over a hundred people off the coast of Venezuela and Columbia in these most recent attacks. We call for the establishment of Azona peace in the Americas and the removal of US/NATO military forces from the global south. Neither US attempts to claim the oil of Venezuela nor Spursis claims of narco terrorism cannot stand as the reader for war in Venezuela. We urge all workers, students, trade unions, youth movements, revolutionary parties and religious organizations throughout the world to come together with Venezuela and other forces globally to coordinate our struggle against imperialism. Hands off Venezuela, death to US and global imperialism in the Americas and around the world, the people united can never be defeated. Thank you. Crowd Chants: Not another penny, not another dollar. Not another dollar. We won’t pay for war and slaughter. We won’t pay for war and slaughter. Not another penny, not another dollar. Not another penny, not another dollar. We won’t pay for war and slaughter. This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.
Oxfam condemns the violation of international law in Venezuela and warns of its impact on peace, democracy and human rights
Oxfam categorically rejects the recent US military intervention in Venezuelan territory, which constitutes a violation of international law and an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. This action threatens regional...
Oxfam categorically rejects the recent US military intervention in Venezuelan territory, which constitutes a violation of international law and an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. This action threatens regional stability, contradicts the principle of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, agreed upon by the States of the region, and constitutes a violation of the United Nations Charter and the laws and Constitution of the United States. Venezuela has undergone a prolonged deterioration of democracy, restrictions on civic space and serious human rights violations, leading to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Latin America which has driven more than 8 million Venezuelans from their country. However, the solution can never come from unlawful armed intervention by a foreign power, whose stated objectives include control of the country's oil resources. The only legitimate solution must be built by Venezuelans themselves, with the support of the international community, through peaceful and democratic mechanisms. “Venezuelan civil society has been on the front lines, providing humanitarian aid and standing with those most affected by the crisis. Now more than ever, we must recognize and strengthen these efforts, supporting them as they continue to defend human rights, protect vulnerable people, and work toward restoring democracy,” said Gloria García Parra, Regional Director of Oxfam in Latin America and the Caribbean. Oxfam warns of the risk that this intervention could lead to violence against civilians and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis that was already affecting 19.6 million people at the end of 2024. The imposition of external agendas reinforces power structures that concentrate benefits in the hands of a few, while the majority face poverty, inequality and lack of opportunities. Oxfam urges the international community and the governments of the region to: Promote the peaceful resolution of the conflict, ensuring respect for human rights and the coverage of existing humanitarian needs, and urges them to avoid any action that puts people's lives and integrity at risk. Reaffirm respect for sovereignty and international law, avoiding any action that erodes the autonomy of peoples and their institutions. Guarantee the participation and involvement of civil society in decision-making that will enable the current crisis to be overcome within the framework of respect for democracy. Recognize sovereign decisions on natural resources, such as oil, within the framework of each country's political guidelines and for the strict benefit of Venezuelans. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
I read and support Common Dreams because it brings me the news that I care about and can’t find anywhere else. We need Common Dreams to continue as an independent voice in the media.
I read and support Common Dreams because it brings me the news that I care about and can’t find anywhere else. We need Common Dreams to continue as an independent voice in the media. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Common Dreams staff.
‘What an authoritarian oligarchy looks like’: Trump says oil execs tipped off about Venezuela attack
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (C) speak to the media aboard Air Force One enroute to Washington, DC on January 04, 2026. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images" data-attachment-id="339992" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/authoritarian-oligarchy-trump-oil-execs-venezuela-attack/president-trump-returns-to-the-white-house-after-spending-holidays-in-florida" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"Canon EOS R1","caption":"IN FLIGHT - JANUARY 04: U.S. President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (C) speak to the media aboard Air Force One enroute to Washington, DC on January 04, 2026. Trump is returning to the White House after giving the order for the United States law enforcement to capture Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1767556767","copyright":"2026 Getty Images","focal_length":"65","iso":"6400","shutter_speed":"0.0025","title":"President Trump Returns To The White House After Spending Holidays In Florida","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="President Trump Returns To The White House After Spending Holidays In Florida" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (C) speak to the media aboard Air Force One enroute to Washington, DC on January 04, 2026. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1"> “I can’t begin to tell you how insane this is,” said one critic. “He did not inform Congress but he’s saying he informed the oil companies.”
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (C) speak to the media aboard Air Force One enroute to Washington, DC on January 04, 2026. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="339992" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/authoritarian-oligarchy-trump-oil-execs-venezuela-attack/president-trump-returns-to-the-white-house-after-spending-holidays-in-florida" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1707" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"Canon EOS R1","caption":"IN FLIGHT - JANUARY 04: U.S. President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (C) speak to the media aboard Air Force One enroute to Washington, DC on January 04, 2026. Trump is returning to the White House after giving the order for the United States law enforcement to capture Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1767556767","copyright":"2026 Getty Images","focal_length":"65","iso":"6400","shutter_speed":"0.0025","title":"President Trump Returns To The White House After Spending Holidays In Florida","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="President Trump Returns To The White House After Spending Holidays In Florida" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (C) speak to the media aboard Air Force One enroute to Washington, DC on January 04, 2026. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254685994-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="600" height="150" data-attachment-id="268291" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/this-is-why-deregulation-is-deadly/cd_stacked_white_600" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" data-orig-size="600,150" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Common Dreams Logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=300%2C75&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?fit=600%2C150&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=600%2C150&ssl=1" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?resize=300%2C75&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png?w=400&ssl=1 400w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 05, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license. President Donald Trump on Sunday told reporters that the heads of American oil companies were informed of the US military’s attack on Venezuela—described as “brazenly illegal” by scholars and experts—even before it took place. Trump’s admission, a renowned liar, sparked condemnation because the administration refused to consult with US lawmakers about the operation, citing fears of a leak that would compromise operational security. “Before and after,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday when asked if he’d spoken with oil executives or perhaps “tipped them off” about the operation. “They want to go in, and they’re going to do a great job for the people of Venezuela.” Reporter: Did you speak with the oil companies before the operation? Did you tip them off? Trump: Before and after. They want to go in and they’re going to do a great job. pic.twitter.com/zxOG648Ww0 — Acyn (@Acyn) January 5, 2026 Trump’s remarks were condemned by those critical of the president’s actions in recent days, including his failure to consult with or seek authorization from Congress. “I can’t begin to tell you how insane this is,” said Fred Wellman, an Army combat veteran now running for Congress as a Democrat in Missouri. “He did not inform Congress, but he’s saying he informed the oil companies.” “Keep in mind who he means,” Wellman added. “The billionaire mega donor that just got control of Citgo. Our service members were used directly to move the interests of Trump’s donors.” “The oil companies were notified before Congress,” said Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. “This is what an authoritarian oligarchy looks like.” Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) echoed that statement. “The oil companies were informed about an act of war before it happened, Congress was not. That, my friends, is what an authoritarian regime run by oligarchs looks like.” Asked repeatedly during his exchange with reporters about whether “free and fair” elections were a priority for Venezuela, Trump said the country was a “mess”—calling it a “dead country”—and that priority would be on getting the oil flowing. “We’re gonna have the big oil companies go in, and they’re gonna fix the infrastructure, and they’re going to invest money. We’re not going to invest anything; we’re gonna just take care of the country,” Trump said. “We’re gonna cherish the country.” When asked which oil companies he spoke with, Trump said, “All of them, basically,” though he did not mention which ones specifically by name. “They want to go in so badly,” the president claimed. Despite Trump’s remarks, oil industry experts have said it’s not nearly so clear-cut that oil majors in the US will want to re-enter the Venezuela oil market—or be tasked with funding a significant rebuild of the nation’s oil infrastructure—given the political uncertainty unleashed by Trump’s unlawful military operation and the kidnapping of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. “The issue is not just that the infrastructure is in bad shape, but it’s mostly about how do you get foreign companies to start pouring money in before they have a clear perspective on the political stability, the contract situation, and the like,” Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy program at Rice University, told NPR. The infrastructure investments alone are huge, even under normal political circumstances. “The estimate is that in order for Venezuela to increase from one million barrels per day—that is what it produces today—to four million barrels, it will take about a decade and about a hundred billion dollars of investment,” Monaldi said. In an interview with The New Yorker over the weekend, Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and the director of its Center for Global Legal Challenges, said there is absolutely no legal justification for Trump’s assault on Venezuela or the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. “I don’t think there is a legal basis for what we’re seeing in Venezuela,” Hathaway said. “There are certainly legal arguments that the Administration is going to make, but all the arguments that I’ve heard so far don’t hold water. None of them really justify what the President seems to have ordered to take place in Venezuela.” In a statement on Saturday, Elizabeth Bast, executive director of Oil Change International, said Trump’s assault on Venezuela “defies the US Constitution’s delegation of Congress’s war-making authority and disregards international rules that prevent acts of war without debate or authorization. The US must stop treating Latin America as a resource colony. The Venezuelan people, not US oil executives, must shape their country’s future.” As Trump and other members of the administration continued to threaten other countries in the region—including Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba—Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan said, “This is the behavior of a mob boss—but with nuclear weapons and the world’s strongest military. None of this is legal. Trump should be impeached by Congress and indicted at The Hague.” This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Jon Queally.
Venezuela: Security Council convenes in New York after Maduro extractionUkraine: UNOCHA supports victims of latest deadly Kharkiv attacksEthiopia: Refugee response now at breaking point, warns WFP
Venezuela: Security Council convenes in New York after Maduro extractionUkraine: UNOCHA supports victims of latest deadly Kharkiv attacksEthiopia: Refugee response now at breaking point, warns WFP This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Daniel Johnson.
Ghosts in the Machine: Israel’s Military Myths and the Private Equity State
In the first part of the program we welcome back Dr. Shir Hever to talk about what’s really going on behind the media veil of an infallible Israel. Dr. Hever debunks Israel’s claims that they can become militarily independent, and the effect of both mi...
In the first part of the program we welcome back Dr. Shir Hever to talk about what’s really going on behind the media veil of an infallible Israel. Dr. Hever debunks Israel’s claims that they can become militarily independent, and the effect of both military embargoes and continued BDS pressure.… The post Ghosts in the Machine: Israel’s Military Myths and the Private Equity State appeared first on Project Censored. This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.
EU Sanctions against the block’s own citizens and residents are a horrible development toward a totalitarian future. Their extralegal nature is what gives them their force. A proffered explanation. It has come as a shock to many of us in the alternative media sphere when, on December 15, the EU put the esteemed analyst, political […] The post The EU’s Extralegal Sanctions Regime first appeared on Dissident Voice.
EU Sanctions against the block’s own citizens and residents are a horrible development toward a totalitarian future. Their extralegal nature is what gives them their force. A proffered explanation. <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/72ec88c5-9912-497f-92fa-dc118444dbcf?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/72ec88c5-9912-497f-92fa-dc118444dbcf?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw079xYLhJ1XDZZj2W7DT-BI"><img decoding="async" class="CToWUd" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NYdyL-z94IA2G51Hy_UJzH84qbhpHtGOFYKpRIQtqc0PqXVL9RFcRTdMelMEeI7-atQWX2IVhjZdKKjstR59s8Td4T5heD5NtgCtHOIpjM8h_ewyhvivpCARrsKyS2C9g1WYes5zaKQM7KwpmEhVfav_VxzP59bp9X_cAkp_MaA0HINhDybxkBVtkijvxxcP_EYWT49ZjLjgCPi09xKU_YHyiSg1x-zlBMV_ggQlZ0b4qDrJzDikFNxvF-uFC31rNGKHCscuu0CAaw0zKX4UxL9kM-eygSNkgadoKVC6OxsEZRAZCnt1KNnAuULemAgkhC_XYVp=s0-d-e1-ft#https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GnEf!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9fbcb95-8a61-454c-ad6d-656da6865c65_1536x1024.png" alt="" width="505" height="326.7925824175824" data-bit="iit" /> It has come as a shock to many of us in the alternative media sphere when, on December 15, the EU put the esteemed analyst, political commentator, and former Swiss Army colonel <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/997f6189-f7d2-4d6c-b730-e7e9cd6b66a7?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/997f6189-f7d2-4d6c-b730-e7e9cd6b66a7?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw0gS6F9ClItwjixijKiLbFx">Jacques Baud, on its Russia-Sanctions list. He was one of several newly sanctioned individuals (alongside, for instance, the popular French journalist, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/b172b9cb-ae74-4be6-9a3a-f1fcbb306a31?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/b172b9cb-ae74-4be6-9a3a-f1fcbb306a31?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw2_eZh4PDq83RTBHohrQtqw">Xavier Moreau). Baud is already the second Swiss to be sanctioned. In June 2025, the EU announced that Nathalie Yamb, a Swiss-Cameroonian activist against neocolonialism, would be sanctioned. Being on the EU sanctions list is a devastating event for the people concerned, especially if they reside in an EU country or a closely associated state like Switzerland, Norway, or the UK. It means banks will freeze their accounts, credit companies will cancel their cards, they are not allowed to enter into contracts with EU-affiliated companies or private persons, and no business in the EU is allowed to have dealings with them, which, in theory, even precludes them from buying bread and other necessities of life. Furthermore, many international businesses will cancel all their services to them, including mail providers, social media platforms, etc. Even Swiss banks freeze or cancel accounts, out of fear they might get in trouble if they don’t comply with EU regulations. I recently interviewed two sanctioned people, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/2b97bdac-3207-434b-b446-d0e899731440?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/2b97bdac-3207-434b-b446-d0e899731440?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw1UyWxsOUz7L0hbCDvRra48">Nathalie Yamb and <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/45ce9fab-5fb1-4500-a854-6c7286fb3733?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/45ce9fab-5fb1-4500-a854-6c7286fb3733?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw3A3FX-P6iuMmrAq4fqMvaa">Hüsseyin Dogru, and their testimonies are heartbreaking. For an equally harrowing account by Jacques Baud, see the <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/3184d634-508d-4224-92a0-4a9baf5f3a98?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/3184d634-508d-4224-92a0-4a9baf5f3a98?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw1DbQGVHglGYw3-_ZO78PPG">most recent interview with him on Nima Alkhorshid’s Dialogue Works channel. Nathalie also posted a short video, in which she gives an overview of the ordeal (post in French, subtitles in English). Are Sanctions Against EU Citizens and Residents Illegal? As of early January 2026, there were 59 private individuals on the EU’s Russia sanctions list. Originally, this tool was levied only against Russian businessmen and people living in Russia (which was already problematic in my view), but since 2024, the EU has begun using sanctions as a political sledgehammer to crack down on various forms of dissent. Yamb, for instance, was sanctioned mostly for her activism against France’s neocolonial behavior in Africa, and Dogru for being a vocal German journalist for the Palestinian cause. The <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4632b234-47f3-4aef-8237-1267e731a6dc?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/4632b234-47f3-4aef-8237-1267e731a6dc?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw2SM6KvxgvBcHeqkfTJp4VJ">little text snippets that serve as justifications for the decision to include them in the sanctions list even mention those non-Russia-related activities for their listing. Naturally, one would assume that in a free and liberal society, based on the rule of law, sanctions against citizens and residents must be illegal. Right? In fact, the EU parliamentarian Michael von der Schulenburg has commissioned <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/23fffba6-c2e5-4add-a8fd-0e0d04394ad8?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/23fffba6-c2e5-4add-a8fd-0e0d04394ad8?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw1qnKWQwV6hv7_EOlsKB1H-">a report that is very clear in its verdict. Sanctions, it holds, break existing EU law on individual freedoms (<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/41a30f05-6e8b-4633-ab95-ac1ebd106605?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/41a30f05-6e8b-4633-ab95-ac1ebd106605?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw0PXfiOHl-eXjr_yf7C98Nd">see my interview with him here). <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/0ad516a0-a5df-49b8-8ebf-95de2a84f02a?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/0ad516a0-a5df-49b8-8ebf-95de2a84f02a?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw0B_VmdFC5VSSflMCJZJJOL"> However, the problem we have is that while sanctions are doubtlessly a breach of some EU law, there is other EU law that allows the Council to take these measures. Procedurally, the EU is not in breach of its competences because sanctions are not a domestic policing matter but a foreign policy decision. Foreign Policy, For Domestic Purposes I will not go into the details of the accusations against the sanctioned individuals. That would be beside the point. Whether the reasons given for the sanctions have merit or not is not the issue. The problem everyone should understand is that the accusations don’t need to constitute illegal behavior. There are no laws in the EU or its member states that forbid doing what the people on the Russia-Sanctions list have been doing. On the contrary. Many of the activities, including civil activism (Nathalie Yamb), journalism (Hüsseyin Dogru), or the publication of geopolitical analysis (Jacques Baud) are explicitly protected liberties. That’s the point. Since the acts committed are not crimes, the sanctions against them are not judicial measures, either. The EU explicitly says so on its sanctions <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/5b24c57c-559a-4ca7-97d2-c105bd351605?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/5b24c57c-559a-4ca7-97d2-c105bd351605?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw04Jw2ap1brN7MKGGOUha4c">explainer homepage: Restrictive measures or ‘sanctions’ are an essential tool of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. They allow the EU to respond to global challenges (sic) and developments that go against its objectives and values. Decisions on sanctions are taken by the Council of the European Union by unanimity. EU sanctions are targeted and aim at those responsible for the policies or actions the EU wants to influence. They do not target a country or population. Sanctions are not punitive (sic) and instead seek to bring about a change in the policy or conduct of those targeted, with a view to promoting the objectives of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Great. Isn’t it? The EU has managed to create a system under which the executive branch is within its legal rights, under its foreign policy arm to designate behavior of its citizens as “undesirable” and then impose the most draconian measures imaginable—all without trial or conviction. Everything Baud, Yamb, Dogru, and others did (and still do) is perfectly legal in the EU. But the Council of the European Union has the power to impose coercive measures on them to “encourage” a change of behavior. And because member states are treaty-bound to implement EU sanctions, there is no recourse to domestic courts for the victims. What an accomplishment. The EU has sneakily outmaneuvered the legal safeguards of its member states against arbitrary political persecution. Not illegal. Extralegal. So, I think this is key to understanding what’s happening: the sanctions are not illegal in the sense of a breach of protocol. They are part of the powers the Lisbon Treaty grants the EU Council, and they have a set and well-defined process behind them. They are legal in a purely formal sense of the word (leaving aside the questions of conflict with other branches of EU law that the von der Schulenburg’s Report raises). What the sanctions do is they create a regime that allows the circumvention of safeguards against political persecution. In this sense, they must be understood as extralegal measures. They create a space for the persecution of people not subject to the legal system as we know it. That is why all the usual principles of justice do not apply to the sanctions question. Due process, the assumption of innocence, the right to be heard before conviction, etc. All of these fundamental bedrocks of the legal system don’t come into play because the sanctions themselves are not judicial measures. The only recourse victims of this system have is to appeal to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). But—and here comes a very big but—the ECJ will only check if the sanctions decision is formally consistent. It will not check whether the accusations and the imposed sanctions regime are proportional or infringe on basic rights of the sanctioned individuals. The ECJ will only make sure the rationale given is correct. What this means is that only if the victims can show that the little blurb in the sanctions database is factually incorrect, the ECJ might issue an order for the EU Council to delist them. However, if the accusations are consistent, then the ECJ will uphold the sanctions. Hence, as long as the Council doesn’t lie in the sanctions rationale, more or less anything goes. The ECJ will defer to the EU Council regarding the political importance of sanctioning someone. It does not interfere with the logic of taking sanctions. Sounds incredible, but <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/7b91f48d-fa3a-49cf-b986-5bb3ef33e607?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/7b91f48d-fa3a-49cf-b986-5bb3ef33e607?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw02qM7hTo4p54faOToBEqDQ">I talked to a sanctions law scholar, Alexandra Hofer, from the University of Utrecht, and she explains the situation in these terms. <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/a6450a86-a30b-4bb0-a4c6-448e4a6a6737?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/a6450a86-a30b-4bb0-a4c6-448e4a6a6737?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw0IEn9i1fjxtsVLo7v8Snon"> And to make matters worse, even when the ECJ finds that the Council used an incorrect rationale (aka the accusations are lies), the Council, at any time, can simply list the individuals again with an adjusted rationale. Then, the legal circus begins anew for the victims, as they have to bring a new case to the ECJ. This happened, for instance, to <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f9f1b94d-2ab6-48cc-9238-cf01da9177cb?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f9f1b94d-2ab6-48cc-9238-cf01da9177cb?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw01Djt_eoQWYFBRN8MvmWCn">Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman, two Russian businessmen who won their case against the EU Council in 2024, but <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/01cd81a2-69f9-4771-a271-ac44e711f9f0?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/01cd81a2-69f9-4771-a271-ac44e711f9f0?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw3QGldcwGcvjcSuxqJOEpnx">remain on the sanctions list until today with an adjusted rationale. The EU Council has effectively absolute and infinite power over who gets sanctioned. The right of the sanctioned individuals to appeal to the ECJ is at best a paper-thin fig leaf for the EU to pretend that proper legal recourse is possible. In fact, granting the victims this form of fake access to the ECJ makes it (probably) even harder for them to win in other courts. For instance, since the sanctions create a severe infringement on their human rights, there is no question that human rights courts (there are several) might be used to challenge the regime. However, for the courts to act, one of the largest hurdles is <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/0b229e51-7a70-4886-85bb-012ad337312e?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/0b229e51-7a70-4886-85bb-012ad337312e?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw2LKwH1zP0idKKrkjqMjzrs">proving that all domestic remedies have been used up. Hence, before the ECJ has been addressed, the chances for the victims to have a human rights court pick up their case seem relatively slim (it is, nevertheless, an avenue the victims should probably explore with their legal teams). Turning the Weapons Inward I wish I could say that this is the first time a Western institution has pulled such a dirty trick on civil society. But it is not. As Nathalie Yamb, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/2b97bdac-3207-434b-b446-d0e899731440?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/2b97bdac-3207-434b-b446-d0e899731440?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw1UyWxsOUz7L0hbCDvRra48">in my interview with her, pointed out, EU countries and the USA have been using sanctions for decades to put extralegal pressure on activists and journalists in Africa and elsewhere. In fact, this is standard neocolonial behavior. This is why we cannot discuss sanctions without addressing Europe’s unresolved colonial mindset. The USA, too, has been using sanctions as a tool to crack down on legal behavior, for instance, with its attack on personnel from the International Criminal Court (ICC) or, most recently, the sanctions on the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. Just as the Patriot Act after 9/11, suddenly gave the US government the ability to use security services internally that were meant to protect the nation from external enemies only, the expansion of EU sanctions against people within the EU (or Schengen area) is transforming a dirty foreign policy tool into an even uglier domestic policy tool. The weapons to fight dirty outside are being turned inward. This is a prime example of why being silent when our states commit crimes overseas will, in the end, come to haunt us domestically. The chickens are coming home to roost. Unfortunately, as always, the first ones to suffer this are the people who fought against the injustices abroad already. Nathalie Yamb being the prime example. Right now, there are various pundits in the blogosphere and in mainstream media who more or less argue along the lines of “deserves them right, traitors.” These people, too, one day will understand what this system means if it is allowed to foster and grow in its draconian scope. By then, it will be too late. Either this stops now, or the future for freedom and democracy in the EU is bleak. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-110.png" alt="" width="505" height="609" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-164161" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-110.png 505w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-110-249x300.png 249w" sizes="(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px" /> The Eurocratic Death of Democracy The only hope I have is in popular uproar against this sanctions regime of doom. Political repression needs political answers. However, it will take a lot to put this genie back in the bottle. Even on a national level, the member states seem pretty happy with the new tool. Florian Warweg, a courageous German journalist <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/436c03c3-d0aa-408a-a90a-0ba843c63c83?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/436c03c3-d0aa-408a-a90a-0ba843c63c83?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw2e7QZiX69VOlCKjBQ_teCl">who was on my show before, actually <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f6548df7-ca5b-4f55-b407-ea4b5ee3befb?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f6548df7-ca5b-4f55-b407-ea4b5ee3befb?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&source=gmail&ust=1767622548024000&usg=AOvVaw2ck_ldg8cufQCt7SnusL7N">asked his government spokespeople at the Federal Press Club (Bundespressekonferenz) on December 17 about the case of Jacques Baud and the legality thereof. The smug answer he got from Martin Giese of the German Foreign Ministry tells us most of what we need to know about how these gray bureaucrats perceive their actions and what they have in store: (…) people who do such things can be sanctioned if the legal grounds exist and if there is a corresponding decision by the Council of the European Union. That happened this Monday, it will continue to happen, it has happened in the past, and anyone operating in this field must expect that it could also happen to them. (…) All those who do not agree with their sanctioning have all possible legal means to challenge it. They can appeal to the Council, and they can also bring the case before the European Court of Justice. What a blatant intimidation attempt. Seems like a pretty straightforward admission that there is more to come. After all, as I established above, the sanctions do have legal grounds in the purely formal sense, and the victims can indeed call on the very institution that took the sanctions decision and its rubber-stamp court that will only check the formalities. Seems very fair, right? Here you go. This is how democracy dies (again). By executive decree and bureaucratic smug. Well done, European Union. The post The EU’s Extralegal Sanctions Regime first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Pascal Lottaz.
Report from Caracas on U.S. Attack & Maduro Abduction
Top U.S. & World Headlines — January 5, 2026
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Trump “Just Wants Oil,” Not Democracy: What’s Next in Trump’s War on Venezuela?
Democracy Now! discusses the attack on Venezuela with two Venezuelan American scholars: Alejandro Velasco, an associate history professor at New York University, and Miguel Tinker Salas, emeritus professor of history at Pomona College. The pro...
Democracy Now! discusses the attack on Venezuela with two Venezuelan American scholars: Alejandro Velasco, an associate history professor at New York University, and Miguel Tinker Salas, emeritus professor of history at Pomona College. The professors react to President Trump’s comments on the presence of oil in the region and claims that Venezuela had “stolen” oil from U.S. companies. “There was no taking of 'American property or American oil' — it was Venezuelan oil,” says Tinker Salas. “It belonged to Venezuela.” Velasco also comments on Marco Rubio, a central figure in the U.S. campaign against Venezuela, who may have another country as his ultimate target. “Rubio’s primary interest in the region is not Venezuela, it’s not Colombia, it’s not Mexico — it’s Cuba,” says Velasco. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“Imperialist Intervention”: Law Prof. David Cole on the Illegality of U.S. Attack on Venezuela
The Trump administration did not seek congressional authorization prior to attacking Venezuela, as is required by the Constitution. It also violated “probably the first principle of international law … that countries have to respect thei...
The Trump administration did not seek congressional authorization prior to attacking Venezuela, as is required by the Constitution. It also violated “probably the first principle of international law … that countries have to respect their neighbors, and they can’t simply invade a neighbor or any other sovereign nation because they don’t like the way they are running things there,” says law professor David Cole. The attack was clearly not a law enforcement operation, as the administration has claimed, but an “imperialist intervention,” says Cole, who notes President Trump’s comments on extracting oil from the region. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“Venezuela Is Not Going to Be a U.S. Colony”: Report from Caracas on U.S. Attack & Maduro Abduction
U.S. forces attacked Venezuela and abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a Saturday night raid. About 80 people were reportedly killed, including 32 Cubans. Democracy Now! speaks with Andreína Chávez, a Venezuelan report...
U.S. forces attacked Venezuela and abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a Saturday night raid. About 80 people were reportedly killed, including 32 Cubans. Democracy Now! speaks with Andreína Chávez, a Venezuelan reporter based in Caracas, who calls the strikes an “imperialist attack.” Trump also said the U.S. would take the oil from Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven reserves. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
U.S. Launches Attack on Venezuela, Captures Maduro and His Wife, Trump Threatens Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iran and Mexico After Attack on Venezuela, Secretary of State Rubio Warns Cuban Government After U.S. Attack on Venezuela, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Congratulates Trump on “Perfect Operation” in Venezuela, Russia Affirms Support for Venezuelan Gov’t After Attacking Ukraine’s Second-Largest City Kharkiv, Greenland’s Prime Minister Nielsen Fires Back Against Trump’s Threats, Top Democrats Say Trump Admin Still Has Not Briefed Congress About Venezuela Attack, Protesters Worldwide Condemn U.S. Assault on Venezuela, Trump Threatens to Strike Iran on Behalf of Protesters, Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan Resigns While Appealing Felony Conviction for Aiding Immigrant
U.S. Launches Attack on Venezuela, Captures Maduro and His Wife Trump Threatens Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iran and Mexico After Attack on Venezuela Secretary of State Rubio Warns Cuban Government After U.S. Attack on Venezuela Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Congratulates Trump on "Perfect Operation" in Venezuela Russia Affirms Support for Venezuelan Gov't After Attacking Ukraine's Second-Largest City Kharkiv Greenland's Prime Minister Nielsen Fires Back Against Trump's Threats Top Democrats Say Trump Admin Still Has Not Briefed Congress About Venezuela Attack Protesters Worldwide Condemn U.S. Assault on Venezuela Trump Threatens to Strike Iran on Behalf of Protesters Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan Resigns While Appealing Felony Conviction for Aiding Immigrant This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! Monday, January 5, 2026 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Arizona Judges Launch Effort Seeking Quicker Resolutions to Death Penalty Cases
The post Arizona Judges Launch Effort Seeking Quicker Resolutions to Death Penalty Cases appeared first on ProPublica.
What happened: Judge Jennifer Green, who oversees the Maricopa Superior Court’s criminal department, has quietly rolled out a program to facilitate quicker resolutions to death penalty cases in Arizona’s most-populous county. The court has begun issuing orders for the prosecution and defense to participate in settlement conferences two years after a notice to seek the death penalty is filed, according to a statement from the court. The orders are meant to “encourage” settlement talks in capital cases, which often drag on for many years only to end with prosecutors reducing the charges. Court officials said current and retired judges will conduct the hearings. Why it’s happening: An investigation by ProPublica and ABC15 Arizona in June found that prosecutors in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office have frequently pursued the death penalty but rarely secured death sentences. In nearly 350 such cases over 20 years, just 13% ended in a death sentence. The outcomes raised questions about the office’s judgment in pursuing the death penalty, said former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who called for a review of capital charging decisions after the news organizations shared their findings with him. “Once you allege death, the whole game changes,” Romley told ProPublica and ABC15 at the time. “So many more resources go into that particular case.” Capital cases can be litigated across the terms of multiple county attorneys and cost more than a million dollars each to prosecute. In the hundreds of Maricopa County death penalty cases pursued since 2007, the cost of furnishing the accused with an adequate defense alone has totaled $289 million. That figure did not include the costs of the prosecution, which the county attorney’s office said are not recorded in a way that can be tracked separately. Romley applauded the court for implementing the settlement conferences. “The courts have recognized this isn’t the right way to be doing this,” he said, adding that the orders could speed up other aspects of the cases, such as discovery. Victims could also benefit from quicker resolution, he said. “If I was county attorney, I would be embracing it,” he said. Arizona resumed executions in 2025 after a two-year pause. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, in 2022 ordered a review of the state’s lethal injection process, but she dismissed the retired federal magistrate judge she had appointed to conduct the analysis after he determined that lethal injection is not humane, he said. There are 107 people on Arizona’s death row. What people are saying: Rosemarie Peña-Lynch, director of public defense services for Maricopa County, said in a statement that public defenders are committed to a process that “offers an opportunity to explore potential case resolutions while safeguarding the constitutional rights of our clients.” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, said at a news conference in November that she is “for anything that would speed up this process.” But, she added, prosecutors seek death in cases “where we think the death penalty is warranted.” Asked about holding settlement conferences two years into such cases, she said: “It’s not typically a situation where the death penalty is dropped … on a whim of a plea agreement. It’s dropped because maybe evidence changes, or, for example, witnesses die, or something like that. Whether it will help or not, I don’t know, but if it does that’s great.” What’s next: Last month, Green issued an order in a death penalty case to schedule a settlement hearing within two years. Green’s order, in a case against two men accused of murdering a Tempe woman, cites a criminal procedure rule mandating capital cases be resolved within 24 months of the state’s notice to seek death. On Dec. 3, Mitchell announced that her office would seek the death penalty against Cudjoe Young and Sencere Hayes, who were previously charged with the April 17, 2023, murder of 22-year-old Mercedes Vega. Young and Hayes have pleaded not guilty. An autopsy report showed Vega, who was still alive when she was left in a burning Chevrolet Malibu, died of blunt force injuries and had been shot in the arm. A medical examiner also found bleach in her throat, according to ABC15. “We will continue to pursue justice for Mercedes Vega and her family,” Mitchell said in a statement. Read the Investigation Arizona’s Largest County Frequently Pursues the Death Penalty. It Rarely Secures That Sentence. The post Arizona Judges Launch Effort Seeking Quicker Resolutions to Death Penalty Cases appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Nicole Santa Cruz.
Monday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD
Monday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4.
The biggest climate migration problem may be that there’s not enough of it
In his new book, Julian Hattem explores how migration can be a climate solution — not just for those who are able to move, but for their home communities as well.
In Guatemala, outside the town of Jocotán, in a house hidden from the main road by a thin wall of vegetation, I met Elena, a slight 38-year-old with bright eyes and dark hair that was just starting to show the first hints of gray. Elena had seven kids whom she spent most of her time caring for, while her husband found unsteady work as a for-hire farmer. Her husband’s job paid enough to get by, just barely, but the family struggled to travel to see a doctor for their 5-year-old daughter, who had an undiagnosed heart issue. The eldest daughter, who was 19, had been going to school but dropped out during the COVID-19 pandemic because they could no longer afford the $40 per month for books, her uniform, and other costs. Meanwhile everything was getting more expensive, Elena complained, and it often did not rain enough to yield a fruitful harvest. We met in a neighbor’s dirt-floor compound, where chickens and ducks pecked at a trash heap and muddy patches of ground. Behind me, tortillas smoked on the stove in the detached cinder-block kitchen. Nearby, cars and trucks rumbled down the main road heading to the Honduras border a half hour away. When I asked Elena about the prospect of going to the United States, a shy smile crept across her face. Her husband talks about it, she said, but she knows it’s just a dream. It would cost thousands of dollars to hire a coyote and make the trip, and the only way they could raise that kind of cash would be to put up their land as collateral. Some of her neighbors have made that bet, and sometimes it has worked out, but not always. Migration would be a huge risk. It could take weeks or months for Elena’s husband to travel and establish himself in the United States, assuming he could even get in, during which time Elena would have no source of income. If things didn’t work out and her husband was deported or couldn’t pay off the coyote’s fee plus interest — or worse, if he was injured or killed en route — their land could be swiped from under them, leaving them even worse off than they already were. She would go in a heartbeat, she said, if only it were realistic. And it wasn’t. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Julian-Hattem-2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="Side-by-side photos show a headshot of author Julian Hattem next to the cover of his book, Shelter From The Storm." data-caption="Author Julian Hattem, editor of the Migration Policy Institute’s online journal. " data-credit="Amanda Joy Photographics"/> Author Julian Hattem, editor of the Migration Policy Institute’s online journal. Amanda Joy Photographics We might say that Elena is trapped. Emigrating to the United States would almost surely be transformational for her and her family, even if just one member could establish a foothold there. She would no longer need to worry about going hungry. It could put her family on a path of upward mobility, with better access to health care and education. Elena’s children would probably have a markedly more comfortable life than her own, which is the desire of all parents worldwide. This was exactly the story of hundreds of millions of Americans whose ancestors scraped together their savings to come to the United States, where they suffered abuse and worked hard, benefited from and contributed to its economic growth, and in a few generations had descendants with a profoundly different quality of life. Instead, she and her family are stuck in a rural farming community where the land is drying up and falling apart and where the prices at the market are climbing ever higher. In the long run, “trapped populations” may be the worst victims of climate change. Migration costs money and can be complicated and, if traveling internationally, usually illegal. Leaving might enable people like Elena to find better-paying jobs elsewhere and send back money that could help protect their homes and families against encroaching climate change. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Mexico-border.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A photo shows barbed wire along the U.S.-Mexico border next to the Rio Grande" data-caption="A barbed wire fence overlooks the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas. Migrant crossings have dripped significantly in the past year, peaking in the last months of 2023. " data-credit="John Moore / Getty Images"/> A barbed wire fence overlooks the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas. Migrant crossings have dripped significantly in the past year, peaking in the last months of 2023. John Moore / Getty Images Yet for a million reasons people stay in place, even if doing so is dangerous. Many of them cannot leave. When disaster strikes, people with disabilities, the elderly, and the poor tend to be less likely to be able to evacuate, and therefore account for an outsize number of fatalities. When Hurricane Katrina hit the United States, for instance, about half the dead were 75 years and older. Moreover, there is probably no way that Elena could get to the United States legally, and laws can be difficult things to break, especially when they are backed by the full weight and force of the U.S. government. It also often takes connections to be able to move, which many people do not have. If Elena had a cousin or friend in the United States who would help her out — tell her whom to call, where to stay, how to get a job — her family might have an easier time. Without this social capital, she’s facing an uphill climb. And of course, it is about 1,000 miles to get from Guatemala to the United States, and even farther for people from Asia or the Pacific Islands. Deserts and oceans are physically difficult to cross, and often deadly. It is a sad fact that many tens of thousands of people migrating for a better life never live to see it. The United Nations has recorded the cases of more than 72,000 migrants who died or disappeared in their journeys from 2014 to 2025, but this is surely a tremendous undercount, given the remote deserts, forbidding jungles, and expanse of oceans that migrants must cross when they have no legal path. There is no telling how many people die every year trying to seek out a better life. The security-first dogma of Western border policies makes these journeys even deadlier than they would be otherwise. As authorities clamp down, migrants are forced to take even more precarious routes to evade detection, putting themselves at increasing risk of dehydration, assault by criminal groups, and shipwreck. The Mediterranean, by far the deadliest migration corridor worldwide, became even deadlier as Italian and EU officials cracked down on lifesaving search-and-rescue operations in the mid-2010s. On the U.S.-Mexico border, the world’s deadliest land crossing, aggressive security policies have historically not necessarily stopped people from crossing, but they have pushed migrants into more dangerous routes deeper into the desert. As the world gets warmer, remote stretches of the desert become deadlier, increasing the risk of dehydration, heat stroke, and exposure. If she could migrate away from the Dry Corridor, the data suggest that Elena would be financially better off. Migration, by and large, tends to be good for people. Although the actual act of migrating is difficult and expensive, the economic payoff is great. Worldwide, migration has lifted millions of people out of poverty — probably billions. According to the World Bank, migrants going from a lower-income country to a higher-income country typically see their wages grow between three and six times. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Guatemala-City.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A photo shows a green bus, motorcycles, and cars stopped at a traffic light in a bustling downtown area" data-caption="A view of traffic at the civic center of Guatemala City in August 2025. " data-credit="Johan Ordonez / AFP via Getty Images"/> A view of traffic at the civic center of Guatemala City in August 2025. Johan Ordonez / AFP via Getty Images Migrating abroad or just to a higher-income city can not only lift oneself out of poverty, but also provide a foundation to help build resilience in one’s hometown. The money that migrants send back to friends and loved ones in their origin communities can help build new protections against disaster or make it easier to rebuild afterward. As we drove across Guatemala, a future in which more people left home didn’t actually seem all that bad. The U.S. media tends to portray all of Central America as distressingly poor, with tin roofs, unreliable electricity, and barely-there dirt roads. It is anything but. Even far from Guatemala City, our car glided on smooth asphalt past gleaming strip malls that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a suburban Phoenix subdivision. Throughout Guatemala, grand two- and three-story houses tower over the road, peeking above the trees and looking oddly out of place behind rough-hewn wood shacks selling pineapples and tortillas. My hotel in Chiquimula featured two separate swimming pools, the water shimmering in the midday sun, perched in a lush sprawling yard where teenagers played soccer and flirted while parents lounged under the pergola. Nearby, an entrepreneur offered tourists paragliding adventures and the chance to go sightseeing in a helicopter. My driver, Conrado, showed me TikTok videos of thrill-seekers screaming with joy in a giant swing at a similar adventure attraction not far away. Much of the money used to invest in this growth comes from one place: “Remesas,” Conrado said simply. Remittances. Money from the United States that migrants send back via Western Union, a mobile phone app, or a range of other services. About three in ten households in northern Central America receive remittances from abroad, typically about $350 per month in Guatemala. That’s only about 5 percent of median U.S. household income but can be a life-changing amount of money in Guatemala that can easily cover expenses or provide a significant down payment on climate protections. In Guatemala, more money comes from remittances than from all foreign exports combined. On a hillside in the tiny village of Barbasco, where drought has ravaged farmlands and extreme weather has accelerated erosion, I met a 40-year-old woman with kind eyes named Consuela, who received money from her son in New York. Intense and recurrent hurricanes had split the earth underneath her home, creating a six-inch gash in the dirt floor where one end of the building was beginning a slow march toward the edge of the cliff. Inch by inch and bit by bit, the ground underneath had started to give way and slide downhill. It was a common sight on these hills, where coffee and corn plants perched precariously on steep slopes that threatened to give way with the next storm. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1496 1496w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1995 1995w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Consuelas-home-in-Guatemala-e1767330566143.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A photo shows a small cluster of thatch-roofed buildings with a garden on a verdant tropical hillside." data-caption="Consuela’s home in Barbasco, Guatemala. " data-credit="Julian Hattem"/> Consuela’s home in Barbasco, Guatemala. Julian Hattem Fortunately for her, Consuela was using some of the money sent back by her son to build a new house away from the mountain edge, helping her avoid the collapsing ground. Elsewhere, in Ghana, remittances help farmers invest in irrigation systems and crop rotation. They also help recipients build houses out of concrete rather than mud, so families can withstand landslides and other disasters, and provide access to electricity and telephones that alert them to upcoming disasters and enable them to get help when they need it. In hot, coastal Mexico, remittances help residents — particularly poorer residents — purchase air conditioners to stay cool even in the sweltering summer months. In Bangladesh, some recipients say remittances make up half their household income. In large part because of these remittances, migration has long been one of the most effective strategies for lifting people out of poverty — not just migrants themselves, but also their families and communities in their homeland. As the world reckons with climate change that will particularly hurt poor, rural communities in places like Guatemala, migration is not simply a way to escape impending climate disaster but also a strategy to defend against it. Making it easier for people to leave their home can not only help them flee the most dire disasters but also help them earn money to invest in adaptation and resilience strategies. In fact, some economists say governments should actively spend money to encourage people to migrate, at least to urban areas within their own countries, to boost growth. Subsidizing transportation to cities and helping people find jobs or enroll in new training would mitigate the negative impacts of climate change in rural areas, the thinking goes, and help increase the productivity of cities. The biggest climate migration problem may be that there’s simply not enough of it. From Shelter from the Storm: How Climate Change Is Creating a New Era of Migration by Julian Hattem, to be published on January 6, 2026 by The New Press. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The biggest climate migration problem may be that there’s not enough of it on Jan 5, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Julian Hattem.
US Strikes on Venezuela Sound an Alarm for Global Governance
Fire at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, is seen from a distance after a series of explosions in Caracas on January 3, 2026. The US military was behind a series of strikes against the Venezuelan capital Caracas on Saturday, which reportedly led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, US […] The post US Strikes on Venezuela Sound an Alarm for Global Governance first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Fire-at-Fuerte-Tiuna.png" alt="" width="505" height="302" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-164138" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Fire-at-Fuerte-Tiuna.png 505w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Fire-at-Fuerte-Tiuna-300x179.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px" /> Fire at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, is seen from a distance after a series of explosions in Caracas on January 3, 2026. The US military was behind a series of strikes against the Venezuelan capital Caracas on Saturday, which reportedly led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, US media reported. Photo: AFP Launching a military strike against a sovereign country in the name of “law enforcement” and forcibly seizing another country’s president by relying on overwhelming power – this is a scenario so outrageous that even Hollywood screenwriters would struggle to imagine it. Yet Washington has made it a reality in full view of the world, shocking the international community. UN Secretary-General António Guterres was deeply alarmed, warning that the move sets “a dangerous precedent,” while Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that such actions are “the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability.” Within a day, many countries around the world condemned the US’ hegemonic behavior. Even US allies, for the most part, expressed their lack of support by stressing that international law must be respected. According to various sources, the US is highly satisfied with both the process and the outcome of the military operation. What the international community sees, however, is the enormous damage and grave harm caused by it. The US side places its so-called federal indictment above the authority of international law and substitutes military violence for diplomatic means. This, in essence, elevates the jungle law of “might makes right” above international law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. In fact, since tensions between the US and Venezuela escalated, the United Nations Security Council has convened emergency meetings to discuss the situation in the Caribbean. Many countries emphasized that the US must abide by international law, yet these calls were ignored by Washington. This is a vivid reflection of US-style hegemony overriding multilateralism. The military action has also inflicted serious damage on peace in Latin America and the Caribbean. Geographically distant from the world’s major conflict hotspots, the region has long been regarded as one of the most peaceful in the world. For this reason, the 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries cherish their hard-won peace, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States declared the region a “zone of peace” in 2014. Now, however, the US continuous escalation of military actions is bringing the flames of war into this region. This time it is Venezuela – who will be next? Chilean President Gabriel Boric captured the sentiments of many Latin American countries when he said, “Tomorrow, it can be anyone.” Just imagine: If a major power can, on the strength of its fist alone, bypass all procedures and resort to military force against another country at will under the pretext of “combating crime,” even targeting the leaders of sovereign states, which country could truly ensure its own absolute security? In this context, the US military strikes against Venezuela are not merely a Latin American issue; they also highlight the urgent need to address the deficits in global governance. The US military actions against Venezuela have sounded the alarm for global governance. This escalating crisis, in addition to the longstanding bullying of Latin America by the US, is also due to the imbalance in the global governance system, which has provided an opportunity for hegemony to thrive. The current international balance of power has undergone profound changes, but reforms to the global governance system have lagged for a long time, leaving developing countries with severely inadequate representation and voice. In this unbalanced framework, hegemonic countries can trample on rules without effective constraints, while developing countries find it difficult to protect their rights and interests through fair international mechanisms. The forcible detention of Maduro by the US can occur to some extent precisely because the existing global governance mechanisms lack effective constraints, which fail to impose appropriate costs on hegemonic behavior. History has long proven that relying on military conquest and resource plundering doesn’t bring stability; it only sows the seeds for further conflict. As Britain’s The Guardian has quoted a professor as saying, it is “very rare” for US interventions in the region to be followed by “peace, tranquility, stability and democracy.” As a founding member of the United Nations, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and the host country of the UN headquarters, the US has not upheld the international order; instead, it has taken the lead in undermining it – violating the norms of international relations and weakening the foundations of global governance. Meanwhile, so-called “American-style intervention” has left lasting troubles for regional peace and development, increased the burden of regional and global governance, and driven up governance costs. In fact, the reactions of countries around the world make it clear that the US attempt to assert its authority in the Western Hemisphere by taking actions against Venezuela has been rejected by the vast majority of countries, demonstrating the irreversible trend toward multilateralism and the broad consensus in favor of fairness and justice. Last year, China proposed the Global Governance Initiative, clearly advocating for staying committed to sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, the people-centered approach and real results. From Venezuela’s current plight, it is easy to see the forward-looking, strategic, and urgent nature of these five core principles. This crisis further proves that humanity is a community with a shared future, and that hegemonism is a common enemy of all humanity. The only way for the international community to eradicate the soil from which hegemonism breeds is to unite firmly in support of international law and fairness and justice, and to work together to promote changes in global governance, which will create a stable environment for lasting prosperity for all countries. The post US Strikes on Venezuela Sound an Alarm for Global Governance first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Global Times.
With the Gaza genocide, the world changed – sovereignty died and thuggery became a system
COMMENTARY: By Sameer Barghouthi The road from Beijing to Taiwan no longer seems impossible. Nothing appears to prevent Moscow — should it decide — from abducting the Ukrainian president from the heart of Kyiv. There is no longer any real immunity protecting political leadership anywhere, including Iranian leaders. The reason is not international chaos. READ
COMMENTARY: By Sameer Barghouthi The road from Beijing to Taiwan no longer seems impossible. Nothing appears to prevent Moscow — should it decide — from abducting the Ukrainian president from the heart of Kyiv. There is no longer any real immunity protecting political leadership anywhere, including Iranian leaders. The reason is not international chaos. READ MORE: Trump’s abduction of Maduro escalates concerns over potential war with Iran Trump’s gift-wrapped Maduro package has done the world a favour – revealing what a lie US foreign policy really is The reason is Gaza. Gaza: The moment of great exposure Gaza is not a passing war, nor a limited regional conflict. Gaza is the moment when the international system collapsed entirely. In Gaza, the following fell: International law; The concept of sovereignty; The neutrality of international institutions; and The claim of Western values A people were annihilated before the eyes of the world. Hospitals, schools, and United Nations facilities were destroyed. Children were killed. Starvation was used as a weapon. And yet — no one was held accountable. When the killer walks free in Gaza Israel’s impunity in Gaza was not a detail; it was a dangerous precedent. A clear message reached every capital: Do whatever you want, as long as you are protected by the United States. From that moment, red lines collapsed: Sovereignty was no longer protected; Leaders lost immunity; Agreements lost meaning; and International courts lost relevance If the annihilation of a besieged city is possible, what prevents the kidnapping of a president, the assassination of a leader, or the toppling of an entire state? America: From guardian of order to sponsor of crime The United States is no longer a mediator or even a biased partner. It has become the political guarantor of crime. It has: Provided cover; Supplied weapons; Used the veto; Obstructed accountability; and And legitimised extermination Then it has continued speaking of “international order” and “human rights” as if Gaza had never happened. The end of the illusion of immunity After Gaza, one truth has become clear to every world leader: The United Nations does not protect; Conventions do not save; International law does not shield; The only immunity that remains today is power; and Those who do not possess it are potential targets. This is why China is recalculating, Russia deals with law pragmatically, Iran understands that Western guarantees are an illusion, and many states are stepping out from under the American cloak. Gaza was not the exception. It was the official declaration of the collapse of the global order. In the age of American–Israeli thuggery: Sovereignty has fallen; Law has died; Power has become the only source of legitimacy; and Those without power are denied the right to live. Sameer Barghouthi is an emeritus professor at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Palestine. This article was first published by Qatar Tribune. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Maduro isn’t a gunrunner, they’re in Rubio’s backyard sniffing the product. He was betrayed. If you want the oil Donald, you’ll have to invade, despite your bone spurs. The post Trump Has Metaphorsed into Caligula first appeared...
Maduro isn’t a gunrunner, they’re in Rubio’s backyard sniffing the product. He was betrayed. If you want the oil Donald, you’ll have to invade, despite your bone spurs. The post Trump Has Metaphorsed into Caligula first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by George Galloway.
Blow to Trump’s Venezuela Plan after Maduro’s Deputy Contradicts US President
Donald Trump’s plan to smoothly run Venezuela after attacking the sovereign country and capturing its president with his wife has faced a major setback. This was after the Venezuelan armed forces and Nicolas Maduro’s deputy condemned the US invasion of their country and capturing of their president and the First Lady. Rifat Jawaid digs deeper […] The post Blow to Trump’s Venezuela Plan after Maduro’s Deputy Contradicts US President first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Donald Trump’s plan to smoothly run Venezuela after attacking the sovereign country and capturing its president with his wife has faced a major setback. This was after the Venezuelan armed forces and Nicolas Maduro’s deputy condemned the US invasion of their country and capturing of their president and the First Lady. Rifat Jawaid digs deeper in Venezuelan history to explore why anti-Americanism has been an integral part of the ideology of the current lot governing Venezuela. The post Blow to Trump’s Venezuela Plan after Maduro’s Deputy Contradicts US President first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Janta Ka Reporter.
Journalist, editor, and podcaster Zach Stafford on not doing it alone (and doing it for more than yourself)
Sam Sanders just left your podcast Vibe Check after three years. I’m curious how you felt when Sam said he was leaving.
Sam Sanders just left your podcast Vibe Check after three years. I’m curious how you felt when Sam said he was leaving. It was complicated for a few [reasons]. One, the show began as a threesome, so to break it up and not be the original three felt very much like I was living out Destiny’s Child’s history, which was my favorite pop girl group as a kid. There’s that first very human reaction of, “Oh God, my life’s about to change.” And that sucks because change is scary. As a friend, I was not surprised at all. Sam is such a force within the podcasting space, and because we are very close, and we live in the same city and we’re together a lot, I began to notice that juggling the two shows and other ambitions he had creatively was a lot, and he was really close to burnout if he didn’t take a break. When we found out that all our shows were going [up to] twice a week, that just became the big sign flashing in the sky that something needed to change for us all to keep building these things. That’s when the decision became real. It was a shock but not a shock. It became a real good test of our friendship, which still remains very strong and intact. We even did a show together after that live at The Ford, so it worked out. Sam did something about the burnout before you could, but did you have any moments where you were like, “I should talk to him about this”? Oh, yeah. We’re friends, and doing anything with your friends, you have good days, bad days, weird days, and really wonderful days. I could tell things were getting tough to manage for all of us. When the new contract negotiations came up, he and I had really frank conversations—we all did—about, “Should you stay? Should you go? Is this an opportunity?” I looked to the universe for guidance, and weirdly enough, so much hit at once. All of our contracts were coming up at the same time. He had an opportunity to expand the show that’s under his actual name, which means a lot to him. Sam had a podcasting career before we had the show, and he’ll have one after our show. As we were having that conversation, it was mostly about, “How can you keep having a good life creatively?” It became very obvious that Vibe Check maybe isn’t the thing for this chapter, but it could be for the next chapter. As friends, you do sense things, and it does come up. It wasn’t a surprise once it happened, but in the moment, it’s like a breakup. You’re like, “Oh my God, you’re leaving me?” And then you take a second and think, “You haven’t been calling as much,” or, “This has been tough. We have been arguing more.” This had its own similarities of, like, “Things were a lot, and now, we’re going to double it. Let’s all come together and figure out a way through.” And we did. On the note of doubling it, I’d love to hear how that decision came about. I put it in motion, and not by accident, but more just looking at the show and thinking, “How do we keep things interesting and continue to build on the momentum?” A lot of our contemporaries were going twice a week. It’s a business at the end of the day, and we’re with SiriusXM. I was like, “We could go double, and people would listen, and it would be good for business.” I planted the seed six months ago. I was like, “We could do another day and make it something interesting.” It was talked about very briefly, but because I’m not a SiriusXM employee, I didn’t know there were real big meetings happening about this. I said it off the cuff and was kind of exploring on my end, and then it came to life, and they came back to us and said, “Do you want to double it? Do you want to try out a bunch of things over a few months and [have] some runway to be new versions of yourselves and bring on new people?” It’s funny, as we’re in this new era, it’s still retrofitted to being a Sam Sanders-friendly era, and that’s why he will be able to jump in and out if he chooses to, if he has the time. But if you look at our shows, [Vibe Check] now comes out on the same days [as The Sam Sanders Show]. That was becoming apparent as we were like, “I had this idea, now it’s becoming real. And oh shit, production would require us to go head-to-head,” which is fine because our shows are good companions, but Sam would be the one that suffered the most in that equation, and we have to take care of each other. How have you accommodated scaling it up to twice a week? I run a small publication and realized that people would pay more attention if I scaled it up, but that’s been a little exhausting. It’s so exhausting, and it’s not just double the work. When I had the idea, I thought, “It’s just the same show twice. We’ll be able to replicate the exact same production over and over,” but that’s not how things actually play out. We’re not robots. You can’t just go into a calculator of your life and put “times two” and [have] things be equal in that multiplication. Having two shows actually brings with it a lot of complications. Our wonderful producer Shantel [Holder], who does a lot of the heavy lifting on the show, was like, “Yes, let’s do two shows,” but she also has to do other shows. And then, she’s like, “These eight hour days I was working are now creeping into 10 or 11 [hours].” We’re also having to have calls earlier. I’m having to record at 7 a.m. and not 8 a.m. to accommodate production. When we go from theory to practice, it is way different, and it feels very different in the body. What we’ve been doing really well within this new production space is, we’ve elevated people who’ve been with us. My producer Giulia Leo, she’s with us a lot more now. We have more folks getting paid real money to be working on a creative project, which is really exciting. And due to having all these resources and people feeling taken care of, we can say no in ways that make sense. There was a day where I, to prep for the launch of all the new episodes, was doing a bunch of speaking engagements, and I was like, “Maybe I’ll do all these engagements, and we use it for the show.” As we got into meetings, it editorially didn’t fit, and we had to create new episodes, and I had to reckon with this new reality I created for myself: “Oh no, we have to make sure the show is still the show and not just quick-solves and checking boxes.” Within that, I had to be open and say, “I totally agree, we need to record something new. I can’t do it today. Can I do it tomorrow? Can I get just a little more sleep and wake up then?” My no’s have become really instructive of how to get to yeses. That’s been a good test for my humanity. I’m not a superhero, I do get tired. I have a dog now, I have a partner, I have family I have to see. December is different than June. My ambitions and the things I’m called to do in different times of my life are fluctuating. Everything works in theory, but once it starts actually playing out in life, it will feel different, and I have to have space to let it be different and know where my limits sit. Learning to say no is such an important thing as a creative person. Is that something you’ve always been good at, or have you had to learn it recently? I have crashed out many times because I’ve said yes to everything. As the pandemic was rolling in, I was anchoring morning news over at BuzzFeed with AM To DM, a show on Twitter. I’d be on set at 5 or 6 in the morning every day. I was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate. By the time we wrapped the show at noon Eastern, my team in LA was just getting to the office at 9. I’d jump into an editorial meeting around 9 a.m. [and] be working till 10 o’clock at night. Throughout the day, I also hosted a podcast at Luminary, so we would be taping the podcast. I also was doing speaking engagements [and] working on other projects. I wasn’t sleeping much, and I was working too much, and I said yes to everything because it was so exciting. I looked to people like Oprah or Gayle King or so many other media executives and leaders I’d seen who had it all, who were working a thousand jobs. I was like, “I can do this, I can do this.” But what they don’t tell you is that they don’t do that stuff alone, and I was doing it alone a lot. That’s where all my yeses led me to crashing out. [It’s] been a really important thing for me creatively that I don’t live my life in a vacuum. Other people are impacted by these decisions, and my body is supremely impacted by it. Now, I’m much more gentle with myself, and I try to take a breath when an opportunity comes in, and I don’t say yes too fast. I give myself 24 hours, unless it’s something I’ve been really praying on for a long time—then, it’s a quick yes. But I try to be like, “Okay, that’s there, it’s a door. Just because it’s open doesn’t mean I have to walk through it.” That’s something I only learned with maturity. When you’ve switched publications, what were the reasons for the change? Were they creative reasons? Were they financial reasons? I can be honest and say they were never financial reasons. I always have this belief, knock on wood, that I will always figure out how to have resources to eat, live, breathe, [and] pay my rent. I try not to move through the world from a scarcity mentality of, “I will not have something to help me in the future.” I really focus on abundance, even though Ezra Klein has really fucked that word for me lately. I was thinking about abundance way before him, and I would say abundance comes from Black feminist thought and thinkers. Same with self-care. When I made those decisions, it was always because I had a vision for my life and the work I wanted to do and the place in which I was doing that work couldn’t support it anymore. Grindr, very publicly—I was in great tension with our new owners, a company called Kunlun out of China. It’s very well-documented that Trump investigated us under the Department of Treasury. We were the first company that he blocked any foreign investment from, and now, Grindr is American-owned, which is great. But I was there to that moment, [when] the Trump administration was literally in our offices dealing with things. It became untenable to run an LGBTQ+ magazine out of a company that was being pushed to a country in which I couldn’t do the work if it was there. And if we’d stayed in the U.S., we were facing such mounting pressure that the company and its board didn’t see it as economically viable. When The Advocate called, it was a bridge for me to have a job and be able to do the work of an editor, but also to hire many staff that were working with me and bring them over. Many of them did join Pride Media after that. Every time I make a decision, I try to think of a collective “we” in it, not just, “What do I get out of this, but what [do] we?” Am I contributing something in the culture that I’m proud of, or can I hire folks that I love working with, that love working with me, and give them resources in healthcare or just an extra dollar so they’re not stressed? I try not to make it so ego-driven only. Of course, I am in my ego at times, and being offered editor-in-chief of a magazine that I read as a young person and into my adulthood is exciting for the ego. But at that time, it was about continuing the work of trying to support queer media. When I left, it was because a pandemic had hit and things were shutting down, and we had to restructure all the creative businesses I was in to make them sustainable for someone, and that someone wasn’t me. I had to go at the moments I had to go. I appreciate you saying “all the creative businesses I was in,” because as a non-fiction writer and journalist,sometimes, I feel like the work I’m doing isn’t creative. Creativity brings to mind music, painting, things like that. Is that a notion you’ve ever encountered or put upon yourself? How do you counter it? I hear it all the time. I’m in this era of my life where I work a lot across film, television, theater—I work with incredible playwrights who have won a Pulitzer for their writing and see that their work is art, but they don’t see journalistic work all the time as art, or they see it as adversarial. Artists sometimes think journalists or critics are out to get them. I don’t share that belief. I think criticism is really important for the arts. I think feedback is incredibly important. If you create things in public, part of being in public is to have public weigh-in. We make things for people to react to, and you can’t control how they react. It has been helpful for my soul to see the work that I do as creative. I was with Pam Grossman last night. She runs a podcast called The Witch Wave. She also is the author of the book Magic Maker. She thinks of magic as pulling from the realm of your imagination and bringing it into the physical. Anything that goes through that process is magic but is, in its most pure sense, creative. It helped me hearing those words from her last night, and in her work, to understand that my podcast is creative, my takes on news and media are creative, my ambition to survive the fallout of media collapsing is creative, and we as humans are just creative beings. Especially if we are, as many believe—and I believe this too—the universe experiencing itself over and over again. That’s why we’re all connected. The reason we’re experiencing ourselves is that we’re experiencing the creativity of that universe, and we are all the products of that. I pushed back on this idea when I had to deal with a journalistic issue like why the Chicago Police are disappearing thousands of Black people into police stations and why those are called black sites. That was a creative practice that was also journalistic and criminally involved, because I had to do creative things to get to that answer as a journalist. We have to expand our notions of what creative means. We have to expand our notions of what art-making is. People make fun of Rothko because they’re like, “I could do that.” Or Pollock, they’re like, “I could splatter.” Well, you didn’t when he did it. He did it, and he made it his thing, and he got better at it. I think we have to be more generous in our definitions of creativity and understand that we’re all engaged. Whether you work at a Burger King or you work at the Met, you are engaging in creativity on some level, period. Zach Stafford recommends a list of queer theorist/works that radically impacted him when he was around 19: Cruising Utopia by Jose Esteban Munoz Gender Trouble by Judith Butler Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua Still/Here (performance piece) by Bill T. Jones This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Max Freedman.
Tel Aviv offers to train Australian police officers in Israel after Bondi
Asia Pacific Report The Israeli government has offered to train senior Australian police officers in Israel as part of efforts to combat terrorism and antisemitism, reports OnePath Network. In a letter to Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said his government was “ready and willing to assist” following the
Asia Pacific Report The Israeli government has offered to train senior Australian police officers in Israel as part of efforts to combat terrorism and antisemitism, reports OnePath Network. In a letter to Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said his government was “ready and willing to assist” following the Bondi beach massacre on December 14 which killed 15 civilians. “We bring extensive experience in combating radical Islamic terrorism and antisemitism,” Chikli wrote. READ MORE: Israel offers to train Australian police Israeli leaders condemned for politicising Bondi massacre ‘No evidence’ Australia’s Bondi gunmen trained in the Philippines: Official “We would welcome the opportunity to host and train senior Australian police officers and security personnel in Israel, sharing our expertise and best practices in countering terrorism and antisemitism.” This comes amid growing public scrutiny over the handling of the Bondi attack and broader concerns around antisemitism and Islamophobia in Australia. The Israeli offer has sparked criticism. Writing on social media, handala.bds said: “Might as well rollout the red carpet for Mossad [Israeli secret service]”. Juju_b.22 asked about the Israeli training offer: “To commit genoc1de?” Adam_h_y_k asked: “Train them in what? The Hannibal directive?” This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
On 5 December 2025, Netflix announced it would buy Warner Bros — including the film studio, TV studio, HBO, HBO Max, and the entire DC Comics universe — for $72 billion. The deal is expected to close, despite interest from Paramount, in the third quarter of 2026.​ Everyone is talking about higher subscription fees, tighter More The post Captain America for Sale: $72 Billion appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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decoding="async" width="841" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-841x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-841x630.png 841w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-680x509.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-768x575.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-1536x1151.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-500x375.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-600x450.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM.png 1810w" sizes="(max-width: 841px) 100vw, 841px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396012" class="size-medium wp-image-396012" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-680x509.png" alt="" width="680" height="509" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-680x509.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-841x630.png 841w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-768x575.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-1536x1151.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-500x375.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM-600x450.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-5.58.38-PM.png 1810w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by N I F T Y A R T On 5 December 2025, Netflix announced it would buy Warner Bros — including the film studio, TV studio, HBO, HBO Max, and the entire DC Comics universe — for $72 billion. The deal is expected to close, despite interest from Paramount, in the third quarter of 2026.​ Everyone is talking about higher subscription fees, tighter political censorship, and monopoly. All of that matters, of course, but none of it is the main story.​ Dream factory as political institution From its inception, Hollywood has been, above all, a dream factory; and, precisely in this capacity it has functioned as one of the key political institutions of the twentieth century, far more significant than most parliaments or universities. This factory’s production was less about stories as about desires, habits of dreaming in a certain pattern, images of the future, of love, of freedom, of what it might mean to “really live.”​ Unlike today’s platform feudalism, early Hollywood functioned as almost the opposite of an aristocracy. It was a club of shtetl kids, small traders, circus and circus people and carnies running what was then considered to be something halfway between a sideshow and a cheap thrill. Movie theaters were treated roughly the way circuses were: migrants congregated there, workers too; people with no political voice went to the movies, and, for the first time, they were invited to imagine themselves as the protagonists.​ It is no coincidence that one of the very few genuinely popular geniuses of silent comedy, the working-class south Londoner Charlie Chaplin, was eventually officially kicked out of the self‑styled “citadel of freedom” for his subversive beliefs. States tend to understand very quickly that a factory that produces laughter can also become a factory of dangerous ideas.​ Compared with Soviet Socialist Realism this paradox is almost insulting. Censors in Moscow or Warsaw could endlessly rewrite scripts and ban “ideologically harmful” films, but when it came to manufacturing actual desires they remained minor players. Politburos and Volkskammers produced pale, over-administered versions of the “aspirations of the masses,” while the masses themselves preferred to watch Hollywood action films and sugary melodramas across the globe. it was Hollywood that calibrated the world’s desires: a brand selling imagination as a commodity, drilling to perfection plots of success, heroism, and catastrophe.​ Unlike the Soviet system, Hollywood often operated closer to the realm of magic and rarely openly impose ideology. It created procedural rituals by which human biographies were rewritten into genre formats: I’m not just living. I’m in the third act of my biopic. Hence the peculiar power of even the most formulaic teen drama: it offers a script for turning pain, awkwardness, and excessive sensitivity into a story, thus making that pain bearable.​ News of Hollywood’s impending demise therefore sounds to many of us more alarming than chatter about stock market crashes. A market crash is just a reshuffling of numbers in an abstract system; a year later, the indices maybe rising again, as it is a controlled game. The collapse of an institution that, for decades, offered the planet a coherent vision of the future and a participatory dramatization of the relationship between “desire – technology – progress” comes as a blow to the very capacity to imagine a radically different world. The technology of producing dreams may have served Western empire more reliably than aircraft carriers and missile silos.​ What Netflix is buying: total bureaucratization Netflix, a company that started in 1997 by mailing DVDs to subscribers, now owns one of the most iconic film studios in cinema history. It controls a century of Warner Brothers films — from Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz to late‑model blockbusters, to the comic franchises Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the entire DC superhero universe. It owns the Harry Potter franchise. It owns the prestige back catalog of HBO too: Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, The Wire.​ Warner is the same studio that once offered audiences worldwide theatrical heroes saving the world on a big screen, born from a time when movies were cultural events, not algorithmically optimized binge “content”. Its characters were more than simply entertainment; they embodied ideals, dreams, and the myth of American exceptionalism.​ Now, they have been rebadged as IP assets in a streaming portfolio, evaluated in terms of retention metrics and franchise‑development potential. Expect endless sequels to sequels. Captain America 502, Part 48, Subsection 4: The Codicil War.​ How we arrived here follows a pattern. Like universities and NGOs, Hollywood was long ago pulled into a regime of totalized bureaucratization: the shift from production to finance, from experiment to compliance. In such a system the only truly rational strategy is to make pre‑tested “sequels” and “threequels” for predictable returns, to hire actors who are easy to insure and easier to replace, and to minimize any inconvenient imaginings that cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet.​ Just as late‑Soviet nomenklatura ran cultural output through directives from above, late‑capitalist studios run the imagination itself through budgets and quarterly reports. The only fundamental difference is the letterhead: one bureaucracy used Central Committee forms, the other uses investor slide decks.​ In this respect Hollywood’s downfall does indeed resemble the death of the late-stage USSR. All decisions about what counts as “art” are made by people personally terrified of risk; the outcome is almost guaranteed: endless continuations, familiar, safe faces on screen, and the quiet extinction of surprise. Soviet officials at least openly called themselves censors. Today the flattening is attributed to disembodied “market analytics”.​ An accidental herald of multipolarity Before getting to the central irony, it is worth noting how Netflix, quite unintentionally, became a herald of a multipolar world.​ The streaming format — liberated from theatrical “windows” and rigid broadcast schedules — created a space for the strange and unexpected. Netflix started life as a niche service with a simple promise: watch what you want, when you want.​ That niche positioning blew open doors that the old studio system held firmly shut. Suddenly, national cinemas — films and series rooted in specific languages, histories, and cultural traditions, long confined to their domestic markets and festival circuits — found global audiences. La Casa de Papel from Spain became a worldwide phenomenon. Lupinfrom France charmed viewers across continents. Dark from Germany acquired a dedicated cult. Indian films such as RRR and a wave of Korean cinema reached viewers who would never have encountered them via traditional distribution.​ The centralized, Anglophone Hollywood empire built the infrastructure for its own obsolescence. Netflix’s “watch what you want” model turned out to be ahead of the curve not only in terms consumer choice, but for the geopolitical shift away from American cultural hegemony. When people are allowed to choose freely, they do not always choose American stories. Often, they choose stories that dismantle American mythology.​ Squid Game and the magic circle of debt Which leads us to Squid Game. The 2021 Korean series became the most-watched show in Netflix’s history. Hundreds of millions watched desperate, indebted people forced to play children’s games to the death for the amusement of bored billionaire spectators placing bets on who would survive.​ With Squid Game, director Hwang Dong‑hyuk delivered a brutal critique of late capitalism. The series metaphorizes how a neoliberal economy traps people in unpayable debts, and how the promise of meritocracy masks a rigged game, as well as how the rich turn human suffering into spectacle. The show attacks the “American dream” narrative from the vantage point of South Korea, which had embraced neoliberal reforms after its 1997 IMF crisis.​ The structural background of the series is familiar. In late capitalism almost all money is someone’s future income, pre‑captured as debt. “Freedom” is defined by the degree to which one is allowed to own a slice of one’s own future exploitation. In that sense Squid Game is not really an allegory; it’s merely a narrativization of a world where people run in circles servicing interest payments while the rules are changed behind their backs.​ Netflix’s role is not simply to commodify criticism of itself, however. The platform ultimately turns the scenario into a recurring ritual. Viewers recognize their own lives in the games of debt all while validating the rent-seeking process, by maintaining their Netflix subscriptions — one more tiny tithe into the wider system.​ This fits neatly into the neo‑feudal picture Yanis Varoufakis sketches: digital platforms as new Lords of the Manor, skimming profits from other people’s labor, imagination, and reliance on platforms based on intellectual property. Netflix, like Amazon, no longer “produces” in the sense of the industrial economy. It simply builds fences around existing flows of creativity and attention, and converts these into private fiefdoms.​​ An immigrant club of fairground impresarios once made movies for workers and fellow migrants; that ecosystem has hardened into a digital manor house demanding rents on imagination itself. Critique of this circumstance has turned out to be more marketable than propaganda — and it comes from outside the American cultural core, proving that the multipolar world Netflix enabled is ready to tell very different stories.​ Now Netflix is buying the studio that created the Superman franchise, the supreme embodiment of American exceptionalism and heroic idealism. The company whose signature cultural product demolished the American dream now holds the primary franchise that existed to celebrate it.​​ Genre shift: from superheroes to debtors Old Hollywood did not die solely from monopolistic mergers — though Marx would have reminded us that monopoly is the soul and natural endpoint of capitalism. In this case, monopoly plus political censorship (far from unknown in Hollywood) became the precondition for a change of genre.​ The epic universalism of the superhero — Captain America saves the world, Superman defends truth, justice, and the American way — has shattered into a kaleidoscope of local story‑streams. Streaming then ruthlessly separated the “mainstream” from everything else.​ Netflix’s acquisition strategy makes this rupture obvious: it buys mainstream-branded content, evergreen retro‑American franchises such as Captain America and exhausted IPs that have had their souls bled out through repetition. Managers plan to monetize these dried husks, squeezing out sequel after sequel.​​ Meanwhile, the real creative energy — the stories that actually seize the global imagination — comes from elsewhere. From Korean dramas about the violence of capitalism, from Spanish heists, from German time‑travel puzzles, and beyond. The universal superhero who saves everyone has been replaced by specific stories from specific places that somehow resonate universally because they speak honestly about power, suffering, and survival.​ Squid Game, therefore, is not just Netflix’s biggest hit; it is an obituary, and not only for Netflix’s own business model (which involves selling critique while embodying that which is being critiqued). It is also an obituary for Captain America, and for the United States.​ The end of a regime of imagination One epochal systemic shift already took place in the 1970s: investment and technological imagination were consciously redirected from material space to informational space. Instead of flying cars and Mars bases we got interfaces, corporate reports, access codes, and an endless stream of series designed to persuade us we already live in the age of unprecedented technological wonder.​ The “death of Hollywood” is the formal acknowledgment that the dream factory is no longer a strategic sector. This is more significant than any crash in share prices, because it is not just another loop in the capital cycle; it signals a shift in the regime of the imagination. Where there was once a centralized machinery for generating stories, there remains a vast bureaucratic apparatus for managing data, credit, and security. The future ceases to be a stage to step onto and becomes a corridor where the only action available is filling out forms and awaiting algorithmic verdicts.​ The next step in the process is already under way: now, even centralized dream production becomes superfluous. It is more profitable to keep people in a state of fractured attention, perpetually oscillating between short clips, workplace interfaces, and debt obligations.​ Squid Game is not just Netflix’s biggest hit; it is an obituary for a specific vision of America—the hero who rescues the world, the nation that spreads freedom. But that vision was already dying long before a Korean series replaced it on the balance sheet. The dream factory had stopped producing dreams decades earlier. Auctioning off the props The figures tell the story: $72 billion in stock consideration, $82.7 billion in enterprise value, regulatory approvals pending, unions protesting, movie theater owners horrified. Paramount reportedly floated a $108 billion rival bid. Comcast also tried to get in. Netflix won.​ The underlying story is simpler. The most successful critique of capitalism in popular culture has come from within the machine. Netflix demonstrated that you can sell people explanations of their own exploitation, and they will pay for the privilege on a monthly basis.​ So perhaps we are not at a funeral so much as at a prop auction after an overlong show. The question is who will drag these costumes offstage, and for what future performance. A larger question remains, however: Is there any collective capacity left to imagine something that is not a spectacle at all, but something altogether different? The post Captain America for Sale: $72 Billion appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nika Dubrovsky.
Roaming Charges: Preliminary Notes on a Kidnapping
The cocksure boast that the US will "run" Venezuela appears to be another Trumpian fantasy. It’s impossible to “run a country,” if you don’t have control of it, which the US doesn’t by any measure. The Maduro government remains in place and defiant, even with Maduro renditioned to New York City. Indeed, the attack appears to have only strengthened the resolve of the Venezuelan people, instead of inspiring the chimerical uprising Rubio led Trump to expect, much as Rumsfeld and Cheney deceived Bush into believing about Iraq. More The post Roaming Charges: Preliminary Notes on a Kidnapping appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-768x1008.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-500x656.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-600x787.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="994" height="1304" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png 994w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-680x892.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-480x630.png 480w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-768x1008.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-500x656.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-600x787.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="994" height="1304" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png 994w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-680x892.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-480x630.png 480w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-768x1008.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-500x656.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-600x787.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="994" height="1304" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png 994w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-680x892.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-480x630.png 480w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-768x1008.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-500x656.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-600x787.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-480x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-480x630.png 480w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-680x892.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-768x1008.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-500x656.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-600x787.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png 994w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /> The dominant culture of the world teaches us that The Other is a threat, that our fellow human beings are a danger. We will all continue to be exiles in one form or another as long as we continue to accept the paradigm that the world is a racetrack or a battlefield. – Eduardo Galeano <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395950" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-680x892.png" alt="" width="680" height="892" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-680x892.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-480x630.png 480w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-768x1008.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-500x656.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman-600x787.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/donroeman.png 994w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + You’ve come a long way, MAGA babies… + There’s no plausible interpretation of the US Constitution or federal and international law that would legitimize Trump’s lethal attacks on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president. Trump acted without a UN Resolution. He acted without Congressional authorization. Venezuela didn’t pose a military threat to the US or the US forces that had mobilized against Venezuela in the Caribbean. An indictment in a US court is not a legal basis for a military invasion. This was an unprovoked aggression that resulted in civilian deaths. Multiple murders, in other words. + Trump on Venezuela: “We’re there now, but we’re going to stay until such time as the pop — proper transition can take place. So we’re gonna stay until such time as — we’re gonna run it essentially.” Apparently, Marco Rubio will be the new Juan Guaidó of Venezuela, which must come as a shock to Nobel Prize winner, María Corina Machado, who thought she was in line to become the new Juan Gauidó of Venezuela. After all, she gave her rather dubious Nobel Prize to Trump, only to have him say she “didn’t have the respect” to govern. Ah, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless despot… + Fox News: “What do you think is next for the Venezuelan people now that you have removed Maduro?” Trump: “We can’t take a chance of letting someone run it and just take over where he left off. So we’re making that decision now. We’ll be involved in it very much.” + The cocksure boast that the US will “run” Venezuela appears to be another Trumpian fantasy. It’s impossible to “run a country,” if you don’t have control of it, which the US doesn’t by any measure. The Maduro government remains in place and defiant, even with Maduro renditioned to New York City. Indeed, the attack appears to have only strengthened the resolve of the Venezuelan people, instead of inspiring the chimerical uprising Rubio led Trump to expect, much as Rumsfeld and Cheney deceived Bush into believing about Iraq. + Despite Trump’s claim that Delcy Rodríguez was “cooperative,” Venezuela’s vice-president, who was sworn in as the nation’s leader after Maduro was renditioned to the US, vigorously denied that she planned to help the U.S. government run the country. Instead, she asserted her own power as acting president and defiantly demonstrated the continuity of the Bolivaran Revolutionary government in the wake of the US attacks. + Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello: “Here, the unity of the revolutionary force is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations. We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed — it was revealed that they only want our oil.” + Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López forcefully rejected Trump and Rubio’s claim that Venezuela will be run by the US and demanded the return of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. “Our sovereignty has been violated and breached. The [Venezuelan military] will guarantee the governability of the country … [and will] continue to employ all its available capabilities for military defense, the maintenance of internal order, and the preservation of peace.” + Trump responded to Rodríguez’s defiant stance with his usual boorish bombast when being confronted by a woman by threatening her with a fate worse than Maduro’s: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she’s going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” + According to Semafor, plans for the secret U.S. raid to bomb Caracas and kidnap Maduro and his wife were leaked to the Washington Post and New York Times before it happened, but both papers decided not to publish to protect U.S. troops. Thus, in true Hegsethian style, the elite press knew about the operation before Congress was briefed. + Leaked the plans for an illegal attack and kidnapping, both the Washington Post and New York Times chose not to publish in order to protect the lives of the attackers, thus consigning several dozen Venezuelans to their deaths. + It’s obvious that Congress really doesn’t want the power to “declare” war, since it’s refused to do so since 1942 and hasn’t defended its exclusive right when presidents of both parties have seized it as their own–not surprising given how the military actions since the defeat of Germany (largely by the Red Army) and Japan have turned out for the US. (By the way, the first draft of the Constitution said “make” war, but Madison changed it to “declare” in order to give the Executive the ability to defend the US from “sudden attacks.”) + Sam Husseini: The United Nations Charter makes it a crime to threaten war and a crime to wage war except in defense or by U.N. authorization, neither of which is the case here, and neither of which has even been alleged here. The alleged shortcomings of a government provide no legal basis for a foreign government to attempt to overthrow it. The illegal drug trade, even where real, provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder. U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims about the illegal drug trade regarding both Venezuela and over 100 people thus far killed in boats with U.S. missiles from drones are without evidence and widely considered not even plausible. + David J. Bier, Cato: “We desperately need to differentiate what is legal with what an administration can get away with because we’ve lost the mechanisms and will to restrain a lawless presidency.” + Trump just failed another cognitive test for American history: “All the way back, it dated to the Monroe Doctrine. And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal. But we’ve superseded it by a lot. By a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Document. I don’t know. It’s the Monroe Doctrine. We sort of forgot about it.” + In few wars has the oil motive been made this explicit…Trump: “As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies – the biggest anywhere in the world – go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.” + The first crime (regime change) leads directly to the second (looting Venezuela’s oil)…”The money coming out of the ground is very substantial.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395910" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n-680x332.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="332" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n-680x332.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n-1200x586.jpg 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n-768x375.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n-500x244.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n-600x293.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608775582_10164806241471518_1475312378325087253_n.jpg 1282w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Trump claims he’ll tap Venezuela’s oil reserves to fund the US occupation of the country. But the CIA and Delta Force have much more experience in funding operations out of cocaine trafficking. Maybe they should try that… + Eva Golinger: “A U.S. indictment does not give legal authority to invade another country and capture the individual indicted. No matter the spin and disdain for Maduro, it was still an illegal operation. There was no imminent threat from Maduro against the US that would justify this action.” + Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro built on a precedent set by Obama’s indictment in 2011: “The Trump Justice Department unsealed a new superseding indictment in a case first filed in 2011 against Venezuelan Maduro and senior members of his government, accusing them of running a decades-long narco-terrorism operation that allegedly turned the Venezuelan state into a hub for cocaine trafficking to the United States. Prosecutors say Maduro, top officials, and family members coordinated with the FARC, ELN, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, and Tren de Aragua to move hundreds of tons of cocaine using Venezuelan ports, airports, diplomatic cover, and military protection—reaping massive bribes and drug profits in return.” + The superseding indictment against Maduro makes no reference to fentanyl or stolen oil, the justifications Trump has repeatedly used for drone strikes on alleged “drug boats” and the seizure of Venezuelan tankers. + Rep. Thomas Massie: “If this action were constitutionally sound, the Attorney General wouldn’t be tweeting that they’ve arrested the President of a sovereign country and his wife for possessing guns in violation of a 1934 U.S. firearm law.” + How many “law enforcement” operations involve 150 aircraft, including F-22s, F-35s, F-18s, E-18s, E-2s, and B-1 bombers, to capture two alleged drug traffickers? + Kenneth Roth: “As Trump invades Venezuela, ostensibly because Maduro has been charged with drug trafficking, it’s worth remembering that he recently pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, who ran a sprawling drug operation when he was president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022.” + If Trump can kidnap Maduro for an alleged violation of US law, China should be able to kidnap Trump for alleged violations of Chinese law, such as the arming of Taiwan. + Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro and his wife fatally undermines his argument that the ICC’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant are unenforceable. + Tulsi Gabbard is one of the biggest political frauds in American history. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395972" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gabbardtweet-680x263.png" alt="" width="680" height="263" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gabbardtweet-680x263.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gabbardtweet-768x297.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gabbardtweet-500x193.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gabbardtweet-600x232.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gabbardtweet.png 1030w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Mayor Petebot is Tulsi Gabbard in reverse. You’ll get burned if you trust either of them. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395905" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-680x355.png" alt="" width="680" height="355" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-680x355.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-1200x626.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-768x401.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-1536x801.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-2048x1068.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-500x261.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.01-PM-600x313.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395906" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-680x374.png" alt="" width="680" height="374" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-680x374.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-1145x630.png 1145w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-768x422.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-1536x845.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-2048x1127.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-500x275.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-3.23.22-PM-600x330.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Venezuela: “I called the president and spoke with him directly to register my opposition to this act.” + We were treated to the usual impotent slop from the office of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: The Secretary-General is deeply alarmed by the recent escalation in Venezuela, culminating with today’s United States military action in the country, which has potential worrying implications for the region. Independently of the situation in Venezuela, these developments constitute a dangerous precedent. The Secretary-General continues to emphasize the importance of full respect – by all – of international law, including the UN Charter. He’s deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected. + International law has almost always only been enforced against the losers in conflicts with Imperial powers…Indeed, international law has often been used as a justification for the imperial powers (usually the US) to violate it. + All it takes to turn one of those Cheney Democrats into a Trump loyalist is a good-old regime change war… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395911" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/606009051_10164806213581518_297399950005648924_n-680x335.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="335" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/606009051_10164806213581518_297399950005648924_n-680x335.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/606009051_10164806213581518_297399950005648924_n-768x379.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/606009051_10164806213581518_297399950005648924_n-500x247.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/606009051_10164806213581518_297399950005648924_n-600x296.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/606009051_10164806213581518_297399950005648924_n.jpg 1038w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Elon Musk, Feb 2025: “America should mind its own business rather than push for regime change all over the place.” Elon Musk, Jan 2026: “Congratulations, President Trump! This is a win for the world and a clear message to evil dictators everywhere.” + Still buzzing with post-bombing hubris, Trump threatened Mexico: “The cartels are running Mexico. She’s not running Mexico. We could be politically correct and be nice and say, ‘Oh, yes, she is.’ No no. She’s very frightened of the cartels. They’re running Mexico. And I’ve asked her number times, ‘Would you like us to take out the cartels?’ … something is gonna have to be done with Mexico.” A day later, Trump told The Atlantic that he was considering seizing Greenland by force: “We need to do Greenland, absolutely,” claiming absurdly that it is “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.” + During Trump’s first term, the Pentagon ran a war game to test his desire to overthrow Maduro. The result: Venezuela eventually descended into Libya-like chaos and violence. + Trump’s accusations are almost always confessions of what he would do or has done… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395974" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n-680x606.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="606" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n-680x606.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n-707x630.jpg 707w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n-768x684.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n-500x445.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n-600x534.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/607960146_10164808151951518_3267543763110321606_n.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + Graham Platner: “One month ago, the Senate voted on a resolution to block Trump from invading Venezuela. Susan Collins voted NO and it failed 49-51. From Iraq to Venezuela, you can count on Susan Collins to enable illegal foreign wars.” + Trump wanted his MAGA shock troops to hang Mike Pence, but overthrow Maduro and all is forgiven… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395975" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n-680x833.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="833" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n-680x833.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n-514x630.jpg 514w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n-768x941.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n-500x613.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n-600x735.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/605554087_10164806327676518_9136119174390705792_n.jpg 1030w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> The people of Venezuela have mainly “suffered” under the suffocating grip of US sanctions, but even with these cruel constraints, the Venezuelan economy continues to outperform many in the region. + According to the NYT, the real problem isn’t Maduro or Venezuela but…wait for it…CUBA! <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395998" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608478322_10164806412986518_7447534474024340515_n-680x239.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="239" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608478322_10164806412986518_7447534474024340515_n-680x239.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608478322_10164806412986518_7447534474024340515_n-768x270.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608478322_10164806412986518_7447534474024340515_n-500x176.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608478322_10164806412986518_7447534474024340515_n-600x211.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/608478322_10164806412986518_7447534474024340515_n.jpg 1012w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + But even the New York Times concedes that Trump’s motive for the overthrow of Maduro was bogus: “In reality, Venezuela is not a major source of drugs in the United States. The country does not produce fentanyl and the cocaine that passes through Venezuela is grown and produced in Colombia, and then moves on to Europe.” + Chuck Schumer: “The administration has assured me three separate times that it was not pursuing regime change or taking military action in Venezuela.” How many times has the credulous Schumer had the wool pulled over his eyes? + The Supreme Court ruled that Trump couldn’t be prosecuted even out of office for his crimes. Typically, Trump doesn’t apply the standard that saved his ass to other sovereign leaders. + The vultures are already circling: ” About 20 business leaders, including those from some of the top hedge funds and asset managers, are preparing to go on a March trip to Venezuela to look at investment opportunities there, including in energy and infrastructure.” + Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Emmanuel Macron’s shameful endorsement of Trump’s regime change operations in Venezuela: “Macron’s stance is not the voice of France. He shames us. He abandons international law. Dark day for our country.” + Unlike the timid Europeans, who are fearful that Trump will abandon Ukraine and leave the war with Russia to them, the African Union condemned the US attack on Venezuela… The African Union is following with grave concern the recent developments in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, including reports of the kidnapping of the President of the Republic, Mr. Nicolás Maduro, as well as military attacks against Venezuelan institutions. The African Union reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the fundamental principles of international law, particularly the respect for the sovereignty of States, their territorial integrity, and the right of peoples to self-determination, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The African Union underscores the importance of dialogue, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and respect for constitutional and institutional frameworks, in a spirit of good neighborliness, cooperation, and peaceful coexistence among nations. The African Union insists that the complex internal challenges facing Venezuela can only be addressed sustainably through an inclusive political dialogue among Venezuelans themselves. + “I will fight like a soldier for a free Venezuela, against all forms of imperialism and against those who want to take away our flag, the most sacred thing we have. Long live Chávez. Long live Maduro. Long live the revolution.” So saideth, the hand of God, Diego Maradona… + The fact that the biggest drug pushers on the planet for several decades, whose product killed 10s of thousands every year, never ended up having their mansions bombed or carted off in chains, tells you all you really need to know about the bipartisan hypocrisies of the alleged war on drugs. I refer to the Sacklers, of course. The post Roaming Charges: Preliminary Notes on a Kidnapping appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.
“We’re Going to Run the Country:” Preparing an Illegal Occupation in Venezuela
I listened to the January 3 press conference with a knot in my stomach. As a Venezuelan American with family, memories, and a living connection to the country being spoken about as if it were a possession, what I heard was very clear. And that clarity was chilling. More The post “We’re Going to Run the Country:” Preparing an Illegal Occupation in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-768x564.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 910px) 100vw, 910px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="910" height="668" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM.png 910w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-858x630.png 858w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-768x564.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 910px) 100vw, 910px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="910" height="668" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM.png 910w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-858x630.png 858w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-768x564.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 910px) 100vw, 910px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="858" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-858x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-858x630.png 858w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-768x564.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-600x440.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM.png 910w" sizes="(max-width: 858px) 100vw, 858px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395967" class="wp-image-395967 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-680x499.png" alt="" width="680" height="499" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-858x630.png 858w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-768x564.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM-600x440.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-04-at-10.11.28-AM.png 910w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> A kidnapped Maduro, photo shared on X. I listened to the January 3 press conference with a knot in my stomach. As a Venezuelan American with family, memories, and a living connection to the country being spoken about as if it were a possession, what I heard was very clear. And that clarity was chilling. The president said, plainly, that the United States would “run the country” until a transition it deems “safe” and “judicious.” He spoke about capturing Venezuela’s head of state, about transporting him on a U.S. military vessel, about administering Venezuela temporarily, and about bringing in U.S. oil companies to rebuild the industry. He dismissed concerns about international reaction with a phrase that should alarm everyone: “They understand this is our hemisphere.” For Venezuelans, those words echo a long, painful history. Let’s be clear about the claims made. The president is asserting that the U.S. can detain a sitting foreign president and his spouse under U.S. criminal law, that the U.S. can administer another sovereign country without an international mandate. That Venezuela’s political future can be decided from Washington. That control over oil and “rebuilding” is a legitimate byproduct of intervention. That all of this can happen without congressional authorization and without evidence of imminent threat. We have heard this language before. In Iraq, the United States promised a limited intervention and a temporary administration, only to impose years of occupation, seize control of critical infrastructure, and leave behind devastation and instability. What was framed as stewardship became domination. Venezuela is now being spoken about in disturbingly similar terms. “Temporary Administration” ended up being a permanent disaster. Under international law, nothing described in that press conference is legal. The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against another state and bars interference in a nation’s political independence. Sanctions designed to coerce political outcomes and cause civilian suffering amount to collective punishment. Declaring the right to “run” another country is the language of occupation, regardless of how many times the word is avoided. Under U.S. law, the claims are just as disturbing. War powers belong to Congress. There has been no authorization, no declaration, no lawful process that allows an executive to seize a foreign head of state or administer a country. Calling this “law enforcement” does not make it so. Venezuela poses no threat to the United States. It has not attacked the U.S. and has issued no threat that could justify the use of force under U.S. or international law. There is no lawful basis, domestic or international, for what is being asserted. But beyond law and precedent lies the most important reality: the cost of this aggression is paid by ordinary people in Venezuela. War, sanctions, and military escalation do not fall evenly. They fall hardest on women, children, the elderly, and the poor. They mean shortages of medicine and food, disrupted healthcare systems, rising maternal and infant mortality, and the daily stress of survival in a country forced to live under siege. They also mean preventable deaths, people who die not because of natural disaster or inevitability, but because access to care, electricity, transport, or medicine has been deliberately obstructed. Every escalation compounds existing harm and increases the likelihood of loss of life, civilian deaths that will be written off as collateral, even though they were foreseeable and avoidable. What makes this even more dangerous is the assumption underlying it all: that Venezuelans will remain passive, compliant, and submissive in the face of humiliation and force. That assumption is wrong. And when it collapses, as it inevitably will, the cost will be measured in unnecessary bloodshed. This is what is erased when a country is discussed as a “transition” or an “administration problem.” Human beings disappear. Lives are reduced to acceptable losses. And the violence that follows is framed as unfortunate rather than the predictable outcome of arrogance and coercion. To hear a U.S. president talk about a country as something to be managed, stabilized, and handed over once it behaves properly, it hurts. It humiliates. And it enrages. And yes, Venezuela is not politically unified. It isn’t. It never has been. There are deep divisions, about the government, about the economy, about leadership, about the future. There are people who identify as Chavista, people who are fiercely anti-Chavista, people who are exhausted and disengaged, and yes, there are some who are celebrating what they believe might finally bring change. But political division does not invite invasion. Latin America has seen this logic before. In Chile, internal political division was used to justify U.S. intervention, framed as a response to “ungovernability,” instability, and threats to regional order, ending not in democracy, but in dictatorship, repression, and decades of trauma. In fact, many Venezuelans who oppose the government still reject this moment outright. They understand that bombs, sanctions, and “transitions” imposed from abroad do not bring democracy, they destroy the conditions that make it possible. This moment demands political maturity, not purity tests. You can oppose Maduro and still oppose U.S. aggression. You can want change and still reject foreign control. You can be angry, desperate, or hopeful, and still say no to being governed by another country. Venezuela is a country where communal councils, worker organizations, neighborhood collectives, and social movements have been forged under pressure. Political education didn’t come from think tanks; it came from survival. Right now, Venezuelans are not hiding. They are closing ranks because they recognize the pattern. They know what it means when foreign leaders start talking about “transitions” and “temporary control.” They know what usually follows. And they are responding the way they always have: by turning fear into collective action. This press conference wasn’t just about Venezuela. It was about whether empire can say the quiet part out loud again, whether it can openly claim the right to govern other nations and expect the world to shrug. If this stands, the lesson is brutal and undeniable: sovereignty is conditional, resources are there to be taken by the U.S., and democracy exists only by imperial consent. As a Venezuelan American, I refuse that lesson. I refuse the idea that my tax dollars fund the humiliation of my homeland. I refuse the lie that war and coercion are acts of “care” for the Venezuelan people. And I refuse to stay silent while a country I love is spoken about as raw material for U.S. interests, not a society of human beings deserving respect. Venezuela’s future is not for U.S. officials, corporate boards, or any president who believes the hemisphere is his to command. It belongs to Venezuelans. The post “We’re Going to Run the Country:” Preparing an Illegal Occupation in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michelle Ellner.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (an agency that is subject to drastic cuts in Trump’s FY2026 budget) from October 2024 to September 2025 temperatures across the entire Arctic region were the hottest in 125 years of modern record keeping, As of year-end, the status of the Arctic and Greenland present the world More The post The Arctic–Greenland–Florida Conga appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash.jpg 7952w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-680x454.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-500x334.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 7952px) 100vw, 7952px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="7952" height="5304" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash.jpg 7952w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-680x454.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-500x334.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 7952px) 100vw, 7952px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-945x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-680x454.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-500x334.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395779" class="wp-image-395779 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-680x454.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="454" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-680x454.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-500x334.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-7s_8fTAxd84-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Annie Spratt. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (an agency that is subject to drastic cuts in Trump’s FY2026 budget) from October 2024 to September 2025 temperatures across the entire Arctic region were the hottest in 125 years of modern record keeping, As of year-end, the status of the Arctic and Greenland present the world with a nerve-racking knuckle-biting dilemma, as apparently, according to climate scientists, they’re coming apart at the seams. Meanwhile, the United States issues policy-after-policy guaranteed to make it much, much worse. Will residents in states like Florida protest policies that promote fossil fuel usage over renewables, as it’s starting to look like higher sea levels on the distant horizon. In sharp contrast to scientific reports about threats of climate change, a recent U.S. Department of Energy report A Critical Review, d/d July 23, 2025 downplays these concerns about climate change, global warming, rising sea levels, and excessive greenhouse emissions such as CO2.. This has prompted sharp criticism by numerous non-governmental sources, as explained further herein. Bill McGuire professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London is one of the most outspoken scientists in the field, not afraid to “tell it like it is.” His recent comments about the Arctic and Greenland are chilling. Bill McGuire X posting (Dec. 16, 2025): “The huge polar amplification of heating continues Tipping of the Greenland Ice Sheet all but certain now, locking-in an eventual ~7m rise Say goodbye to much of Florida, and coastal towns and cities across the planet.” Dr. McGuire is likely responding to an article in The Guardian, Arctic Endured Year of Record Heat as Climate Scientists Warn of ‘Winter Being Redefined’ d/d Dec. 16, 2025. According to one interview: “We are seeing cascading impacts from a warming Arctic,’ said Zack Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central. ‘Coastal cities aren’t ready for the rising sea levels; we have completely changed the fisheries in the Arctic which leads to rising food bills for sea food. We can point to the Arctic as a faraway place but the changes there affect the rest of the world.” Dr. Labe says “we are seeing cascading impacts…” something that innocent bystanders do not want to see happening in the rugged Arctic. Cascading impacts are chain reactions where the starting event triggers a series of follow-up events, which are amplified to a degree worse than the starting event. As it happens, “cascading impacts” are the worst possible news out of the Arctic for obvious reasons. For starters, it’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Moreover, when the Arctic region is massively diminished by global warming, it indirectly and in some cases directly causes adverse whacko weather systems across the Northern Hemisphere, or put another way, out-of-the-ordinary severe weather systems which have been slamming the hemisphere these past few years. Furthermore, of utmost concern, the Arctic contains oodles of trapped frozen methane CH4 that, once unfrozen and released into the atmosphere, powers up global warming like ‘there’s no tomorrow’ and it is much more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than is CO2. Plus, Greenland is a big-time concern for residents of Florida because it’s one of the world’s largest blocks of ice in direct line of fire of Arctic warming amplification. Thus, the world’s major coastal megacities, like NYC, and major low-lying coastal states, like Florida, are indirectly exposed as Arctic warming amplification quickens the meltdown of Greenland. Hello rising sea levels! The last thing residents of Florida and the Outer Banks want to hear is “cascading impacts in the Arctic.” Well, according to Dr. Labe, it’s happening! A recent study from the University of Zurich published in ScienceDaily is cause for additional concern: Here’s the headline: Massive Hidden Waves are Rapidly Melting Greenland’s Glaciers: “Calving icebergs unleash hidden wave forces that supercharge Greenland’s melt and push the ice sheet closer to collapse… Our entire Earth system depends, at least in part, on these ice sheets. It’s a fragile system that could collapse if temperatures rise too high,’ warns Dominik Gräff.” MIT Climate Portal: “Despite the enormous stakes for the future of humanity, it remains frustratingly difficult to know how much sea level rise is in store for us. All we know for sure is that taking strong and immediate action to control our greenhouse gas emissions gives us the best chance to avoid meters of sea level rise.” MIT acknowledges one of the biggest mysteries in climate science which is the levels and timing of sea level rise because of global warming. Nobody really knows for sure, and this is what makes it so necessary to pay attention to early warning signs so coastal communities can prepare for what might hit them. Once it’s too high too quickly, it’s too late to do much other than move to higher ground. Unfortunately, the failure of almost all of the voluntary commitments made at the Paris 2015 climate accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions like CO2 by 2030 has been a farce and a fatal weakness for the world as fossil fuel usage continues unabated. Even worse yet, the United States has dropped out of the Paris agreement altogether, becoming the world’s biggest promoter of oil and gas and coal and greenhouse gases like CO2. This has given several other right-leaning countries license to ease up or abandon altogether mitigation policies. For example: “Sweden, an Early Climate Leader, Is Retreating from Its Environmental Commitments, Part of an EU Trend,” Inside Climate News, August 3, 2025. DOE Report on Climate Change– No Sweat, No Worries, Plants Love It The Department of Energy July 150-pg report supports the administration’s fossil fuel policies by downplaying concerns. For example: “U.S. tide gauge measurements reveal no obvious acceleration beyond the historical average rate of sea level rise,” pg 85) However, “New research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution finds sea level rise is accelerating across the contiguous United States, contradicting a federal report from July that downplayed the risks from climate change.” (New Study Finds Sea Level Rise is Speeding Up, Contradicting Federal Report, WBUR – Boston NPR, December 19, 2025) When the DOE report was released, more than 85 scientists issued a rebuttal that called many of the assertions “misleading or fundamentally incorrect.” To wit: “Our review reveals that the DOE report’s key assertions—including claims of no trends in extreme weather and the supposed broad benefits of carbon dioxide—are either misleading or fundamentally incorrect. The authors reached these flawed conclusions through selective filtering of evidence (‘cherry picking’), overemphasis of uncertainties, misquoting peer-reviewed research, and a general dismissal of the vast majority of decades of peer-reviewed research.” Accordingly, Christopher Piecuch, a physical oceanographer at WHOI and author of the study, said the report from the U.S. Department of Energy released this summer referenced only a select few tidal gauge locations in its analysis, which may not properly represent nationwide sea level rise. The DOE report found “no obvious acceleration in sea level rise.” In contrast, Piecuch said his study included all available long-term records from U.S. tidal gauges, 70 in all. “You can’t really just look at a record here and a record there and expect to have representative results for the entire U.S.,” he said. “ There’s a very large disconnect between the data that they show and the conclusions that they draw.” Nearly one-half of Americans live in coastal counties. Sea level has a direct bearing on them, requiring adequate notice of changes to allow for either mitigation policies, plans for building sea walls, moving out of the area, etc., or conversely, taking no preventative measures if the DOE report is correct, “not to worry.” Which-will-it-be impacts over 130 million American households. In general, and almost universally, scientists believe aggressive mitigation measures are prudent. Andrew Kemp, a professor of earth and climate sciences at Tufts University who was not part of the research, called the new analysis robust and sound: “The Piecuch study is repeatable, supported by other evidence, and reflects the understanding of the overwhelming majority of sea-level scientists. It was written to address the DOE report that is not robust, lacks sound reasoning, is contradicted by an abundance of other evidence that was ignored, and represents fringe science.” Citizens depend upon the government for proper guidance. Hopefully, the DOE will issue a response to criticism by scientists that many of the report’s assertions are “misleading or fundamentally incorrect.” Citizens of the country need to know whether a major factcheck of the Trump DOE report is true: Factcheck: Trump’s Climate Report Includes More Than 100 False or Misleading Claims, Carbon Brief, August 15, 2025. If DOE cannot properly address 100 alleged false or misleading statements, the report should be officially censured and removed. The citizens of Florida deserve it! The post The Arctic–Greenland–Florida Conga appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Hunziker.
We’ve been hearing for years from back-stabbing opportunists of the far right that Brazil’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores/PT) will transform Brazil into another Venezuela. For better or worse, 19 years of PT governments have proven the absurdity of those words. Now that the Trump administration, hailed by some self-proclaimed geopolitical analysts as a lesser More The post Could Venezuela Happen in Brazil? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396014" class="size-medium wp-image-396014" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9211-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair We’ve been hearing for years from back-stabbing opportunists of the far right that Brazil’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores/PT) will transform Brazil into another Venezuela. For better or worse, 19 years of PT governments have proven the absurdity of those words. Now that the Trump administration, hailed by some self-proclaimed geopolitical analysts as a lesser evil alternative to Kamala Harris in 2024, has bombed our neighbor ,Venezuela, and kidnapped its President and 1st lady, it’s a good time to look at how events could play out that could transform Brazil into a similar target for US regime change. For those who think I may be exaggerating, let’s take a look at recent history. When Luis “Gege” Gonzaga da Silva, historic leader of the Central dos Movimentos Populares (People’s Movements Central/CMP), returned to Brazil after living for years in Venezuela, he spoke at a conference 9 days before the inauguration of Dilma Rousseff, correctly predicting there would be a coup in Brazil. “When I said this, various petit bourgeois intellectuals who were among us laughed at me,” he said in a 2017 interview for Brasil Wire. “’You are in Brazil,’ they said, ‘you are not back in Venezuela. Over there they could have a coup any minute, but here in Brazil we don’t have these kinds of things. We don’t have a political climate for that here in Brazil.’ And now, where are all these intellectuals providing an analysis of their mistakes? Because the left made a mistake in not making this analysis. They thought that once they won the election it was over. The bourgeoisie does not joke around.” It’s true that the Lula administration made significant advances in its relationship with the Trump administration in the second half of 2025. Make no mistake about it, however, the US wants ideological hegemony in the Western hemisphere. It wants our rare earth minerals and, especially, our petroleum, and the leading pre-candidate for the opposition, Flavio Bolsonaro, is already promising to privatize Petrobras. Meanwhile, in the long tradition of acting as useful idiots for empire, there is an entire flock of petit bourgeois radical leftists waiting in the wings to attempt to destroy any possible successor to Lula, by doing things like blaming the fiscal framework, the best compromise with Brazil’s right wing congress that the Lula administration could broker, as a Machiavellian plan by Fernando Haddad to neoliberalize the workers party from within. This is the 2026 equivalent of the PSOL and PSTU intellectuals who embraced Globo’s mensalão scandal and Lava Jato for their own opportunistic purposes and it plays directly into the international bourgeoisie’s hand. During the 1970s, Phillip Agee, a deep-cover CIA agent who had been stationed in Ecuador and Uruguay for over a decade, moved to Cuba and wrote a book explaining everything he knew about CIA operations in Latin America, called Inside the Company: The CIA Diaries. In it, he described a graduated scale of CIA intervention tactics which they prioritized according to descending level of desirability. The most desirable outcome was that an entreguista president would be elected naturally, with no intervention from the US government. The second most desirable strategy was to covertly support an entreguista candidate for the presidency through measures such as clandestine financing and support for psychological operations that included fabricated scandals and media coverage in the important US newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, which would echo into the bourgeois media outlets in the target country. One example of a probable scenario where this took place was the 2014 elections. In 2013, expanded state actors like Facebook and Twitter helped expand the free public transport protests into a full blown color revolution, with ample support from international and national media outlets like Globo and Folha, which suddenly gave editorial space to figures associated with electorally insignificant “radical left” parties to criticize the PT. In 2014, a reporter from the LA Times told a Brasil Wire editor, “there is an unwritten rule in the international correspondent community that Aecio Neves has to win this election.” According to Philip Agee, the next step down the CIA’s regime change priority list is to support a coup d’etat. This support is done both clandestinely and in the open through the work of the bourgeois media. One example of this is Lava Jato. As a handful of “radical left” national and international petit bourgeois intellectuals gloated with opportunistic delight, the US Department of Justice worked with a local public prosecution team and judge to wage a targeted anti-corruption war to politically annihilate the PT. The millions of job losses and judicially imposed bankruptcy of Brazil’s 5 largest civil engineering companies deeply exacerbated what had been a mild recession, setting the stage for Dilma Rousseff’s illegitimate impeachment in 2016. According to Agee, the final regime change solution supported by the CIA, if the coup attempts fail, is assassination of a president, as it did to Patrice Lumumba, financing a proxy war, as it did with Nicaragua during the 1980s, or full blown military invasion, as the US has done dozens of times in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past century. In 1989, former CIA director and President George Bush added a new twist to this formula, when he ordered the kidnapping of his old friend and alleged drinking partner, Panamanian President Manuel Noriega. We can see how this entire CIA regime change scale played out in the last 2 years in Venezuela. When the US estimated that Edmundo Gonzalez didn’t have the support needed to win a free and fair election, it began to meddle by deepening sanctions that hurt the Venezuelan people, and promising to lift them if he won the elections. The US routed millions of dollars into Venezuelan NGOs. They orchestrated disinformation campaigns across the political spectrum in mainstream media and in NED funded alternative “progressive” media outlets to damage the image of the Maduro administration. When all of that failed, on the day after the 2024 presidential elections, they supported a violent coup attempt in which dozens of police officers were killed and public schools, PSUV headquarters, community centers and mayors offices were firebombed across the country. After the Biden administration’s coup attempt failed, the Trump administration moved towards a final solution, copying Bush’s playbook from Panama. ‘But Venezuela is Venezuela and Brazil is Brazil,’ you might say. Let’s look around the continent. There was a right wing coup in Peru. The US has actively worked to influence recent elections in favor of far right candidates in Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras and Chile, and is threatening the governments of Mexico and Colombia. US elites like Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have been spreading anti-PT propaganda for 3 years. Even the New York Times ran 7 articles spreading the Bolsonaro/Musk/Greenwald false narrative of Brazil’s “authoritarian judiciary.” How could possible US intervention in Brazil play out according to Agee’s formula? The US could support a far right candidate overtly, through praise and threats from Trump, and covertly, through support for an impeachment drive against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, destabilization of Congress, amnesty for Jair Bolsonaro and his neofascist Generals, and financial support for so called “independent media” outlets financed by the US National Endowment for Democracy and its partners like Luminate, Open Society and the Ford Foundation through shell organizations like the International Fund for Public Interest Media to attack the Workers Party from the left. If Lula is reelected, the US could build on the work it did in 2026 to damage Lula’s reputation and attempt to orchestrate a coup, like the one it supported in 2016. If all else fails, given the way the Trump administration has been acting, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s historic animosity towards the PT, the possibility exists that, yes, the US could attempt to assassinate or kidnap a democratically elected President of Brazil. This first appeared on De-Linking Brazil. The post Could Venezuela Happen in Brazil? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Brian Mier.
Prominent Think Tank Joins Media in Endorsing Trump’s Foreign Policy
Donald Trump views armed dominance as the essential element of U.S. policy in the global arena. The New York Times and the Washington Post support his notions with their regular calls for greater military spending and nuclear modernization. Now it seems that the think tank community is joining the mainstream media in praising aspects of More The post Prominent Think Tank Joins Media in Endorsing Trump’s Foreign Policy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Donald Trump views armed dominance as the essential element of U.S. policy in the global arena. The New York Times and the Washington Post support his notions with their regular calls for greater military spending and nuclear modernization. Now it seems that the think tank community is joining the mainstream media in praising aspects of Trump’s dangerous national security agenda. The charter of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft claims to promote ideas that “move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war, toward military restraint and diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace.” The Institute was co-founded by Andrew Bacevich, known for denigrating the “forever wars” of the United States and the “new American militarism.” In a recent assessment, however, the Institute argues that many elements of Trump’s national security agenda “advance U.S. responsible statecraft.” Every aspect of this assessment is questionable. ***According to the Quincy Institute, “The new National Security Strategy (NSS) represents a significant shift away from the pursuit of primacy. Its formal rejection of global dominance marks a necessary break from the post-Cold War consensus that led to endless war and strategic overextension.” This is just not true. The trillion-dollar defense budget, which equals the spending of the rest of the global community; U.S. militarism in South America, the Persian Gulf, and West Africa; our complicity in Israeli war crimes and genocide; and support for right-wing political parties in East and West Europe point to problems and not problem solving for the United States. Trump’s NSS even refers to the European Union as a “bigger threat” than Russia or China! ***The Quincy Institute’s support for Trump’s “handling of the Ukraine war is perhaps its clearest expression of nascent strategic restraint. He deserves credit for reestablishing direct U.S.-Russia dialogue, launching a peace initiative and resisting significant pressure…to imposing secondary sanctions on Russian oil.” Trump deserves no credit. He came into office promising to end the war in 24 hours; he said last week that “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed;” and there has been no real discussion of the thorniest issues that separate the two sides. Trump has made it clear that he is willing to walk away from the issues that separate Russia and Ukraine. The Institute has never acknowledged that the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is one of the “root causes” of the war. ***Quincy cites the “breakthrough with Belarus,” marking improved bilateral relations as a total victory that “deserves high praise,” demonstrating that “Washington can be a pragmatic actor.” This aspect is particularly risible in view of Belarus’ status as a Russian puppet state that recently received a Russian nuclear-capable missile system in order to intimidate not only Ukraine but all of Europe. ***Finally, the Quincy Institute credits the Trump administration with orchestrating a “domestic realignment,” including a “significant ideological shift,” that finds “younger Republicans…increasingly skeptical of unconditional support for Israel.” Quincy assesses this move as “signaling a promising domestic realignment in favor of restraint.” This assessment would be more meaningful if Republicans actually voted against reckless military spending, unlimited military assistance to Israel, the illegal attacks on small craft in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the unjustified aerial bombing in Nigeria. What is missing from the media and think tank accounts of Trump’s disastrous year in managing the U.S. national security agenda is why the United States has never proclaimed a purpose for its vast global power that includes 700 military bases and facilities the world over. The idea of “America First” should mean that the United States must avoid unnecessary entanglements in the Old World and the Third World where so much blood and treasure has been lost. The United States simply does not require the global dominance that it pursues. The mainstream media have applauded the Trump administration for last month’s $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan that led immediately to China’s live-fire military exercises around the island nation. These events demonstrate the potential for growing tension and even escalation in the Indo-Pacific. The greatest failure of U.S. foreign policy over the past decade has been the inability to create a diplomatic dialogue with China, a prerequisite for establishing some semblance of global stability. Trump has been leading a bumptious national security policy over the past year, while Xi Jinping has reversed his “wolf warrior” diplomacy of recent years and presented itself as a “serious country with predictable, consistent policies,” according to Fareed Zakaria. Trump, for his part, has been arrogant, cocksure, and egotistical. His renaming of the “Institute for Peace,” that is now “Trump’s Institute for Peace,” says it all. The post Prominent Think Tank Joins Media in Endorsing Trump’s Foreign Policy appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.
I don’t know if Maduro is good or bad, not even if he’s a drug trafficker; in the files of the Colombian justice system, after half a century of dealing with the biggest cocaine mafias, the names of Nicolás Maduro or Cilia Flores don’t appear. Those who have come forward to denounce him are Venezuelan More The post Stop Slandering Me, Mr. Trump appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png 1184w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-612x630.png 612w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-768x790.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-500x514.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-600x617.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1184px) 100vw, 1184px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1184" height="1218" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png 1184w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png 680w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-500x514.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-600x617.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1184px) 100vw, 1184px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1184" height="1218" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png 1184w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-612x630.png 612w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-768x790.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-500x514.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-600x617.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1184px) 100vw, 1184px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1184" height="1218" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png 1184w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-612x630.png 612w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-768x790.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-500x514.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-600x617.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1184px) 100vw, 1184px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="612" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-612x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-612x630.png 612w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-768x790.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-500x514.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-600x617.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png 1184w" sizes="(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396053" class="wp-image-396053 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png" alt="" width="680" height="700" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-680x700.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-612x630.png 612w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-768x790.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-500x514.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro-600x617.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gustavopetro.png 1184w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Gustavo Petro. Photo: Presidential office of Colombia. I don’t know if Maduro is good or bad, not even if he’s a drug trafficker; in the files of the Colombian justice system, after half a century of dealing with the biggest cocaine mafias, the names of Nicolás Maduro or Cilia Flores don’t appear. Those who have come forward to denounce him are Venezuelan opposition generals, nothing more, seeking to topple the popular vote. The judicial power in Colombia doesn’t belong to me; it’s independent of me, and my opposition largely handles it. If one wants to know about the mafia and the business of cocaine commercialization, just look at Colombia’s judicial files. That’s why I deeply reject Trump speaking without knowing; my name doesn’t appear in the judicial files on drug trafficking over 50 years, neither from before nor from the present. Stop slandering me, Mr. Trump. That’s not how you threaten a Latin American president who emerged from the armed struggle and then from the people of Colombia’s fight for Peace. I was part of the clandestine organization that fought for democracy in Colombia against the civil dictatorship of the “State of Emergency.” The organization that in 1974, long before Chávez, carried out the operation to raise Bolívar’s sword once more, who said he would never sheathe it until injustice ended in Gran Colombia. I was with the M19 that made the first peace in contemporary Latin America. He doesn’t read Colombia’s history, and that’s why he fails when he criticizes us. He should only meet with his officers who are experts in drug investigations in Colombia, whom I’ve helped with my own investigations as a senator of the Republic from Colombia’s Left and its people, who have suffered the narco genocide and its political allies, who are also allies of the American far right. Tens of thousands of our comrades from the armed and popular struggle for democracy were assassinated, and we didn’t go begging you for invasions; we endured and won through Peace. I’ve never burned a U.S. flag because I’ve read the history of the popular and workers’ struggles in the U.S. through Zinn’s books in Spanish. And that’s why I honor the American working people, the Black and Indigenous people, the young soldiers who, alongside the Soviets, defeated Hitler. And that’s why I dared to speak on a street in New York in front of the United Nations building and under U.S. law that protects the opinions of those attending the United Nations Assembly to speak freely. I spoke against the genocide in Gaza—how I would have loved to accompany you to make peace in Gaza! Where the Palestinians love me, and perhaps if instead of going to capture a Latin American president with small controls on oil because you blocked the oil and condemned us to hunger and unleashed the exodus that reached your own country, I would have accompanied you to capture Netanyahu, the genocidaire. For what I said, you took the arrogance to punish my opinion, my words against the Palestinian genocide. Your punishment is to falsely accuse me of being a drug trafficker and having cocaine factories; I don’t have a car, nor estates abroad—my house I’m still paying off to the bank with my salary. It’s unjust, and I fight against injustices. I’m friends with a lot of people in the U.S. who stop me on the streets, surround me with their arms. That’s why I respect the history that began with Washington and Bolívar together; they gave each other things, they were liberators more than enslavers. I learned not to be a slave, and I reject your phrases assigning us unilaterally as your domain’s territory; we Latin Americans are republicans and independent, and many of us revolutionaries. Don’t think Latin America is just a nest of criminals poisoning your people—respect us and read our history, which dates back 30,000 years across all of America. I read your history to understand you. Don’t see drug traffickers where there are only genuine warriors for Democracy and Freedom. This was originally posted to Gustavo Petro’s X account. The post Stop Slandering Me, Mr. Trump appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Gustavo Petro.
American Imperialism and the Mad Fantasies of Donald Trump
Trump has said that he intends to “run Venezuela.” That should come as a surprise to the thousands of Venezuelans who have taken to the streets to denounce the American assault on its capital. Regardless of Trump’s fantasies, he can barely run the US, except by driving it further into the abyss. No matter how More The post American Imperialism and the Mad Fantasies of Donald Trump appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396025" class="size-medium wp-image-396025" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_9212-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Trump has said that he intends to “run Venezuela.” That should come as a surprise to the thousands of Venezuelans who have taken to the streets to denounce the American assault on its capital. Regardless of Trump’s fantasies, he can barely run the US, except by driving it further into the abyss. No matter how US media or American politicians try to spin this, the American Empire is in steep decline. Its tourism industry is collapsing as more people choose not to spend their holiday in a fascist police state. It lost any moral standing it may have once had after enabling the genocide in Gaza. And it no longer possesses the soft power it once had to influence countries to do its bidding. As BRICS rises, the US only has threats, bluster, sentimental patriotism and fire power. But there are limits to this, as every empire throughout history has found out. As millions of Americans struggle to pay for basic necessities and continue to lack things other industrialized countries take for granted, such as universal healthcare, labour protections and quality education, its ruling elite are living in a bubble of privilege that is ready to burst at any moment. America’s infrastructure is in shambles. And its unhoused population continues to grow exponentially. So, to think that this husk of empire is any way able to rule Venezuela when it can barely rule itself is rather absurd. This doesn’t mean that the Trump regime cannot cause significant pain. It has, it can, and it will. And it isn’t just him and his cadre of ghouls. We have entered a new phase of imperial conquest as the planet becomes more unstable due to climate change. And Gaza should be an example of how the powerful are fully capable of doing the most heinous things imaginable to human beings to maintain their power. The old imperial houses will continue to carve up the world, rape its resources, and assert control over their “spheres of influence” even as it crumbles under the weight of ecological devastation. It just points to its glaring incompetence. The Trump regime will not be successful with “running” any territory they conquer with military force. They are incompetent idiots. And they will likely cause enormous chaos and untold misery for millions of people despite this. But having a malignant narcissist as leader is a dangerous gamble for any empire. What happens when that narcissist is losing his mind? When the long shadows of his past transgressions indelibly stain any prestige he thought he had? When his ratings continue to tank and daily life for millions of Americans becomes a struggle for survival? The attack on Venezuela and other threats of aggression will never translate into tangible benefits for ordinary Americans. They aren’t meant to. This is a resource grab for the ultra rich. For the corporations and war profiteers. And this isn’t a new phenomenon. Every military foray the US has entered into against the Global South has been at the behest of its ruling class and to fill their coffers. But each one has cost the empire more than it has profited it. What we are seeing isn’t merely about Trump, although I am sure he would like everyone to believe that it is. What this is about is the last chapters of American Empire. That is why the rhetoric is no longer full of flowery platitudes. It has nothing real to offer ordinary people. It can only cling to the image of its imperial power. Of its domination of others through violence or the threat of it. It has also demonstrated that the old order of international law, which really only applied to white, Western nations, is finished for everyone. It is rule by gangsterism, imperial jostling and sheer brutality by any means and without any meaningful opposition from established leaders. Rome is burning and those who have benefitted the most from its years of glory are now trying to scrape every last coin out of its downfall. The post American Imperialism and the Mad Fantasies of Donald Trump appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kenn Maurice.
Restoring the Nobel Peace Prize to Its Peace-Promotion Vocation
On 27 November 1897 the multi-millionaire Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament establishing a foundation to honour, among others “champions of peace”, those “who shall have done the most or the best work for creating the brotherhood of nations, for the abolition of reduction of standing armies, and for More The post Restoring the Nobel Peace Prize to Its Peace-Promotion Vocation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1920" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-840x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396018" class="size-medium wp-image-396018" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Jimmy_Carter_Library_and_Museum_145-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: User:Piotrus – CC BY 3.0 On 27 November 1897 the multi-millionaire Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament establishing a foundation to honour, among others “champions of peace”, those “who shall have done the most or the best work for creating the brotherhood of nations, for the abolition of reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”[1]. Alfred Nobel was a pacifist and his goal was to encourage pacifists worldwide to work for demilitarization, disarmament, a change of paradigm. The idea was picked up by the International Peace Bureau[2], was “disarmament for development”[3]. The first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize was the Swiss businessman Henri Dunant (1901), who founded the International Committee of the Red Cross. On his way to get a concession from Emperor Napoleon III Henri passed the battlefield of Solferino in North Italy and was horrified to see young soldiers dying and dead with no one to provide any kind of assistance. Out of this trauma he conceived the idea of banning war, and in the meantime making war less savage, hence the rules to limit the suffering of wounded and dead on the field as well as civilians rules now enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and constituting part of customary international law. In 1905 the NPP went to the German-Austrian activist Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914), author of the famous book Die Waffen Nieder![4] Lay Down your Arms! Alas, the Nobel Peace Prize would soon be hijacked by politicians and misused to honour persons who did not qualify under Nobel’s will. Alfred Nobel[5], who died in 1896, must have turned in his grave when the NPP was conferred not upon a peace researcher, activist or campaigner, but on a war-mongering imperialist politician guilty of countless aggressions worldwide, US President Theodore Roosevelt (1906). This set a very bad precedent, because, as we know from Nobel’s correspondence with Bertha von Suttner, the award should not be giving to politicians, but to academics and grass-roots activists engaged in rational action to ban war forever. Perhaps Alfred Nobel’s ideas are best reflected in the 1945 UN Charter, in particular article 2(3) that commits all States parties to settle differences by peaceful means and article 2(4) that prohibits not only the use of force, but also the threat of the use of force. Alfred Nobel did not just want peace in the sense of the absence of war, but also the absence of structural violence, the positive striving for international understanding, mutual respect, and the will to cooperate in building a better world for everyone. This goal entails good faith, endeavouring to listen to others, trying to get at the root causes of problems, addressing grievances in a timely fashion, and – perhaps most importantly – refraining from artificially creating enemies, deploying the art of diplomacy, preventing strife by avoiding misunderstandings, and, above all, not provoking others by expanding military alliances that are hardly coalitions for “defence” and “collective security” but rather aggressive unions meant to coerce others by military and economic bullying. NPP procedures The deadline for nominating candidates for the 2026 award is 31 January 2026. Nominations should be sent by letter addressed to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Henrik Ibsens gate 51, 0255 Oslo, Norway. Nominations can also be submitted online or be forwarded by email to postmaster@nobel.no. Among those with standing to submit nominations are: + Parliamentarians, members of national assemblies and national governments (cabinet members/ministers) as well as current heads of state; + Judges of the International Court of Justice and of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague; + Members of the Institut de Droit International; + University Professors, also emeriti and associate professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy; + Laureates of the NPP, e.g. Adolfo Pérez Esqivel, Oscar Arias, Rigoberta Menchú; + Members of the board of organizations that have been awarded the NPP, e.g. the International Peace Bureau, the United Nations. A valid nomination will be normally confirmed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee by April. The best book on the subject is by the late Fredrik Stang Heffermehl (1938-2023)[6], a Norwegian jurist, first secretary-general of the Norwegian Humanist Association, peace activist and expert on the Last Will and Testament of Alfred Nobel. The Real Nobel Peace Prize [7], published in Oslo in 2023 gives the best overview of all laureates and meticulously documents in 405 pages how Alfred Nobel’s intentions have been egregiously violated and the NPP weaponized to support political narratives and even give legitimacy to imperialist attempts at enforced regime change. Heffermehl also established a non-governmental organization called Nobel Peace Prize Watch [8], and a Swedish association called Lay Down Your Arms, which fights against war and armaments, and annually honours a champion for peace. Good and bad Laureates Since 1901 the NPP has had a mixed history. Like all human institutions, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has made good and bad decisions, some very bad. Among the good choices we can mention In 1922, the Committee honoured Fridtjof Nansen “for his leading role in the repatriation of prisoners of war, in international relief work and as the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees.” In 1931, the prize was conferred on Jane Addams and Nicholas Butler “for their assiduous effort to revive the ideal of peace and to rekindle the spirit of peace in their own nation and in the whole of mankind.” In 1947, the NPP was awarded to the Quakers, represented by the American Friends Service Committee, “for their pioneering work in the international peace movement compassionate effort to relieve human suffering, thereby promoting the fraternity between nations.” In 1952, it was given to Albert Schweitzer “for his altruism, reverence for life, and tireless humanitarian work which has helped making the idea of brotherhood between men and nations a living one.” In 1976, it was given to Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan “for the courageous efforts in founding a movement to put an end to the violent conflict in Northern Ireland.” Mairead Corrigan receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. In 1980, it was given to Adolfo Pérez Esquivel “for being a source of inspiration to repressed people, especially in Latin America.” In 1987, it was given to Óscar Arias “for his work for lasting peace in Central America.” In 1990, it was given to Mikhail Gorbachev “for the leading role he played in the radical changes in East-West relations.” In 1997, the NPP went to Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines “for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.” In 2024, the prize went to Nihon Hidankyo (the Japan Confederation of A- and H Bomb Sufferers Organizations) “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” Unfortunately, the prize has also been instrumentalized to support political agendas that are incompatible with peace and reconciliation, and contrary to the letter and spirit of the Will of Alfred Nobel. I call this development an aggressive takeover and hijacking of the NPP by hawks and warmongers, a cognitive dissonant destruction of the object and purpose of the prize. Among the many embarrassing and politically motivated Nobel Peace Prize laureates are Henry Kissinger (1973), Menachem Begin (1978), Barack Obama (2009), Abiy Ahmed (2019), Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov (2021), and Ales Bialiatski (2022). In 2025, we watched President Donald Trump [9] brazenly campaign for the prize. The Committee did not grant him the coveted honour, but it conferred the 2025 prize to a notorious warmonger, Maria Corina Machado, who campaigns for an illegal military intervention in her own country, Venezuela, so that she can become president and replace Nicolás Maduro. To achieve this kind of undemocratic regime change, Machado additionally demanded that the US impose more sanctions against her own people, although she knows and it is public record, documented in numerous United Nations reports[10], that these illegal unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) have killed tens of thousands of people. Already in 2019 Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Marc Weisbrot, Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington D.C., published a study describing the adverse human rights impacts of UCMs as a form of collective punishment[11], contrary to the UN Charter, customary international law and articles 3, 19 and 20 of the Charter of the Organisation of American States. It is estimated that in the year 2018 alone, 40,000 additional deaths of Venezuelans could be attributed to the UCMs, which affected the most vulnerable in the country, deaths resulting from malnutrition and lack of medicines and medical equipment, scanners, dialysis machines, etc. It is not difficult to understand that if you are diabetic and do not get your insulin on time, you may die. I documented this in my 2018 report to the Human Rights Council[12]. In 2025 the medical journal The Lancet[13] published a study according to which US and EU unilateral coercive measures (wrongly called “sanctions” – the only legal sanctions being those imposed by the UN Security Council, everything else being the “use of force” prohibited in Art. 2(4) of the UN Charter) were causing yearly half a million deaths worldwide. Indeed, UCMs kill[14]. The incompatibility of the political pronouncements of Maria Corina Machado with everything that Alfred Nobel stood for is too glaring to ignore, although the hyper-politicized Nobel Peace Prize Committee tried to justify its choice by praising Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Yes, as Orwell suggested in his dystopian novel1984, “War is Peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength”. Who would qualify for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize? Personally, in my capacity as university professor, I have twice nominated the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. This year I am again nominating WILPF, and would like to see a worthy laureate in 2026. If not an organization, maybe a tireless human rights defender should be chosen. I strongly endorse Professor Francesca Albanese, the current Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestine Territories and an eloquent advocate for peace and self-determination. Indeed, the timely realization of the right of self-determination is an effective conflict-prevention strategy. The Palestinian People – and the world – would have been spared much suffering if the UN had ensured that a Palestine State would emerge at the same time that Israel was accepted into UN membership. We should have both States in the UN, not only Israel. Alas, the UN is also guilty of applying double-standards, and this has negatively impacted its authority and credibility, as I document in my human rights trilogy.[15] I encourage CounterPunch readers to submit their nominations of deserving candidates before 31 January 2026. Among my own proposals would be the Geneva International Peace Research Institue[16], the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities[17] IHRAAM, the AEDIDH[18]— Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law, a pro-active peace campaigner and author of numerous peace studies and of the Declaración de Santiago de Compostela[19]. I have had the honour to serve in the boards of these organizations for many years. I would also propose UNESCO; the Fundación Cultura de Paz[20], Madrid… What individuals would merit the honour in 2026, in 2027, in 2028? Surely Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now), Prof. Richard Falk, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Prof. John Mearsheimer, Prof. Noam Chomsky, Prof. Glenn Diesen, Prof. Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, Prof. Georgios Katrougalos, Jan Öberg, Denis Halliday, Hans-Christof von Sponeck, Julian Assange. One of the persons I truly admire is the brilliant pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, who set an immense humanistic example by using music for reconciliation, notably by founding the West Eastern Divan Orchestra[21], made up of Israeli and Arab musicians. Conclusion There is no doubt that the NPP has been instrumentalized in a manner contrary to the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel. Not without merit is the complaint brought by Julian Assange before Swedish courts in December 2025[22]. It is a fact that intelligence services have penetrated all fields of human activity and that institutions created to defend our rights have been put in the service of political interests. In my book The Human Rights Industry I document how the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have all been politicized and weaponized. Again, we must ask Juvenal’s question Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes – who will guard over the guardians? (6th satire, verses 347-48) What can we do when the institutions that should protect us actually serve interests other than those laid down in their terms of reference. Only WE can be the guardians[23]. Therefore, let us write to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and demand that the NPP be awarded only and exclusively to those who truly work for peace and reconciliation in the sense of the UN Charter and the UNESCO Constitution[24] which reminds us that “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” Notes. [1] https://www.nobelprize.org/ceremonies/streams-during-nobel-week-2025/ [2] https://ipb.org/ [3] https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/09/477072 [4] https://suttneruni.at/de/universitaet/bertha-von-suttner/die-waffen-nieder [5] https://www.biography.com/inventors/a45977855/alfred-nobel [6] https://ipb.org/honoring-the-legacy-of-fredrik-s-heffermehl-a-voice-for-peace-and-a-final-masterpiece/ The Nobel Peace Prize Can Still Become Our Rescue <iframe loading="lazy" class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" title="“The Nobel Peace Prize Can Still Become Our Rescue” — TRANSCEND MEDIA SERVICE" src="https://www.transcend.org/tms/2023/11/the-nobel-peace-prize-can-still-become-our-rescue/embed/#?secret=KWJXMEK85U%23?secret=4KvEeJGhyN" data-secret="4KvEeJGhyN" width="500" height="282" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"> [7] https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-real-nobel-peace-prize-a-squandered-opportunity/id6474629576 [8] https://accuracy.org/release/nobel-peace-prize-watch-faults-awards-selection-process/ [9] https://www.livemint.com/videos/everytime-trump-said-he-deserves-the-nobel-peace-prize-watch-11759860444987.html [10] https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-unilateral-coercive-measures [11] https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf [12] https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc3947add1-report-independent-expert-promotion-democratic-and-equitable [13] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(25)00278-5/fulltext [14] https://sanctionskill.org/ [15] https://www.claritypress.com/book-author/alfred-de-zayas/ [16] www.gipri.ch [17] https://ihraam.org/ [18] https://aedidh.org/es/ [19]https://www.ugr.es/~fmunoz/html/dhumpaz/Declaraci%C3%B3n%20de%20Santiago%20sobre%20el%20derecho%20humano%20a%20la%20paz%20-%20AEDIDH.html [20] https://fund-culturadepaz.org/ [21] https://west-eastern-divan.org/ [22] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/19/julian-assange-files-complaint-against-nobel-foundation-over-machado-prize [23] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajes.12542 [24] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/19/julian-assange-files-complaint-against-nobel-foundation-over-machado-prize The post Restoring the Nobel Peace Prize to Its Peace-Promotion Vocation appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alfred de Zayas.
The year 2025 ends the way Donald Trump began his foray into politics: full-fledged, unapologetic racism. Team Trump is pushing his anti-Somali campaign for three big reasons. First, insofar as he succeeds, it justifies his mass deportation. He has explicitly attacked Somalis as a people and imposed new bans on their entering the country. The More The post Fraud, Drugs, and Hope for 2026 appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="488" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-878x630.jpeg 878w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-768x551.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-1536x1103.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-2048x1470.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-500x359.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-600x431.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="488" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-878x630.jpeg 878w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-768x551.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-1536x1103.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-2048x1470.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-500x359.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-600x431.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="488" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg 680w, 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600w" sizes="(max-width: 878px) 100vw, 878px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395735" class="wp-image-395735 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="488" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-680x488.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-878x630.jpeg 878w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-768x551.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-1536x1103.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-2048x1470.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-500x359.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_3313-600x431.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. The year 2025 ends the way Donald Trump began his foray into politics: full-fledged, unapologetic racism. Team Trump is pushing his anti-Somali campaign for three big reasons. First, insofar as he succeeds, it justifies his mass deportation. He has explicitly attacked Somalis as a people and imposed new bans on their entering the country. The immediate cause is that some were involved in committing fraud against government programs, sort of like white people. Remember, as Trump always says, no one knows more about fraud than he does. Anyhow, by highlighting and exaggerating the actual fraud committed by some Somalis in Minnesota, Trump is making the case for his deportation policy. The second reason is that it is a weapon against Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Walz is a popular two-term governor running for re-election in November and a potential 2028 presidential candidate. By blaming Walz for the fraud, and also Biden, Trump is helping to build up the absurd image of Democrats corruptly coddling immigrants with government handouts. (The fraud was discovered and prosecuted under Biden.) While this line is regularly pushed by Elon Musk and other whack jobs, it has little basis in reality. There is a long way between immigrants entering the country and then voting in elections. And contrary to what Musk keeps asserting, there are almost no instances of immigrants voting before they are citizens. Furthermore, when immigrants do become citizens and vote, many vote Republican. According to a poll shortly before the 2024 election, Harris was beatingTrump by 15 percentage points among naturalized citizens. But in many important states the margin was considerably smaller: In Florida it was less than 12 points, in Texas less than 10, and in Michigan it was just 1.4 points. If the Democrats’ strategy is to bring immigrants into the country, so that a decade or so later they will give their candidates a modest voting margin, it doesn’t seem like a very smart one. But tying Democrats to fraud committed by immigrants is a major Republican election theme. The Republicans will play this tune as often as possible. The third reason for pushing the Somali fraud story is that it gets the Trump-Epstein scandal off the front pages. The Epstein story has been disastrous for Trump. While most of the country has long known he is a sleazy sexual predator, the Epstein story had been weaponized among his base as an account where Democrats were protecting child sex traffickers. Now it is clear that Trump was good buddies with Epstein and is doing everything he can to block release of the documents and photos that prove this. That is hard to take for even many hard-core MAGA types. Anything Trump can do to change the topic is great for him and playing the racist card with Somalis seems an obvious route. As far as the truth of the story, clearly there was fraud committed by people of Somali origin, which was being pursued and prosecuted under Biden, as in not protected. It is also almost certain that the Trumpers are hugely exaggerating the extent of the fraud. For example, Trump-appointed First Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson claimedthat more than $18 billion (roughly the current year’s Medicaid budget) in Medicaid payments since 2018 might have been fraudulent. This seems implausible for the simple reason that Minnesota’s per capita Medicaid spending is not obviously out of line with other states. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-39702" src="https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001.png" sizes="auto, (max-width: 851px) 100vw, 851px" srcset="https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001.png 851w, https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001-300x159.png 300w, https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001-768x408.png 768w, https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001-100x53.png 100w, https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001-250x133.png 250w, https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Book6_17588_image001-500x266.png 500w" alt="" width="851" height="452" /> It spends somewhat more than red states like Ohio and Missouri, but considerably less than blue states like Massachusetts and New York. It would take a more thorough analysis of relative health care costs and the age distribution of the populations to say anything definitive about relative spending and the potential impact of fraud, but the headline numbers don’t make a clear case for widespread fraud. As far as the credibility of the Justice Department in making claims about Somalis committing fraud in Minnesota, remember Pan Bondi said that she had the Epstein files on her desk back in February. We are now up to 5.2 million pages. Trump Rx Is Not Likely to Save Us Money on Drugs We all know that Trump likes boasting about he is bringing drug prices down 500 percent, 600 percent, 800 percent. As a practical matter, it doesn’t seem as though his negotiations with the drug companies are likely to produce substantial savings for almost anyone. This is unfortunate, since we waste an enormous amount of money paying for drugs. We spent more than $730 billion this year on prescription drugs and other pharmaceutical products. That comes to more than $5,800 per household. The really tragic part of the story is that drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture and distribute. If we paid for the research upfront, as we already do to the tune of $50 billion a year at NIH, we could sell the drugs without patent monopolies or related protections. In that case, we would likely spend around $150 billion a year if drugs were sold in a free market. This would mean that doctors could prescribe the best drugs for their patients, without being concerned about the cost. And patients wouldn’t have to do GoFundMe’s to pay for their drugs. Allowing drugs to be sold in a free market would also remove the enormous incentive for corruption, where drug companies lie about the safety and effectiveness of their drugs. The most extreme episode of this corruption was the opioid crisis, but it is always a problem. Unfortunately, despite ranting about corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, RFK, Jr. seems determined to go the opposite direction. He is cutting back government funded research, making the country more dependent on patent monopoly supported research. As far as Trump’s negotiations with the drug companies, we got the answer in the stock prices of the big drug companies. They have risen sharply over the last six months. Stock investors can often be irrational, but if they expect drug prices to be substantially lower in coming years. This would mean a substantial reduction in profits, the expectation of which surely would cause stock prices to plunge. Obviously, the big money folks don’t believe Trump has lowered drug prices by 1,000 percent. In fact, Trump has arranged for a relatively small group of people, those who don’t have insurers or the government paying for their drugs, to get discounts. That’s a nice gesture, but TrumpRx duplicates services that already exist, including some discounts provided directly by the drug companies. But the important thing is that Trump got his name on something. Hope on Climate in 2026 Many people were disappointed that the climate summit in Brazil last month didn’t lead to any serious commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. While this is disappointing, it should not be surprising. The petulant 10-year-old in the White House made it clear that he sees efforts to slow global warming as an act of aggression that could lead to retaliation. Given this reality, it is understandable that government leaders would not want to put a target on their backs by making bold commitments on transitioning to clean energy. But what matters more than commitments, which are not binding anyhow, is what countries actually do. And here the story is very good. The New York Times had a major article yesterday about how South Africa and other Sub Saharan countries are rapidly adopted solar power. This is not a matter of policy, rather it is now the cheapest most reliable form of energy available. That is now the story in much of the world. There is a similar story with electric vehicles. Close to 60 percent of new cars sold in China are now electric and in some developing countries the share is even higher. Chinese EVs are now much cheaper to buy and operate than fossil fuel powered cars. People who want to save money will buy EVs, regardless of their feelings about global warming. It is only high protectionist barriers that keep them out of the US market. It would be good if the United States were leading the transition to clean energy, but Trump is doubling down on the horse and buggy industry at the dawn of the automobile age. That’s bad news for our economy, but it is good news that China has stepped up to take the lead. And if we’re being serious, cheap electricity and cars are worth a thousand times more than vague unenforceable commitments at climate summits. The transition may still not go fast enough to prevent major damage to the planet, but at least things are turning in the right direction. Will US Democracy Survive 2026? Ultimately that is the biggest question to be answered in the year ahead. There are definitely some encouraging signs. The huge Democratic shift in pretty much all the elections and special elections in 2025 is a big deal. If that persists into the fall, the Democrats will retake the House by a large margin, and possibly the Senate as well. We are also seeing more people willing to stand up to the Trump clown show, starting with some prominent Democratic politicians, like governors Pritzker and Newsom, and even late night comedians like Stephen Colbert and Jeffrey Kimmel. And the No Kings marches have been some of the largest days of protest in the country’s history. Perhaps most importantly, it looks like the MAGA gang may be breaking up. Some of the people who just want tax cuts are getting a bit disgusted with the open racism, antisemitism, and outright craziness of the hard-core MAGA types. It’s too early to know whether this will cause a full-fledged split, but the signs are promising. No one wants to be on the losing team, and if we have fair elections next fall, Team Trump looks like a big loser. The post Fraud, Drugs, and Hope for 2026 appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.
Secessionist Pantomime: Israel Recognises Somaliland
For a country so upset about recognition being afforded peoples under their thumb and control, the Israelis have decided to get into the state recognition business with festive aplomb. Africa’s Somaliland presented itself as a suitable candidate, an entity that remains part of Somalia but has asserted its own autonomy since 1991. Israel’s recognition on December More The post Secessionist Pantomime: Israel Recognises Somaliland appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396020" class="size-medium wp-image-396020" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hargeisa_War_Memorial_2012-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> MiG monument in Hargeisa commemorating Somaliland’s breakaway from the rest of Somalia in 1991. Photograph Source: joepyrek – CC BY-SA 2.0 For a country so upset about recognition being afforded peoples under their thumb and control, the Israelis have decided to get into the state recognition business with festive aplomb. Africa’s Somaliland presented itself as a suitable candidate, an entity that remains part of Somalia but has asserted its own autonomy since 1991. Israel’s recognition on December 26 of that entity had a vengeful sting to it. With a majority of UN Member States recognising the rubble and rump of a State of Palestine, despite arguments by the Netanyahu government that this was a reward for terrorism, the Israelis have clearly decided to turn the matter on its head. Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Jonathan Miller, captured the moment by saying that the recognition of Somaliland was not a “hostile step toward Somalia” when it evidently was, and did not “preclude future dialogue between the parties”, as well as it might. The salesman in Miller seemed to come through. “Recognition is not an act of defiance. It is an opportunity.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shamelessly plagiarised the lingo and language kit of those Member States of the UN who dared treat the Palestinians as a national group worthy of acknowledged sovereignty. In a call with Somaliland President Abdirhaman Mohamed Abdullahi on December 26, Netanyahu stressed the importance of Somaliland’s “right to self-determination” in recognising it. In a paper published in November 2025 by the Israeli-based Institute for National Security Studies, Asher Lubotzky recommended that Israel, along with its sympathisers in Washington, push the United States towards recognition. While falling short of endorsing the recognition gambit, the paper notes the value of the territory in terms of offering “an operational area” for Israeli military operations. Israel required allies in the Red Sea area for various reasons, “among them the possibility of a future campaign against the Houthis.” There were also economic and reputational issues for Israel to advance, “given the minerals located in Somaliland and Israel’s interest in cultivating relationships with Muslim populations in the region.” The prattle about Somaliland’s sound credentials is evident in the world of think tanking. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute can be found making the point through a Somilander Australian, Abdi Daud, who writes of the territory as having “consistent peaceful democratic government over the past two decades”. While “imperfect”, this made Somaliland “a role model for the global south.” Recognising it would fill the “diplomatic and strategic vacuum” all too ripe for exploitation by Yemen’s Houthis, “terrorist organisations, China and other authoritarian regimes.” Daud evidently fails to appreciate that Somaliland’s recognition can just as well create a situation inspiring secessionist and separatist movements across the African continent. Opposition to the recognition of Somaliland came in a stern <a href="https://mofa.gov.qa/en/latest-articles/statements/joint-statement-by-21-arab--islamic--and-african-nations-stressing-their-unequivocal-rejection-of-israel's-recognition-of-the-somaliland-region" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://mofa.gov.qa/en/latest-articles/statements/joint-statement-by-21-arab--islamic--and-african-nations-stressing-their-unequivocal-rejection-of-israel's-recognition-of-the-somaliland-region&source=gmail&ust=1767453237008000&usg=AOvVaw3Qh06Rt3hBh9MOPhMkpdJ6">joint statement by 21 Arab, Islamic and African nations made on December 27, 2025. The move would have “serious repercussions of such unprecedented measure on peace and security in the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea” and have “serious effects on international peace and security as a whole, which also reflects Israel’s full and blatant disregard for international law.” To recognise “parts of states constitutes a serious precedent and threatens international peace and security, and violates the cardinal principles of international law and the United Nations Charter.” Looming darkly in the motives behind Israeli foreign policy was the possibility that something far more sinister was afoot. The joint statement finishes with “a full rejection between such measure and any attempts to forcibly expel the Palestinian people out of their land, which is unequivocally rejected in any form as a matter of principle.” This was certainly the view of the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Speaking at a special press conference held on December 30, 2025, Anwar <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/malaysian-premier-slams-israels-recognition-of-somaliland-links-it-with-forced-transfer-of-palestinians/3784943" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/malaysian-premier-slams-israels-recognition-of-somaliland-links-it-with-forced-transfer-of-palestinians/3784943&source=gmail&ust=1767453237008000&usg=AOvVaw23GRa6bIijSCTQmbCWvkaw">declared that such actions would “violate international law and humanitarian principles, and would only perpetuate injustice rather than contribute to peace”. Using Somaliland “for the forced transfer of Palestinians is totally and wholly unacceptable.” This concern is far from unreasonable: a number of news outlets reported in November that Israeli feelers had been put out to Somaliland on the possibility of relocating Palestinians. This chilling arrangement has many of the hallmarks of those debates from the 1930s on where Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany might eventually be sent. The Somaliland Foreign Ministry is playing dumb on the issue of becoming a dumping ground for Palestinians, effectively turning into a client state for Israeli interests. In a statement, it rejected “the false claims by Somalia’s president about resettling Palestinians or establishing military bases in Somaliland.” The relationship with Israel was of a diplomatic nature and cognisant of international law. “These accusations,” the ministry huffed, “are designed to mislead the international community and undermine Somaliland’s diplomatic progress.” As if giving the game away, the diplomatic arm affirmed its commitment “to regional stability, and peaceful international cooperation.” Support for Israel’s chess play by member states has been skimpy, though any worthwhile mention was bound to come from Washington. The United States, showing itself to be utterly muddled in its entanglement with its ally, decided to treat recognition as a parlour game show. Tammy Bruce, US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, summed up the cheap mood in her address during an emergency session of the UN Security Council: “Earlier this year, several countries, including members of this Council, made a unilateral decision to recognise a non-existent Palestinian state, and yet no emergency meeting was called to express this Council’s outrage”. The merits of international law, in the current cut and thrust of statecraft, remains increasingly in the jaundiced eyes of the beholder. The post Secessionist Pantomime: Israel Recognises Somaliland appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
2026: The Year We Say ‘Enough is Enough’
It’s almost impossible to fathom the extent of the fall of democracy in our nation in one year — but 2025 indeed saw an assault on our freedoms across the board from the most authoritarian president and administration in recent history. Unfortunately, those same tendencies have trickled down through various state governments as well — More The post 2026: The Year We Say ‘Enough is Enough’ appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1920" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-840x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396022" class="size-medium wp-image-396022" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Missouri_River_in_2021_01-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Christopher Michel – CC BY-SA 4.0 It’s almost impossible to fathom the extent of the fall of democracy in our nation in one year — but 2025 indeed saw an assault on our freedoms across the board from the most authoritarian president and administration in recent history. Unfortunately, those same tendencies have trickled down through various state governments as well — and Montana is no exception. But take heart, fellow citizens, while we were numbed by the shock and awe attack on our institutions, laws, policies, and liberties, there are significant signs that the people and the courts are realizing we must fight back and demand adherence to the law, the Constitution, and the tenets of humane treatment for our people and the environment. In that regard, the new year opens with a tremendous court victory here in Montana that found the Department of Environmental Quality illegally approved a Big Sky area subdivision. The state’s approval of septic systems for eight lots in the Quarry 1 subdivision was challenged by Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, which contended the agency failed to fully analyze the likely impacts to the already impaired Gallatin River. The ruling, which granted Waterkeeper summary judgment on their claims, found the state’s water quality regulatory agency “was arbitrary, capricious and unlawful and in violation of the Montana Constitution, MEPA [Montana Environmental Policy Act] and the WQA [Water Quality Act].” The significance of the Court’s decision cannot be understated, since coming right behind Quarry 1 is another major subdivision, Quarry 2 — which will face many of the same problems. Namely, too close to the river, sitting on top of porous river gravels, and a very active downgradient layer of groundwater that ultimately carries pollutants and nutrients directly to the Gallatin River. The “development at any cost” policies of Montana’s current administration are indeed coming with costs — and those costs affect us all in the loss of our clean and healthy environment, our incredible fisheries and wildlife legacy, and the destruction of our natural landscapes. As the impacts stack up, so do the court challenges — from gravel pits to subdivisions to mines as Montanans say “enough is enough.” On the national scene, we are likewise seeing a rising and determined resistance to the destructive and divisive policies of the current administration. Once again, the challenges are arising across the nation as Americans realize the freedoms, liberties, and norms of governance we once took for granted must now be actively, fiercely, and continually defended. The Supreme Court recently ruled the administration cannot send the National Guard into Chicago because the president lacks the legal authority to do so. Likewise, the administration’s policies are being challenged on a host of issues from the brutal and racist immigration raids to the lawless slaughter of those merely suspected of transporting drugs to undeclared wars and bombing sovereign nations without Congressional approval. Despite the constant barrage of self-aggrandizing proclamations from the president, he is not everyone’s “favorite president.” Across the board, polls show more than six in 10 Americans do not approve of him, his administration, or his illegal policies and actions. Make no mistake, 2026 is the year we must stand together and stand up to defy the intimidation of the press, attacks on free speech, and disregard for the law and Constitution. Renowned actor George Clooney just rendered some sage advice to those who capitulated to Trump’s threats saying: “If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go f— yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country. That’s simply the truth.” Indeed, it is — enough is enough. The post 2026: The Year We Say ‘Enough is Enough’ appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Ochenski.
Does Legalization of Sex Work Create Trafficking and Sex Tourism?
With sex work (prostitution) legal in some parts of Europe, one place in the US and many parts of the world, questions about legalization abound. Will decriminalization help women who are just trying to make a living or create victims from trafficking and sex tourism? The revival of Jeffrey Epstein’s deeds heightens and crystallizes such human rights questions. Recently, More The post Does Legalization of Sex Work Create Trafficking and Sex Tourism? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395701" class="wp-image-395701 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/femalecopsforcp.jpg" alt="" width="669" height="579" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/femalecopsforcp.jpg 669w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/femalecopsforcp-500x433.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/femalecopsforcp-600x519.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 669px) 100vw, 669px" /> Image: Martha Rosenberg. With sex work (prostitution) legal in some parts of Europe, one place in the US and many parts of the world, questions about legalization abound. Will decriminalization help women who are just trying to make a living or create victims from trafficking and sex tourism? The revival of Jeffrey Epstein’s deeds heightens and crystallizes such human rights questions. Recently, New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s pro-sex work legalization stance was highlighted–replete with its possible drawbacks. A story in the New York Post quotes critics who say they fear New York will “devolve into a hedonistic den of iniquity” under Mamdani. “The public needs to be fully aware that Mr. Mamdani wants a New York City where selling sex, buying sex, and promoting the sale of sex is completely normal and legal,” warned Sonia Ossorio, executive director of National Organization for Women NYC,” reported the Post. “The consequences” of decriminalizing prostitution would make New York “a sex tourism destination,” Ossorio said. Decriminalization advocates say abuse from pimps, clients and even police would lessen if the sector were decriminalized while others note that where sex work is legal, crime often follows including human trafficking. Overseas sex tourism is often cited as an example––commercial hubs where workers are often underage, coerced and non-consenting. Should Workers Be “Saved”? Some sex workers say they are just fine thank you and resent missionary intervention which they attribute to puritanism and prudishness. But other women describe unpleasant work and daily risks they face “in the life” and express that they would love to be “saved.” Over 20 years ago, the city of Chicago moved toward criminalizing customers (“johns”) and not workers, a change that was lauded by many. It was a reaction to a scourge in the1990s that cost the lives of over 30 streetwalkers–women who criminals knew would not be protected or missed; women who are still “out there.” Andre Crawford was found guilty of 11 murders, nine rapes and an attempted murder during that time period in Chicago while Geoffrey Griffin, Gregory Clepper and Hubert Geralds Jr. were alleged to have also murdered streetwalkers, all within a 12-block marginalized area. A recent anonymous book (“Diary of a High-Risk Lifestyle”) set in Chicago that I illustrated depicts a “day in the life” of a Chicago streetwalker back then with no smart phones or internet to screen out assailants. Describing a police shakedown, the author says: The cops, frisk me, take my money and drugs and push me into the squad car. I don’t ask what the charge is. I am guilty of being a hooker, drug user, drunk. They say “You’re lucky we don’t arrest you.” Recounting a group rape she writes: As soon as the “dates” find out there’s a girl in the room, it becomes a free-for-all. I can’t keep them out. The phone in the room is dead because the motel office is closed, so I can’t call for help. I am a sitting duck. I don’t put up a fight because I don’t want to get beat up too. As Jeffrey Epstein’s exploits reveal, the sexual abuse of women crosses party lines and even gender lines when considering women like Ghislaine Maxwell. The industry also unduly victimizes women without money, support and resources in society. How can healthy sexual behavior be separated from its exploitative, opportunistic underbelly? Will New York City become a living laboratory for such questions? The post Does Legalization of Sex Work Create Trafficking and Sex Tourism? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Martha Rosenberg.
As 2026 begins, what a strange planet we find ourselves on. The two great empires of my youth, the Soviet Union (now Russia) and my own country, are clearly experiencing some version of imperial decline, even if Vladimir Putin is acting otherwise in Ukraine (as is Donald Trump in his own strange fashion in the Caribbean More The post What Planet Are We On? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395995" class="wp-image-395995 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/getty-images-vAJdWOvrDSo-unsplash-1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> A lithium mine. Image Getty and Unsplash+. As 2026 begins, what a strange planet we find ourselves on. The two great empires of my youth, the Soviet Union (now Russia) and my own country, are clearly experiencing some version of imperial decline, even if Vladimir Putin is acting otherwise in Ukraine (as is Donald Trump in his own strange fashion in the Caribbean Sea and Venezuela). No less curiously, the country visibly on the rise, China, is distinctly not acting like a typical imperial power of history (at least the history I’ve known). In a world where the United States still has 750 or so military bases around the world, China, as far as I can tell, has at most just one (in Djibouti, Africa). While its economy has become significant globally (imperially significant, you might say), unlike essentially every imperial power from the Portuguese and Spanish in the 15th and 16th centuries on, it has no colonies and only the most minimal military presence abroad, though it does continue to build up its military power (and its nuclear arsenal) at home. Of course, it’s worth remembering that we are distinctly on a different planet than the one any of those older powers inhabited. And even if America’s great man (my joke!), President Donald J. Trump, doesn’t seem to know it, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, certainly does. Vladimir Putin’s version of imperial aggression is, at present, aimed at Ukraine in a war that will in the — and yes, I can hardly avoid the word! — end undoubtedly prove a disaster, not just for Ukraine but for Russia and the rest of the planet, too. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s version of imperial aggression, which is likely (again, in the end) to prove disastrous, is for the time being (and, with him, you always have to add a qualifier) aimed at the Caribbean Sea, the Eastern Pacific Ocean, and Venezuela (which he now seems intent on turning into an oil colony), even as he prepares to build his own “golden fleet,” including “Trump-class” (old-fashioned) battleships. On the other hand, China’s major “aggression” (and indeed, that word does have to be put in quotation marks!) is aimed — setting aside the island of Taiwan (which it claims not as a colony but as a part of China itself) — at the conquest of the future global green economy. Or put another way, to give credit where it’s due, despite the fact that China continues to open coal plants in an unnerving fashion, its great-power desires are at least aimed at something — in fact, the thing — that truly matters on this distinctly beleaguered planet of ours. It is intent on becoming the Earth’s global powerhouse when it comes to the sale of green energy and the ways to produce it. Consider that its imperial target, one unlike any other in history (though perhaps a comparison could be made to the industrialization of what became imperial Great Britain in the nineteenth century). Moreover, it’s already selling and delivering green energy production units to countries globally, while far outpacing anyplace else on this planet in producing electric vehicles (EVs). At War with the World Last year, China installed more wind turbines and solar panels than any other country, indeed more than the rest of the planet combined. And as the New York Times reported earlier in 2025, “Not only does China already dominate global manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, EVs, and many other clean energy industries, but with each passing month it is widening its technological lead.” While Donald Trump’s America is putting so much of its energy (so to speak) and money into coal, oil, and natural gas production, China’s government has been giving hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to wind, solar, and electric car manufacturers. And it is now hard at work spreading the products for producing wind and solar power globally. As the Times also reported, “Chinese firms are building wind turbines in Brazil and electric vehicles in Indonesia. In northern Kenya, Chinese developers have erected Africa’s biggest wind farm. And across the continent, in countries rich with minerals needed for clean energy technologies, such as Zambia, Chinese financing for all sorts of projects has left some governments deeply in debt to Chinese banks.” And of course, China is unequaled in the production of electric vehicles. There are now at least 129 brands selling such vehicles in China and they are exporting more than one-fifth of their products globally, while Chinese companies continue to out-innovate those elsewhere on this planet. On the other hand, Vladimir Putin, who once joked that global warming might be good for Russians because they could then “spend less on fur coats,” at least now acknowledges its reality. Nonetheless, he only recently signed a decree that would allow his country, already heating up 2.5 times faster than the global average, to increase its emissions of greenhouse gases 20% by 2035. And of course the United States is now led by a president who all too bluntly ran for office the second time around on the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill” and is making policy based on “ending the green new scam.” Only recently, in fact, his administration “paused” the leases on and halted the building of five major wind projects under construction off the east coast of the United States, supposedly due to “national security risks.” In essence, Donald Trump and crew have been doing their best to dismantle or get rid of anything in this country that might effectively impede climate change and the future broiling of Planet Earth. That is, in fact, the definition of his America, which is also the definition of decline on a scale that once would have been unimaginable. And remember, I’m talking about the same president who, last fall, told delegates from nations around the world at the United Nations that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” while insisting that, “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.” In the bluntest terms, the greatest imperial power of the past century, the United States, is now in the Trumpian process of sending itself into a steep imperial decline on a distinctly beleaguered planet itself undoubtedly in decline. And part of the reason for that, Trump aside for a moment, is that we humans just can’t seem to stop making war on ourselves. After all, in addition to killing and wounding staggering numbers of us and doing untold damage to (even destroying) whole regions of the planet, wars also release stunning amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as do what still pass for “peacetime” armies. In fact, the U.S. military, even when not at war, still releases more greenhouse gases than whole countries like Sweden or Norway. As it happens, it may be the single largest institutional emitter of such gases on planet Earth. And worse yet, at such an increasingly dangerous moment in history, there are at least three significant wars underway on this planet of ours. In this distinctly post-modern age, there should be a term for such wars and the way — in addition to the hell on earth they have created since time immemorial — they are now helping produce an environmental hell through the release of greenhouse gases in vast quantities into the atmosphere. There is, of course, the never-ending war in Ukraine, the one (in partial — but only partial — remission) in the Middle East, and the brutal ongoing one in Africa. I’m thinking of Sudan, of course. (And don’t forget the more minor but still brutal one underway in the Congo.) And when it comes to one conflict for which we have some figures on greenhouse gas emissions, the Guardian reported that, in the first 15 months of Israel’s war in Gaza, those emissions were “greater than the annual planet-warming emissions of a hundred individual countries.” It similarly reported that “the climate cost of the first two years of Russia’s war on Ukraine was greater than the annual greenhouse gas emissions generated individually by 175 countries.” A Long-Term Definition of Suicidal on Planet Earth So, at a time (and what a time!) when we’re experiencing one record hot year after another, ever fiercer forest fires, ever more horrific floods, ever more severe droughts, and so on (and on and on) — at a moment, in other words, when it increasingly seems as if humanity is ever more at war with this planet, the old form of imperial power, the one involving wars, colonies around the world, and global military bases, seems increasingly passé, even if the leaders of neither the U.S., nor Russia seem capable of recognizing that reality. And in that context, those two imperial powers of the last century aren’t simply following the pathways of other imperial powers whose time was up. Yes, they are both distinctly heading downhill, but both of them, in an eerily purposeful fashion, seem (in climate-change terms) to be intent on taking down much of the rest of the planet with them. And none more purposefully (or so it seems) than Donald Trump’s America, which is distinctly focused on ensuring that, at least in the United States, wind power projects will be cancelled, solar energy projects avoided or wiped out, and ever larger areas from Alaska to more than a billion acres of ocean waters opened to the production of yet more fossil fuels. If you need a long-term definition of “suicidal” at both a national and a planetary level, that obviously should be it. And it’s in just such a world that China, the rising power on this planet, is neither spreading its military might globally, nor creating military bases and seizing colonies around the world. Instead, its leaders are doing their damnedest to take control of the universe of green energy and so plowing new imperial ground by potentially becoming the unparalleled green-energy power on planet Earth. Of course, it shouldn’t really be a surprise that, on a planet changing before our eyes in the most basic fashion, the meaning of the very word imperial would change or that the old war-making, colonizing version of it would be left to the history books (and to the increasingly ancient and outdated great powers whose leaders can no longer seem to imagine the actual nature of our future). And this brings me to myself. In some ways, in my 82nd year on this planet, I just can’t believe the world I’m in, nor could I ever have guessed that it would be quite this way. Donald Trump, president of the United States… really? At a moment when it should have been all too obvious that humanity was in danger of creating an all-too-literal hell on earth, a near majority of my compatriots elected (for a second time!) a man who not only refuses to faintly grasp what’s happening but has made a clear and conscious decision to worsen our situation by promoting the further use of fossil fuels in every imaginable way. All too sadly, though it’s not normally used that way, the word “suicidal” seems a reasonable description of his policies. I mean, what needed to be done really shouldn’t have been all that complicated — not on a planet where the most recent years have been the hottest in human history, the last 10 the hottest decade, 2024 the hottest year ever (and unsurprisingly, when the final figures are in, 2025 will undoubtedly be right up there, too); not on a planet where Arctic ice is melting, sea levels rising, and the weather (from storms to droughts) is growing ever more extreme by the year. And yet, obvious as all that may be, Trump and crew have decided to actively intensify the ongoing disaster. And if that isn’t the definition of a once great imperial power going down (and attempting to take the rest of us with it), what is? To the extent that great power global politics even matter anymore, President Trump is literally turning this world, economically and ecologically, over to China, lock, stock, and rain barrel. And all of that makes me wonder: How did I — how did any of us — end up here? Yes, we’re clearly entering a new imperial age with China potentially at the helm of a planet that, in weather (and human) terms, will be going down, down, down. It may be hard to believe, but that’s our reality — and I must admit that I find it painful to leave such a planet to my children and grandchildren. They truly deserved better. This piece first appeared on TomDispatch. The post What Planet Are We On? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tom Engelhardt.
Paul Holden, The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy. New York: OR Books, 2025. 534pp. $26 +++ More than a half century ago, Ralph Miliband’s Parliamentary Socialism—published by Monthly Review Press in 1964—described the uncertain course of the Labour Party. It was, truth to tell, pretty much always uncertain about More The post The Crisis of British Democracy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395760" class="wp-image-395760 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-680x454.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="454" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-680x454.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/annie-spratt-icJ4Fxf1EEU-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Annie Spratt. Paul Holden, The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy. New York: OR Books, 2025. 534pp. $26 +++ More than a half century ago, Ralph Miliband’s Parliamentary Socialism—published by Monthly Review Press in 1964—described the uncertain course of the Labour Party. It was, truth to tell, pretty much always uncertain about what its leaders meant when they called themselves socialists. They had carried over a vague sense, from earlier generations, that capitalism, a system of exploitation, somehow and sometime had to go. But left to their own devices, they could just as easily devote themselves protecting the Monarchy, a favorite project of Harold Wilson. Or to demanding somewhat better government services in lieu of public ownership of the means of production. At moments of real social crisis, as in the early 1930s, they would rush to join the Tories to save society, that is, to save capitalism from public bankruptcy. At present, they seem to be in a rush to do the same. And here we are in 2026, amidst a Labour Party collapse from within. Most US readers, especially those who mainly take pleasure in visiting England, Scotland or Wales, may be missing the scale of the drama now taking place. Elected in historic parliamentary numbers by a historically low voter turnout in 2024, seemingly secure until at least 2029, the Labour Party is now at 15% public approval. “Reform,” the anti-immigrant party, seems to be filling the void, with a following twice that large. And yet demonstrations supporting the Palestinians are everywhere, especially in the Gaelic zones, i.e. those historically colonized by England. The Green Party is more openly socialistic and attracting new members. Further to the Left, a group calling itself Your Party is in the process of launching itself formally, struggling to sort out how to move ahead. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-395757" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-680x1039.png" alt="" width="187" height="286" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-680x1039.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-412x630.png 412w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-768x1174.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-1005x1536.png 1005w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-500x764.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM-600x917.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-10.48.46-AM.png 1188w" sizes="(max-width: 187px) 100vw, 187px" /> “Dysfunction” seems meanwhile to have become a favorite word to describe the flailing of Labour leadership. A desperate (perceived) need to please American leaders, ak Trump, has PM Keir Starmer desperate at once to hold Nigel Farage of the anti-immigrant party at bay and somehow to woo Farage’s US fans and partners, notably Vice-President Vance. Likewise to convince union leaders to stay in line while refusing to tax the super-wealthy, as a feeling of desperation spreads across the landscape. And insisting that his leadership, alone, can halt the largely imagined wave of anti-Semitism, especially present among critics of Israeli behavior in Gaza. Looking back, the programmed expulsion of its Left, from Labour veterans of long (and high) standing to maximum cultural figures like film-maker Ken Loach, seemed, at least to the leaders around Keir Starmer, to be an effective consolidation of their power. Instead, it dramatized the top-down mentality of the leadership as one after another of the campaign promises around the welfare state are jettisoned in favor of rewards to corporations of various kinds, including prospective nuclear power plant hucksters. Fraud allows us to take a step yet further back in time. The rise of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of Labour during the middle and late 2010s seems, in retrospect, to have been an astonishing feat. No one nearly so far to the Left, on global issues in particular, had captured Labour’s leadership. In more recent decades, the shame of Tony Blair—unindicted war criminal in the eyes of the public—made the rise of the Left possible. Corbyn was never the most brilliant orator or even best strategic advocate of that Left. Rather more of a moral leader in a moment of exposed immorality, he expressed aloud the public sentiment, as the British, notwithstanding their own centuries-long tradition of torture, winced collectively at the chambers of horror created for George W. Bush’s Iraqi campaign. Whatever Corbyn’s weaknesses, his vote totals in 2017 against a winning Tory party stunned observers, devotees and opponents alike. He and his supporters, or more properly their vision of a different British society in a different world, had touched a new constituency, mainly young idealists along with minorities, especially the growing Muslim minority that had been ill-treated, regularly accused of disloyalty and worse whenever the Israel abuse of Palestinians came into public view. They turned out in massive numbers, as the old Labour constituencies continued to fall away with the closure of factories and the memories of “pit villages,” the cohesive and class conscious coal villages, sunk further into memory. And more specifically: as the ever-reliable, ever-crucial Labour vote from the North staggered into uncertainty. Thus the conspiracy began, concocted in part by an erstwhile Blair insider, Morgan McSweeney. Paul Holden goes into detail, indeed so many details that it takes determination to take them all in, page after page. It’s a long book! Starmer-centered projects under the umbrella “Labour Together,” aimed at anything but “together.” In hindsight, Starmer and McSweeney, mobilzing allies from 2015 onward, aimed at disestablishing Corbyn. An attempt to force him out in 2016 had already fallen flat, and the election totals of 2017 made the cries of the opposition worse situation worse precisely because Labour scored so big, in the face of bucreacratic efforts to direct party funds away from known Left candidates for office. Starmer’s ardent allies, that is to say the bitter opponents of the Left, prominently included the reborn Jewish Labour Movement, known a century ago as the Poale Tsionists or Labor Zionists. Generations ago a working class Jewish movement with middle class participation, it re-emerged after decades of silence, now largely a movement of professionals and businessmen with scarcely a factory worker to be seen. The JLM was indeed a part of the Labour Party (as of old), but now prominently linked to a longer list that included the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Zionist Federation and the World Zionist Movement, spiritually connected to the more or less defunct Labor Party in Israel. The funding of the mendacious anti-Corbyn strategy, according to Holden, cannot be limited or properly attributed to the Jewish establishment. But it can be traced to hedge fund mangers and a handful of businessmen, coming together decisively at the moment of Corbyn’s surprisingly high 2017 vote. They would be swiftly joined by the right-leaning press, eager to find an alternative, another Labour leader making no unpleasant demands upon big business or the foreign office, also one strongly deferential toward US foreign policy. Brexit offered that opportunity. So much time now seems to have passed, so many events including the Covid Moment and the return of Trump to the White House, that we have forgotten the Brexit Effect on British politics. Corbyn and Labour faced the horns of a dilemma with the inevitability of a second referendum on Brexit, after one passed by the Tory government in 2016. To oppose Brexit would threaten the working class base, wrongly taught to consider it their salvation, while to support it vigorously would be viewed as treachery to the educated middle classes. Weak support, the Labour default position, pleased no one. Labour did indeed lose the Northern “Red Wall” in 2019. Holdon argues that this calamity must be understood together with something more subtle: the charge that Corbyn, and all around him, had become the supporters of the growing Muslim presence in the UK and by that measure but by support of the Palestinian cause, an anti-Semitic menace to liberal society. This anti-Corbyn strategy, if ridiculous on its face, purported that the strong Jewish element in the Labour Left, anti-Zionist and more strongly supportive of the beleaguered Palestinians, had become guilty until proved innocent. Those Jews most prominent on the Left, a disproportionately elderly crew with familiy and community memories of fascism, have been pilloried ever since. Participants in Jewish Voice for Labour could expect expulsion and by Fall, 2025, “Palestinian Action” marchers holding up signs indicating support for Palestinian rights, were subject to arrest, supposedly for threatening national security by throwing red paint on weapons made and prepared to send to the IDF, that is, to be used on Gazans. The sight of elderly men and women dragged away offered an especiallly ugly face to Starmerism. Only a half dozen years earlier, Starmer had carefully sworn his fealty to Corbyn, no doubt because the 2019 Labour defeat nevertheless left in its wake wide sympathy for the vanquished political champion of social change and human rights. Starmer’s “Ten Pledges” set forth to win back Labour voters largely echoed Corbyn. Starmer’s promotional videos included the determined British marchers against the invasion/war on Iraq that Tony Blair had made his own global crusade. Indeed, photos of Starrmer embracing Corbyn, a very few years before denouncing him as an agent of antiSemitism, remain vivid in rewatchings today. “Labour Together,” the slogan of the enmerging new leadership, actually disguised a campaign of anything but unity. A very strong argument in Fraud recovers how, by 2023, Labour’s emerging leaders were lurching Rightward. They had come to assume, as per US Democratic leaders, that loyal voters would remain loyal while “the middle” was to won over on crime, immigration and reassurance of properly rights. Corbyn himself was effectively drummed out of the Party, along with a wide circle of respected local and union leaders. In this, at least, the new leadership proved highly effective. Now, as the author says, the genius strategists have run into a wall of their own making. Supporting what amounts to Genocide in Gaza is not a crowd-pleaser. Reducing social benefits while offering tax breaks to the rich, revving up war fever in a crusade for the Ukraine—these do not go over big. Nor did the demonizing of racial minorities, resented in particular by Muslim communities that had, in recent decades, supplied Labour with the vote totals lost to vanished working class constituencies. The Green Party on the Left and Reform on the Right continue snapping up voters. Two events of recent days drive home key points in this book. First, the Mamdani campaign seems to have had a huge, perhaps unexpectedly huge, effect on the British political class. The very idea of building a frankly socialistic movement up from the grass roots is rewriting opinion polls, making Labour Party leaders nervous. Second, the convention launch of the project known as “Your Party,” over the final weekend of November, 2025, appears to be the badly-awaited, uncertain but vastly hopeful sign of a new beginning for the British Left. Whether that newer Left will be able to overcome all the obstacles ahead, from the financial and institutional backing of Labour’s bureaucracy to the painfully impressive momentum of Reform? We will surely see. But Paul Holden’s Fraud gives us a road map of sorts, and we are grateful. The post The Crisis of British Democracy appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Paul Buhle - Raymond Tyler.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” —Frederick Douglass America likes to tell its story as a procession of wars won and enemies defeated. But its deeper moral history, the one that actually bends toward justice, has been written by those who resisted domination: slavery, empire, and the dangerous fiction that violence is More The post From Minarets to City Hall appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395783" class="wp-image-395783 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-12.27.25-PM.png" alt="" width="550" height="370" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-12.27.25-PM.png 550w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-12.27.25-PM-500x336.png 500w" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" /> Youtube screenshot. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” —Frederick Douglass America likes to tell its story as a procession of wars won and enemies defeated. But its deeper moral history, the one that actually bends toward justice, has been written by those who resisted domination: slavery, empire, and the dangerous fiction that violence is the engine of progress. On a cold January afternoon outside City Hall, Zohran Mamdani stepped into that unfinished struggle. As he raised his right hand and took the oath of office as mayor of New York City—the first Muslim ever to do so—he embodied a quieter American tradition: the insistence that conscience belongs in public life. The headlines captured the spectacle. But Mamdani’s inauguration matters less as pageantry than as moral signal. It arrives at the crossroads of a long American argument—about power and belonging, yes, but also about whether a nation repeatedly shaped by war can ever learn to govern itself through restraint. That argument predates the republic itself. When North Carolina debated ratifying the Constitution in 1788, Anti-Federalist William Lancaster warned that abolishing religious tests might allow Muslims to hold office. “Papists may occupy that chair,” he cautioned, “and Mahometans may take it.” What he framed as alarm now reads as reluctant foresight. Even then, Muslims were already here—not as lawmakers, but as the enslaved. Between five and twenty percent of enslaved Africans were Muslim. Many were literate, ethically formed, and rooted in traditions emphasizing humility, charity, and accountability beyond the state. Their faith was criminalized and crushed, yet never fully erased. America’s earliest Muslims did not arrive as conquerors. They arrived as victims of one of history’s greatest crimes. The founding generation lived with this contradiction. Thomas Jefferson studied the Qur’an and treated Islam as a serious intellectual tradition, even as he enslaved Muslims whose lives exposed the violence beneath the republic’s lofty claims. From the beginning, Islam in America illuminated the distance between professed ideals and practiced brutality. That distance exploded into catastrophe in the nineteenth century. The Civil War is often remembered as a cleansing fire, but it was, in truth, a failure multiplied; four years of mass death born from the nation’s refusal to end slavery without bloodshed. When Muslims appeared in Union ranks, their presence did not sanctify the war; it underscored its tragedy. Mohammed Kahn served in the 43rd New York Infantry. Nicholas Said, born Mohammed Ali ben Said in what is now Nigeria, fought with the 55th Massachusetts Colored Regiment. Captain Moses Osman held a senior post in the 104th Illinois Infantry. These men, many from communities already scarred by empire and enslavement, were asked to risk their lives to resolve a moral crisis they did not create. Their service stands as testimony not to war’s virtue, but to the terrible price paid when justice is deferred too long. The Civil War did not redeem America; it revealed what happens when conscience is postponed until violence becomes unavoidable. Crucially, Islam’s influence on America’s moral awakening did not rest primarily in combat. It emerged through witness and words. Senator Charles Sumner quoted the Qur’an to condemn slavery, drawing on its moral authority to challenge dehumanization. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo—Job ben Solomon—had already unsettled the Atlantic world through literacy, faith, and dignity, his story republished during the war as a reminder that humanity survives even under extreme coercion. Abroad, Hussein Pasha of Tunisia urged the United States to abolish slavery “in the name of humanity,” showing that Muslim moral critique of American violence came not only from within, but from beyond its borders. This pattern would repeat in the twentieth century. Muhammad Ali did more than redefine athletic greatness; he forced America to confront its addiction to war. When he refused induction into Vietnam, he spoke with the clarity of conscience rather than ideology. “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” he said, cutting through propaganda to name the human cost of empire. For that refusal, he lost his title, his income, and years of his prime. Ali’s Islam did not make him militant. It made him restrained. His faith grounded a rejection of domination and a commitment to human dignity that extended across borders. His humanitarian work, feeding millions, aiding orphans, advocating for children, embodied a belief shared by peace movements everywhere: that life is sacred, and violence must always answer to conscience. Ali showed America that dissent can be an act of fidelity to humanity rather than power. That faith can interrupt war rather than bless it. That Islam belongs not at the margins of American life, but at its moral core. It is against this lineage of conscience, rather than conquest, that Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration comes into focus. Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian parents—academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair—but his political formation is unmistakably American. After early years in Cape Town, his family settled in New York City when he was seven. He came of age here, educated in its public institutions, shaped by its contradictions and possibilities. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s most demanding civic academies, before earning a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College in 2014. This is not the biography of an outsider arriving at America’s gates. It is the story of an American citizen formed by American schools, American cities, and American struggles, one whose worldview reflects the global entanglements the United States itself helped create. In his inaugural address, Mamdani thanked his parents—“Mama and Baba”—acknowledged family “from Kampala to Delhi,” and recalled taking his oath of citizenship on Pearl Street. The geography mattered, but so did the point: belonging is not erased by movement; it is deepened by participation. When Mamdani declared, “New York belongs to all who live in it,” he rejected the logic that has long justified war: that difference must be governed through force. By naming mosques alongside churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, and mandirs, he affirmed pluralism as a condition of peace, not a threat to it. By speaking of halal cart vendors, Palestinian New Yorkers, Black homeowners, and immigrant workers bound together by labor and survival, he articulated a civic vision rooted in coexistence rather than coercion. He did not defend his Muslim identity. He normalized it. “Where else,” he asked, “could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?” The question was not rhetorical; it was diagnostic. This is what peace looks like when it becomes ordinary. Mamdani will not be perfect, nor should he be. Democracy requires accountability, not mythmaking. But what matters is not merely that a Muslim now governs New York City. It is that an old assumption, that difference inevitably leads to conflict, has been publicly undone by someone unmistakably American. The long Muslim thread in the American story runs from enslaved Africans to abolitionist witness, from the tragic costs of civil war to Muhammad Ali’s refusal of empire, and now to a mayor educated in American classrooms who speaks the language of shared belonging. It reminds us that Islam has not merely survived in America, it has persistently called America back from violence toward conscience. The work, as Mamdani said, has only just begun. But the story his inauguration tells—that Muslims were present at the nation’s birth, suffered under its crimes, challenged its wars, shaped its moral imagination, and now govern its greatest city as Americans—is no longer abstract. It stands, unmistakably, on the steps of City Hall. The post From Minarets to City Hall appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Payne.
‘Hands off Venezuela!’: Baltimoreans protest US invasion
A Softening of Hearts: The Mayor Is Listening
In a new year that promises to be as wretched, rancorous and bloody as the last one - cue oil lust and delusions of empire - we celebrate the stirring hope and promise of newly elected Democratic Socialist and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who h...
In a new year that promises to be as wretched, rancorous and bloody as the last one - cue oil lust and delusions of empire - we celebrate the stirring hope and promise of newly elected Democratic Socialist and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has embraced diversity, collectivism, and the rare chance to shape "lives we (will) fill with freedom" when for too long "freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it." Lesson for now: (Good) change happens. Yeah, we know the bad kind does too, like America's heedless, illegal attack on and kidnapping from the sovereign state of Venezuela, "actions of a rogue state" overseen by an addled, clueless, slurring commander-in-chief (sic) making fake claims and struggling to stay upright during his own purportedly exultant news conference on storming "blind into Caracas." Add in preening drunktank bully Hegseth bragging, "America is back!" - to deadly quagmires - and spineless lil' Marco disparaging a country, ostensibly Cuba, "run by incompetent, senile men" - oops - and their brazen disregard of legal mandates to consult with Congress by dismissing that entire, pesky branch of government as "so so weak" - all told, the insane, unschooled act of hubris that is their inevitably catastrophic return to "naked imperialism" is best summed up by James Fallows: "Good God." Which is why we'd rather bask, at least briefly, in Mamdani's stunning rise, and in the opportunity he represents "to transform and reinvent." "A moment like this comes rarely," he said at his jubilant inauguration, "and rarer still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change." Promising to govern "expansively and audaciously," Mamdani, 34, was ceremonially sworn in on New Year's Day by Bernie Sanders, a key political mentor, after taking his official oath the night before from A.G. Letitia James in the City Hall subway station. Both times, he put his hand on two Qurans - one a historic copy from the New York Public Library, and one that belonged to his father. Both times his wife Rama Duwaji, a 28-year-old designer and artist, stood by his side, and he repeatedly underscored themes of unity, equity, diversity and populism. Mamdani arrived at his inauguration ceremony, not in a limo, but in a motorcade of taxis, a nod to a hunger strike he undertook with cabbies in 2021. In a hat tip to the trains crucial to millions of New Yorkers' daily commutes - in Mamdani's case from Queens - the PA announcer was Bernie Wagenblast, the trans subway system worker whose recorded voice endlessly warns riders, "Please stand away from the platform edge." Mandy Patinkin sang Over the Rainbow with the kids of Staten Island's PS 22 Chorus. Singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus sang the workers'/women's rights anthem Bread and Roses. Along with Bernie, AOC gave a fiery speech - "We have chosen courage over fear" - poet Cornelius Eady performed his poem Proof - "This is our time" - and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a son of Grenada immigrants, wept as he repeated with the crowd, "I won't lose hope." In his soaring speech to the raucous crowd, Mamdani insisted again and again that government should work to improve people’s lives, that its job is to meet the needs of the many not the elite few, that New York, "this gorgeous mosaic," belongs to its people, all of whom deserve an equal share in its governance. "I was elected as a Democratic Socialist, and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist," he said. "Here, where the language of the New Deal was born, we will return the vast resources of this city to everyday people...Construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day," "neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall," "those in a rush who still lift strangers’ strollers up subway stairs, and every person who makes the choice day after day, even when it feels impossible, to call our city home." He also stressed, whatever their vote or politics, "If you are a New Yorker, I am your Mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you." Eloquently, he vowed, "Together, we will tell a new story of our city," summoning neither "a tale of one city, governed by the 1%" nor "a tale of two cities, rich versus poor." "It will be a tale of eight-and-a-half million cities, (each) a universe, (each) woven together...The authors of this story" will speak Mandarin, Yiddish, Creole; will pray in mosques, shuls, churches or not at all; will be Russian Jews, Italians, Irish, black homeowners who triumphed over longtime redlining, young people in apartments whose "walls shake when the subway passes," and, drawing cheers, Palestinians "who will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism and then makes them the exception." On his first work day, he visited a rent-stabilized building to announce three executive orders aimed at improving/creating affordable housing: A Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants facing off against landlords and two task forces - to review city properties flippable into affordable, and to identify/eliminate regulatory roadblocks to building new housing. From the start, Mamdani's campaign boasted a singular accessibility, from his inaugural, hilarious street video - he holds a "Let's Talk Election" sign as many troop past him or report they voted for Trump - to his walking the 13-mile length of Manhattan "because New Yorkers deserve a Mayor they can hear, see and even yell at if they need to. We out here." A couple of weeks ago, already elected, he kept up that tradition with a 12-hourThe Mayor Is Listening event, inviting his wildly diverse constituents to sit down and tell him what's on their minds. Ultimately, 144 of them did, sitting across from him at the Museum of the Moving Image, often with their kids, to tell him of their hopes and fears - cuts in Medicaid and mental health services, subways that don't feel safe, busses that don't run when they need them after work, students who spend hours on busses, floods and heat, changing migratory patterns of birds, the need to "put fresh food in front of New Yorkers," especially tomatoes, the "stain on the city" that is Riker's Island, the retaliation tenants face for speaking up, the sweeps homeless people endure only to return to the same spot four hours later having lost all their stuff, the terror, nightmares, sense of impotence around ICE, like "an attack on the entire city." One tearful woman, "I dream of being taken away, being sent to a foreign country, not seeing my mother and my baby brother again. Please protect people like me." Many spoke of affordability, or its lack: People whose families lived for generations in neighborhoods they had to leave, who can't find a place with their new baby, who've spent decades in an apartment but now fear being homeless, who can barely afford groceries: "It's a punchline to buy anything here." A single mother asks how universal child care would work. "It's for everyone," he says gently. "Like public schools." A queer, asylum-seeking Russian, having lost her country, hasn't yet felt part of her new city or its "spaces of power" until now, with him, and starts to cry. Samina, a woman from Pakistan, thanks him carefully, softly, almost whispering, for his empathy: "When I go outside, I see happiness on people's faces, hope, light. You have changed people's hearts, you have created a softening in their hearts. Please continue to be our light and hope in this difficult time." He smiles, thanks her, grasps her hand. She leaves, he weeps. He listens, nods, scribbles notes on a small pad, laughs at the tomatoes, promises to strengthen sanctuary policies to have no police "collusion" with ICE. He thanks a seven-year-old boy for worrying about homeless people, hugs the Russian woman who says she is excited for the first time about politics, nods he too is troubled by the accelerating climate crisis. At the end of the long, rich day, he is asked how he feels: "That was a lovely, lovely day. I feel like my cup is full with what New Yorkers have shared with me." He notes their breadth of interests, their fluency in the issues, "the reality of the stakes they live with every day." "These are people who give themselves to the city, and they rarely get much back," he says. "This is why we try so hard. It was beautiful. The bravery was incredible." <blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DS9_JAOCEwf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" data-instgrm-version="4" style="background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"> See on Instagram This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.
The Trump administration’s military aggression against the people of Venezuela proves the dictum: US/Western imperialism is gangsterism on an international level. The World has witnessed an attempted smash and grab/shakedown operation, and extortion racket perpetrated by a gangster state. Of course, Trump is going to strut and preen and sputter braggadocio about his exercise in […] The post The (Over)Reach of Gangster Imperium, from Venezuela to Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Capone.Trump_-300x169.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="169" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-164152" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Capone.Trump_-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Capone.Trump_-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Capone.Trump_.jpeg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />The Trump administration’s military aggression against the people of Venezuela proves the dictum: US/Western imperialism is gangsterism on an international level. The World has witnessed an attempted smash and grab/shakedown operation, and extortion racket perpetrated by a gangster state. Of course, Trump is going to strut and preen and sputter braggadocio about his exercise in plundering Venezuela’s oil assets. Trump’s personality evinces the traits of a gangster given to ostentatious displays of his criminality, not the smart type who schemes from the shadows. The history of the Mob proves the latter’s reign is given to greater longevity. After his moment of (fantasized) glory (early signs point to egomaniacal overreach) the tanking US economy and the shadow of Epstein will continue the (dismal and deranged) undoing of the Bitcon Don. Trump’s increasing cusp-of-Alzheimer’s impulsiveness, his angry outbursts and non-sequitur-laced diatribes mirror Al Capone’s unseemly and pathetic end, undone, as syphilis ravaged the body and brain of the once king of the Chicago underworld. Regarding Trump’s lies about Venezuela being a narco-state The Hugo Chavez government halted CIA drug smuggling operations in the nation, decades back. Venezuela presents nada threat to the US on a military nor any other basis. And no, a contrived court case, sans a UN mandate and congressional resolution regarding war powers, does not constitute a legal justification for military action. Trump is simply a congenital criminal, a sociopath born into a rigged system that protects the worst people US empire spawns within its swamp of mendacity. Of course, you recall said swamp…that Trump pledged to drain. Of course, you also remember he was “the peace candidate.” Trump’s word is as real as the lie that is America. As real as the US is “a shining city on the hill.” The nation is a blood-sustained empire built on a mountain of corpses, from genocide-dispatched Indians, worked-to-their-grave African slaves, crushed beneath US empire Latin America and Caribbean peasants, and all the millions upon millions of victims of US Murder Inc. across the exploited globe. Once again, Trump tears down the facade and reveals the blood-drenched architecture of US empire. Do you think when Trump’s rotting carcass shambles from the scene that Democrats will return US plundered oil loot to the Venezuelan people? The belief would display a mind-annihilating case of toxic innocence. Remember, Obama’s deployment of ISIS head-chopping jihadists to coup and kill Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi and smash and grab and abscond with the nation’s oil wealth and gold reserves — a war crime that rendered the once richest nation in Africa a failed state where slaves are sold on the open market. This is the modus operandi of empire. Withal, believing voting can reform a military empire/economic imperium is like a squid applying for a job in a sushi restaurant “to change the system from within.” In regard to the powerless of the earth e.g., me. My social media comment threads are infested by this sort of rage-frothing invective: “Phil, you are a Kapo, a self-hating Jew, who enables Hamas terrorists.” In response to the inanity, I posit, slaves who rose up against their masters (including, according to the mythos of the religion of my birth, Judaism — e.g., the followers of Moses who threw off their chains of bondage to Pharaoh, as well as the historical reality of the Jewish prisoners walled within the Warsaw Ghetto who fought to free themselves from Nazi imprisonment and the American slave (who insisted he was guided by God) Nat Turner and his rebellion against his Virginia plantation masters — all are regarded as heroes. Yet Palestinians imprisoned within Gaza by their Zionist overlords — the majority of whom were born and have been confined within the massively militarily surrounded open air concentration camp — have never traveled outside of its precincts. Yet, according to Zionists and their apologists, their uprising was the action of depraved, blood-lusting terrorists. Moreover, the citizenry of Gaza was under constant threat of attack from IDF marauders. Their military assaults on Gaza were termed by IDF raiding parties as “mowing the grass” i.e., acts of killing, terrorizing, and the taking of hostages (including children) back to Israeli torture prisons. So don’t accuse me of being a supporter of terrorism. Israeli terror tactics were in constant play before the Oct. 7 uprising. In fact, they can be traced to the Nakba, then codified into Israeli state policy from 1948 to the present moment. Thus sorry trolls, you cannot both-sides terrorism, in particular state-sanctioned terror that culminated in a genocide. The world has witnessed Israel’s perpetual war criminality; therefore, your compulsion to copy and paste hasbara lies (and spew ad hominem fallacy palaver) in my comment threads will not induce a global, collective outbreak of amnesia. Further notes to Zionist apologists It is not a good idea for Zionist true believers to equate, taking a stand against genocide as being antisemitic. We Jews are tiny in number; therefore, it is a far more propitious position to stand among the powerless and exploited of the Earth, and act as a vanguard of resistance against exploitative power, as opposed to acting as apologists for a brutal, highly militarized ethno-supremacist state, as well as Israel being deployed as a proxy force for Western imperialist agendas. (How is it possible, for a fleeting second, to believe that gentile western culture has developed a fondness for Jews?) History relates, we Jews have all too often been prey. It is not a cogent notion to believe we will be welcome for long in the dominion of predators. “The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens … for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus19:34). IMO: In present day terms, the above passage of scripture, should be translated to, proffering a living amends to the Palestinian people, including a Right Of Return, and the bestowment of generous reparations for their decades of exile and suffering. The damaged soul of Judaism can be restored by the dissolution of the Zionist state and the establishment of a true democracy on the stolen ground where it once stood. Otherwise, perpetually belligerent Israel will continue to be in asylum for the criminally insane disguised as a nation. 2025 played out as a global carnival of grim The planet’s climate continued to rise to “are you fucking humans stupid beyond belief” levels, as the planet’s leadership class proved the declaration dead-on and deadly accurate. Said gallery of grotesques either looked askance at genocide or enabled the abomination with stenographic fealty to Zionist hasbara or with proffered bottomless supplies of weaponry. As noted above, at the advent of the new year, US Gangster Imperium (or what remains of it) has made a move to muscle in on Venezuela’s oil reserves. From all indications, Trump, intoxicated — to the point of grandiosity — from inflicting pain by his gambit to assert dominance on a smaller nation, is poised to double down on his bacchanal of aggression. Malignant narcissist that he is, Trump derives a warped sense of pleasure from the fantasy he can hold a boot on the collective neck of the Venezuelan citizenry. Early indications from the ground in Venezuela, augur, its people are unwilling to take the position of supine submissive in accordance with Trump’s kink for dominance. To wit, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello: Here, the unity of the revolutionary force is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations. We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed — it was revealed that they only want our oil. If an Iraq type debacle comes to pass, US economic conscripts, the power-devoid underclass of the empire, will lose their lives, will sustain lifelong injuries, and suffer from psychological afflictions due to their deployment as expendable tools of the Trump administration’s cosplay racketeering and extortion scheme. Attack of conscience, never going to happen As is the case with the powerless in Gaza, criminals (i.e., sociopaths in possession of official titles and the attendant freedom from consequences said titles afford) will attempt to justify the unjustifiable: the taking of human life in an attempt to assuage the appetite of the insatiable monster that rules their psyche. Ours is a painful, anxious time for those of us powerless, little ants, who attempt, Atlas-like, to hold up the World. Ridiculous, right? Yet our status as ants imparts: we are many and they are few; together, we have a chance of enduring; but alone, devoured from within by alienation, we will perish. Man Lying with Branch, Anselm Kiefer The post The (Over)Reach of Gangster Imperium, from Venezuela to Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Phil Rockstroh.
Donald Trump’s assault on Venezuela and the seizure of its leader, Nicholas Maduro, interrupted the final preparation of an article that describes Trump’s assault on American democracy and his seizure of institutions in the governing apparatus. The assaults are related. Here is another article before presenting the previously prepared article. Unaware that the world is […] The post The Maduro Interruption first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Donald Trump’s assault on Venezuela and the seizure of its leader, Nicholas Maduro, interrupted the final preparation of an article that describes Trump’s assault on American democracy and his seizure of institutions in the governing apparatus. The assaults are related. Here is another article before presenting the previously prepared article. Unaware that the world is composed of sovereign nations, not all to the liking of one another, that they cooperate for benefit, and limit interferences according to international law, Trump has disregarded diplomatic norms, and imposed himself as the world leader, shaping nations, including his own, in his image. Argentina receives a $20 billion bribe to elect his favored despot; Iran, already battered by the Trump war machine, receives a threat to not harm a population that has been severely harmed by his sanctions, which amounts to a dictate for regime change; Gaza, destroyed by U.S. military assistance to Israel, will be resurrected in Trump style. South Africa, Somalia. Nigeria, and Honduras, among others, have also received the Trump touch of aiding look-alikes and scolding detractors. Uncertainty of the accuracy of press coverage of Maduro, leads to uncertainty of who is Maduro. Is he a corrupt despot, an enlightened despot, or a democratically elected leader with a mandate? Compared to Trump, he leans to the middle description. Maduro has subdued his adversaries; Trump daily demolishes them ─ Joe Biden has suffered a thousand wounds. Maduro may have his inner circle of family and friends; Trump has a magnitude wider inner circle of only family, friends, and sycophants. Maduro may have formed support from the Venezuela armed forces; Trump, before the Quantico meeting, told the press, “I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m gonna fire them right on the spot.” Maduro may have violated the Venezuela constitution; Trump has shredded the U.S. constitution. Maduro may be guilty of corruption but his life style does not indicate it could be much. According to the New York Times, “Since his return to office, President Trump and his family have engaged in a moneymaking campaign like none in modern American history.” Maduro impresses his image on the Venezuelan people; Trump is engraving his persona as “dear leader” on America’s soul. Maduro may, at times, have violated “rule of law.” By sending national guard troops into U.S. cities, murdering people at sea, pardoning convicted criminals, and threatening states to obey his command or lose benefits, Trump has replaced “rule of law’ with “Trump only laws.” Clean seizure of Maduro corpus delecti, victim of the unproven crime of “leader of a narco-terrorist organization,” has an antecedent ─ George H.W. Bush’s reckless and dirty internment of Manuel Antonio Noriega for similar reasons. In both cases, relation of the principles to drug offense is sketchy, the value of the drugs, if they existed, would be small, and in the Noriega case, had no effect on drug usage in the United States. An unanswered question ─ why give attention to persons residing hundreds of miles from America’s shores while insufficient attention is given to the drug dealers who walk the urban streets? Trump said that watching Maduro’s seizure was watching a movie; a movie in which Maduro is the villain, and therefore Trump is the hero; a movie produced, directed and written by Trump Enterprises. This is not an adventure movie; it is a mystery that still needs an ending. The mystery is the sinking of the alleged drug boats. Why were they sunk with all occupants killed and not detained so occupants could supply information on the “drug cartel” and its operations and testify as witnesses for the prosecution in Maduro’s trial? Why weren’t the boats allowed to proceed and tracked to their destination, where the U.S. infrastructure could be recognized and the dealers incarcerated? Seems that Trump destroyed vital evidence. Something wrong somewhere and why aren’t the CIA, FBI, and all local police agencies concerned? With tongue in cheek, the mystery becomes a Keystone cop comedy. These activities don’t behave as drug busts. they have the appearance of removing competitors from the business and decreasing the supply so the prices can be raised. A cloudy today and even cloudier tomorrow. Autocrat Maduro and his wife (why his wife?) and his dictates have been transferred from Caracas to New York. The Maduro government or regime remains in place. Will Trump send Yankee officials to oversee the government and troops to enforce the dictates emanating from autocrat Trump in Washington, D.C.? What will change and how will the changes occur? Would expect new elections, although that has not been mentioned. After that, removal of the sanctions, which could be done immediately, will bring prosperity to a nation devastated by the U.S. imposed sanctions. What sanctions? In August 2017, Trump administration sanctions prohibited Venezuela’s access to U.S. financial markets, and in May 2018, expanded them to block purchase of Venezuelan debt. In January 2019, economic sanctions targeted companies in the petroleum, gold, mining, and banking industries. In 2021, the US Government Accountability Office concluded that sanctions “likely contributed to Venezuela’s economic decline.” The report noted that sanctions resulted in Venezuela selling less oil, at higher costs and lower prices. What about the oil of which Trump knows little, except that he imagines prosperous U.S. can be a relatively few dollars more prosperous by gaining some oil and impoverished Venezuelans won’t mind being more impoverished by making a few Americans richer. Similar to Iran (1951), Iraq (1972), Saudi Arabia (1970s–1980), Kuwait (1975), Libya (1970–1973), Algeria (1971), United Arab Emirates (1970s), Qatar (1970s), Mexico (1938), Bolivia (1937, 1969, 2006), Ecuador (1972), Argentina (2012), Brazil (1953), Nigeria (1970s), Angola (1976), Gabon (1970s), Republic of the Congo (1970s), Kazakhstan (1990s–2000s), Indonesia (1960s), and Malaysia (1974), Venezuela, way back in 1976, nationalized its oil industry. President Carlos Andres Perez, created the state-owned company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Hugo Chavez (remember him) required PDVSA to maintain majority ownership in all projects. PDVSA has partnered with international firms including Chevron, China National Petroleum Corporation, ENI, Total, and Russia’s Rosneft to unearth and distribute the oil. Besides singling out Venezuela for nationalizing the oil resources that tens of countries have done, and all sovereign nations own, Trump intends to interfere with companies that have successfully operated with PDBSA, including Chevron. What does he expect to happen? How will a Trump inspired initiative engage with the present arrangement? Nonsense. My opinion: Stop the sanctions, hold new elections, a Maduro lookalike will gain power, and Venezuela will be a prosperous nation. The post The Maduro Interruption first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.
US attack on Venezuela ‘clearly illegal’ under UN charter, says former NZ prime minister Helen Clark
RNZ News There is no doubt that Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela was illegal, former prime minister and UN leader Helen Clark says. Over the weekend, the US attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas and captured the South American nation’s president and his wife, citing alleged drug offences. Nicolás Maduro is now being held in a
RNZ News There is no doubt that Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela was illegal, former prime minister and UN leader Helen Clark says. Over the weekend, the US attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas and captured the South American nation’s president and his wife, citing alleged drug offences. Nicolás Maduro is now being held in a federal jail in New York City, and is expected to appear in court this week. READ MORE: Trump’s gift-wrapped Maduro package has done the world a favour — revealing what a lie US foreign policy really is Venezuela army ready to ‘confront imperial aggression’ after Maduro seized <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="moz-reader-block-img" src="https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--kNa-arUd--/c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,w_576/v1767464261/4JVCD6K_AFP__20260103__89J48G4__v3__MidRes__TopshotUsVenezuelaConflictMaduro_jpg?_a=BACCd2AD" alt="This image was posted on US President Donald Trump's Truth Social account on 3 January 2026, showing Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro onboard the USS Iwo Jima after the US military kidnapped him" width="576" height="765" /> This image was posted on US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account on 3 January 2026, showing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro onboard the USS Iwo Jima after the US military kidnapped him. Image: X@TruthTrumpPost Speaking to RNZ’s Morning Report, Clark said there was no argument for the steps the US had taken. “Article 24 of the UN Charter says states must refrain from using military force against each other and respect their sovereignty. “There is a case for Maduro appearing before a court — that should be the International Criminal Court — on charges for crimes against humanity and there’s quite a long list of those that have been documented by various UN bodies over the years but this operation by the US . . . is illegal.” There was not an argument to be made that removing Maduro was in the security interests on the US, she said. ‘Not self-defence’ “There’s no evidence that the US was able to act in self-defence because it was not about to be attacked by Venezuela. So the self-defence argument does not apply at all.” Hard not to conclude that intervention in #Venezuela is a breach of international law. Maduro was a dictatorial ruler presiding over arbitrary detention & torture of opponents. Iraq 2003 intervention, however, suggests unpredictable path ahead: https://t.co/4qjeENjpAH — Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) January 3, 2026 While some people in Venezuela were celebrating Maduro’s capture in the hopes it would create more stability, Clark said this might not be the case. “The worry with the president of other such interventions, when you take out a leader of an apparatus and then if you try to dismantle that apparatus by external forces, as was the case with Iraq — and I suppose, to some extent, with Libya — is that you create more instability and chaos,” Clark said. “We don’t really know at this point what the US’s even short-term, let alone medium-term plans are. There’s been, effectively a warning by President Trump this morning that if the acting president, Ms Rodriguez, doesn’t play ball, she will ‘pay a price even bigger than Maduro’. “What does this mean? Will she be literally, physically taken out? Killed? So this is a very unstable, unpredictable, uncertain situation at the moment.” On Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters made the first public statement from New Zealand on the situation. “New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law,” Peters said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), using the official Minister of Foreign Affairs account. NZ ‘stands with Venezuelan people’ “New Zealand stands with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of a fair, democratic and prosperous future. Clark said the statement was a “good start”. RT @WhiteHouse: Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima. pic.twitter.com/Y4wzZM5qde — Donald J Trump Posts TruthSocial (@TruthTrumpPost) January 3, 2026 New Zealand was known for following and upholding international law and Peters’ statement was consistent with the country’s long-held position, she said. On Sunday, international relations Professor Robert Patman of the University of Otago described the US’ military actions against Venezuela as an “audacious move”. “It’s a direct challenge for countries like New Zealand, which support the view that international relations should be based on rules, procedures and laws,” he told RNZ’s Worldwatch. Patman said while many would be pleased to see Maduro gone, that did not mean they would be happy the US “violated Venezuela’s sovereignty”. He believed New Zealand’s response to the US action in Venezuela should be firm and robust. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Progressive Democrats of America Condemns Trump’s Attacks On Venezuela
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) today issued the following statement:Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) condemns Donald Trump and his administration for launching unprovoked, unwarranted, illegal military attacks against the people of Venez...
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) today issued the following statement: Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) condemns Donald Trump and his administration for launching unprovoked, unwarranted, illegal military attacks against the people of Venezuela. We further condemn their operations abducting Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. No democratic nation can tolerate illegal secret warfare, clandestine regime change operations, or removal of foreign leadership carried out in our name. PDA joins with the Congressional Progressive Congress (CPC) in demanding passage of H.Con.Res. 61 and H.Con.Res. 64, Described by the CPC as “Congressional directives to remove U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Western Hemisphere without delay.” We support the CPC’s advocacy for what they described as “[T]wo resolutions led by House Foreign Affairs and Rules Committee Ranking Members Meeks and McGovern to end Trump’s brutal military campaign that has killed at least 87 people and is driving us toward a catastrophic forever war in Venezuela. The resolutions are privileged under the War Powers Resolution and are available for floor action this week.” PDA calls upon the U.S. Congress to act immediately, employing its authority under the Constitution to force the Trump Administration to halt all military operations targeting Venezuela. This, by passing privileged emergency War Powers legislation directing the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from the area and cessation of hostilities, as well as defunding all regime‑change, assassination or kidnapping plots, or other military or paramilitary operations. The Congress must move swiftly to end, prohibit, and defund all offensive actions against Venezuela, including sanctions, blockades, strikes, and other so‑called “counter‑narcotics” missions that serve as a pretext for war. The Congress must exercise its Constitutional appropriations, investigative, and legislative powers to halt and prevent any further illegal actions and war crimes. Every moment of delay further endangers innocent Venezuelan lives, and risks setting a catastrophic precedent: that a president may unilaterally launch unprovoked and unwarranted, military attacks, air strikes, invasions, covert operations, and illegal attempts to impose regime‑change. Additionally, the Congress must immediately demand a full accounting about these illegal attacks. This, including who ordered the operations, where the detainees are being held, and how the administration plans to remediate these outrages. Furthermore, the Congress must launch a full and comprehensive independent investigation into any and all violations of U.S. and international law, including the U.N. Charter’s prohibition against aggressive war and the kidnapping of foreign officials. This by holding hearings, examining witnesses and documents, and other fact finding procedures, in order to hold those responsible accountable. Finally, Progressive Democrats of America calls upon Congress to reject the shameful bipartisan complicity in this campaign of escalating aggression, and to replace it with a sound, sensible foreign policy grounded in diplomacy, human rights, and the self‑determination of all people, including the Venezuelan people. In conclusion, history will judge whether Congress stood up in this moment to stop an illegal war; or stood by while unilateral executive branch actions were allowed to proceed, weakening the Constitution, our democracy, and the rule of law. Carried out without congressional authorization or clear evidence of an imminent threat, Trump’s actions blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution as well as U.S. and international law. As Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) stated: The American people did not ask for this act of war to bring about regime change in Venezuela—nor did Congress authorize it. President Trump has put our troops in harm’s way, and he has not provided a clear, fact-based rationale for these actions, nor the long-term strategy following these strikes…. This act of war is a grave abuse of power by the President. The Trump Administration is repeating the worst mistakes of our past and endangering American lives—and their motive for doing so is a farce. Trump seized Maduro and his wife just weeks after he pardoned former Honduran President—and notorious convicted drug kingpin—Juan Orlando Hernández…. This is not about demolishing a dictatorship, as we’ve seen Trump cozy up to dictators around the world. This is about trying to grab Venezuela’s oil for Trump’s billionaire buddies. Congress must not abdicate its constitutional authority and allow control of the world’s most powerful military to fall into just one set of hands. We agree. This is not foreign policy. This is militarized authoritarianism. We must act to stop it now, before it spreads to enflame the entire region, if not the entire globe in a dangerous, unnecessary conflict. We are outraged, but this moment demands more than outrage. It demands organized, coordinated resistance. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is helping lead the charge, organizing with our allies inside and outside of Congress to push back. We’re mobilizing support for the Progressive Caucus’ War Powers Resolutions and coordinating protests demanding an immediate ceasefire and all party negotiations to achieve a just and durable peace as soon as practicable. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Attacks Venezuela and Kidnaps President Maduro
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs discusses the US invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro. The post Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Attacks Venezuela and Kidnaps President Maduro first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs discusses the US invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro. The post Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Attacks Venezuela and Kidnaps President Maduro first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Glenn Diesen.
Iranians Clash With Police On Seventh Night Of Protests
The Consequences of Pandemic Spending #Policy #Accountability #SSHQ
Despite Trump-era reversals, 2025 still saw environmental wins. Here are 7 worth noting.
Environmental advocates notched key wins at local and state levels this year — despite the Trump administration’s rollbacks.
As 2025 draws to a close, environmental advocates across the U.S. find themselves weighing a year marked by both setbacks and successes. Despite major environmental reversals taken by the Donald Trump administration, including loosening fossil fuel rules and weakening endangered-species safeguards, conservationists, lawmakers, and researchers still notched key wins at local and state levels. Here are some environmental triumphs across the country amid a year of political turbulence. 1. California launches methane-tracking satellite California turned to space technology this year to curb methane pollution, launching a new program that uses satellite-mounted sensors to spot major leaks in near real time. The $100 million effort, funded through the state’s cap-and-trade program, sends data to the California Air Resources Board as the satellite passes over the state roughly five times a week. One satellite is already in orbit, with seven more expected to launch in the coming years. By November, the system had helped identify and stop 10 large leaks of the colorless and odorless gas since May — the climate equivalent of taking about 18,000 cars off the road for a year. 2. Hawai‘i researchers identify microplastic-eating fungi Scientists at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have discovered that many fungi living around the islands can naturally degrade plastic, with some even being trained to consume the microparticles faster. In February, after testing various marine fungi species, researchers announced that over 60 percent could break down polyurethane, a common plastic found in consumer and commercial products. By repeatedly exposing the fastest-growing fungi to plastic, researchers also boosted their degradation rates by up to 15 percent in just three months. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="People hold signs protesting plastic pollution. A woman in center has a sign reading "pongan fin a la contaminación plástica"" class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1600w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Pongan-fin-a-la-contaminacion-plastica.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="900" width="1600" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> Plastic pollution is toxic and everywhere. Now, legal experts say it’s a human rights violation. Joseph Winters With the equivalent of roughly 625,000 garbage trucks’ worth of plastic entering the ocean annually, researchers are now determining whether the plastic-eating species or other fungi can break down more stubborn, less degradable plastics such as polyethylene. 3. Scientists discover culprits of honeybee decline Scientists have identified key viral drivers behind the massive honeybee die-off that has devastated U.S. beekeepers since early 2025. In a new Department of Agriculture study awaiting peer review and conducted amid Trump-era funding cuts, researchers found that nearly all sampled colonies carried bee viruses spread by Varroa mites — parasites now resistant to amitraz, the primary chemical used to control them. These mites rapidly transmit infections, which can also spill over into wild pollinators. However, researchers have also cautioned that resistant mites are only part of the problem, with the climate crisis, pesticide exposure, and shrinking forage also contributing to record-breaking colony losses. 4. Hypoxia levels in Long Island Sound reach lowest levels in 40 years Levels of hypoxia, or low oxygen in bottom waters as a result of an overgrowth — and decomposition — of algae, have reached their lowest in 40 years, marking a major recovery milestone for the East Coast’s second-largest estuary. New state data shows the sound’s “dead zones,” which are depleted of oxygen and uninhabitable for marine life, shrank to 18.3 square miles and lasted only 40 days — among the shortest and smallest events since monitoring began in the late 1980s. The numbers reflect a significant decline from 43 square miles in 2024 and 127 square miles in 2023. Scientists credit decades of local and state-led efforts to cut nitrogen pollution, as well as this year’s dry summer conditions that helped reduce algae growth across the sound. 5. San Diego researchers develop new gel to restore coral reefs Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a groundbreaking gel, Snap-X, that could transform coral reef restoration. With coral larvae being particularly selective about where they settle, researchers announced in May the creation of a material that releases chemical cues to indicate suitable habitats. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="A diver is shown alongside a coral reef many times taller and wider than he is." class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all 1600w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/coral-reefs-climate-business-case-for-saving-FEMA-coastal-protection.jpeg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="900" width="1600" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> The business case for saving coral reefs Saqib Rahim Snap-X, composed of nanoparticles suspended in a UV-curable gel, gradually releases coral-attracting chemicals over the course of a month. In laboratory tests on the Hawaiian stony coral species Montipora capitata, surfaces treated with Snap-X promoted coral resettlement at six times the rate of untreated surfaces. Furthermore, in experiments simulating reef environments with flowing water, Snap-X boosted coral larval settlement by 20 times, according to researchers. The research breakthrough comes as more than 80 percent of the world’s reefs were hit earlier this year by the worst global bleaching event on record. 6. New Mexico invests $50 million into wildlife crossings In April, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham committed $50 million to expand wildlife crossings as part of a statewide effort to reduce dangerous wildlife collisions. The funding, included in the state’s House Bill 5, marks the largest single-year state appropriation for wildlife crossings in the U.S. It supports projects identified in the New Mexico Wildlife Corridors Action Plan, including the high-priority US 550 corridor north of Cuba, commonly known as the Valley of Death due to severe elk and deer collisions. With roughly 1,200 wildlife crashes in the state each year, officials and conservationists have welcomed the investment, saying it will help reduce collisions while also protecting the natural behaviors of elk, mule deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, black bears, and cougars. 7. Researchers reduce sea turtle bycatch through solar-powered fishing nets Researchers from Arizona State University, NOAA Fisheries, and the World Wildlife Fund have developed solar-powered, flashing LED lights for gillnets — walls of netting designed to entangle fish — to reduce sea turtle bycatch. Developed in collaboration with local fishers along Mexico’s Gulf of California, the lights also serve as buoys. Built with polycarbonate housings, flexible solar cells, lithium polymer batteries, and green LEDs, the lights are capable of running for up to five nights without direct sunlight. As a result, researchers found that solar-powered nets reduced sea turtle bycatch by 63 percent compared with conventional nets. Researchers also found that the lights did not reduce the catch rates of targeted species such as yellowtail tuna. The development comes as bycatch comprises 40 percent of the total global seafood catch, or 63 billion pounds per year, with most of the waste involving endangered marine animals including sea turtles, sharks, and dolphins. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Despite Trump-era reversals, 2025 still saw environmental wins. Here are 7 worth noting. on Jan 4, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maya Yang, The Guardian.
Trump’s gift-wrapped Maduro package has done the world a favour – revealing what a lie US foreign policy really is
Kidnap, murder, torture, brutality, subversion, treachery, and barbarism, writes Adrian Blackburn reflecting on US President Donald Trump’s New Year present to the world. COMMENTARY: By Adrian Blackburn Blatantly, boastfully, bullyingly, shamelessly, Trump overnight threw open to the world’s eyes the cruel reality of US foreign policy. He has brought out from the shadows the ugly
Kidnap, murder, torture, brutality, subversion, treachery, and barbarism, writes Adrian Blackburn reflecting on US President Donald Trump’s New Year present to the world. COMMENTARY: By Adrian Blackburn Blatantly, boastfully, bullyingly, shamelessly, Trump overnight threw open to the world’s eyes the cruel reality of US foreign policy. He has brought out from the shadows the ugly reality of what for generations previous administrations have found politic to keep covert. That foreign policy has been shown most especially arrogant in regard to its neighbours anywhere in the Americas. It has been based on a lie, a lie to its own people first but no less potently to the nations, including New Zealand, which have subscribed to that fiction of a United States democracy representing all the best human qualities. READ MORE: Maduro being questioned in New York as Trump says US will ‘run’ Venezuela Maduro joins Iraq’s Saddam, Panama’s Noriega as latest leader taken by US World reacts to ‘kidnapping’ of Venezuela’s President Maduro The nicely gift-wrapped package includes belief in equality, fairness, justice, the sanctity of human life, acceptance of difference, mutual respect, kindness and love: The American way, the ultimate Christian morality in practice. Trump has done all of us who have bought that lie a favour. What he is saying out loud with the attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro is the age-old message of a rogue state — might is right, all power comes from the barrel of a gun, bow down to us. Any self-reflection by Trump, unlikely, would reveal to him the deeper historical truth that empires which once seemed invulnerable resort to such desperate measures as his Venezuelan adventure in an attempt to deny, to delay, to divert from the fact they are in their death throes. Decline and fall. It will get worse for the United States, as a state. The lie will become increasingly acknowledged internationally as trust is shown to be a one-way street. The allied fiction of US Treasury bills as a long-term safe repository for the world’s savings may be undermined even faster. Run on the US bank Trust gone, it’s the work of moments for an international run on the bank of the US to begin. Even if its already hard-working monetary printing presses go into overtime, an economy and society propped up on trillions upon trillions of dollars of debt can quickly become bankrupt Immediately, though, what can the international community do in protest? I believe there’s a special obligation on the “Western” nations to assuage a little of their guilt as willing US accomplices over many years, accomplices ready to abandon true independence and a fair bit of morality to self-interest, cowardice. Just a gesture in protest, but a powerful one, would be to immediately and in unison demand the temporary closure of US embassies and the withdrawal of their staff as persona non grata. Unrealistic? Of course. Real-politik will rule, OK! Turning blind eyes to Venezuela But we should all beware of turning blind eyes to Venezuela. Who next, after Maduro, incurs the Don’s displeasure? If Zelensky stubbornly won’t surrender to Don and Vlad’s territorial demands, will he be safe on his next State visit to the US from arbitrary arrest and incarceration as an alleged war criminal? Does our own Christopher Luxon need to brush up his flattery skills even further? Losing every hole of a golf match with Trump would help. Trump, though, has already lost, whether in his hyperbolically hypocritical state he knows it or not. But he has done the world a useful service in revealing how an empire on the way out is likely to act. Big oil will be triumphal about a grab for Venezuela’s oil riches in the hypocritical guise of protecting the US from illicit drug imports. Chinese President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, is quietly gloating. Adrian Blackburn is lifelong journalist and writer. Staff writer on many publications, including The NZ Herald, Sydney Morning Herald, BBC World Service, Beaverbrook Newspapers, NZ Listener and NZ Woman’s Weekly. Author of The Shoestring Pirates (Hodder and Stoughton, 1974) a history of pirate Radio Hauraki, and Gift: A Troubling Message from the Afterlife (2024). This commentary was originally a Facebook posting under the title “Trump grabs Venezuela by the pussy” and is republished here with permission. This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
On the surface, abducting a Head of State is a piratical act eschewed by States. A Head of State enjoys absolute immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction, known as ratione personae, at least till the term of office concludes. The International Court of Justice was clear enough about this principle in the 2002 Arrest Warrant Case, […] The post Venal Reactions: US Allies Validate Maduro’s Abduction first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/venezuela-300x217.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="217" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-90026" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/venezuela-300x217.jpg 300w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/venezuela.jpg 475w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />On the surface, abducting a Head of State is a piratical act eschewed by States. A Head of State enjoys absolute immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction, known as ratione personae, at least till the term of office concludes. The International Court of Justice was clear enough about this principle in the 2002 Arrest Warrant Case, holding that high ranked government officials such as a foreign minister are granted immunity under customary international law to enable the effective performance of their functions “on behalf of their respective States.” That said, international law has been modified on this score by the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, whose founding Rome Statute stipulates that the official standing of a serving Head of State is no exemption from criminal responsibility. The effectiveness of this principle lies in the cooperation of State parties, something distinctly unforthcoming regarding certain serving leaders. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu springs to mind.) US domestic law puts all of this to side with the highwayman logic of the Ker-Frisbie doctrine. Decided in Ker v Illinois in 1886, the decision overlooks the way, lawful or otherwise, a defendant is apprehended, even if outside the jurisdiction. Once American soil is reached, judicial proceedings can commence without challenge. The US Department of Justice has further attempted to puncture ancient notions of diplomatic immunity by recategorizing (how else?) the standing of a leader – in this case Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro – as nothing more than a narco-terrorist. Maduro was seized, explains US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as part of a law enforcement operation. In addition to being a violation of the leadership immunity principle, the January 3 kidnapping of Maduro and his wife by US forces was an audacious breach of the sovereignty guarantee under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Operation Absolute Resolve involved 150 aircraft, strikes on military infrastructure including surface-to-air missile and communication systems, and various depots. The security fantasists from the White House to the State Department treated Venezuela as not merely a dangerous narco-state but one hosting undesirable foreign elements, but it has never posed a military threat to the US homeland. In the face of such unalloyed aggression – a crime against peace, if you will – the response from Washington’s allies has been feeble and worse. This is made all the more grotesque for their claims to purity when it comes to defending Western civilisation against the perceived ogres and bogeymen of international relations: Russia and China. From the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer could not have been clearer about his contempt for the processes of international law. “The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela,” he declared in his January 3 statement. “We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.” Having given a coating of legitimacy to the banditry of the Trump administration, he could still claim to “support” international law. His government would “discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.” Certainly, judging from this, the will of President Donald Trump. An official statement from the European Union released by its high representative, Kaja Kallas, was even more mealy-mouthed: “The EU has repeatedly stated that Nicolás Maduro lacks the legitimacy of a democratically elected president and has advocated for a Venezuelan-led peaceful transition to democracy in the country, respectful of its sovereignty.” The tactic here involves soiling the subject before paying some false respect for such concepts as democracy and sovereignty. We can do without Maduro, and won’t miss him, but make some modest effort to respect some cardinal virtues when disposing of him. All those involved should show “restraint […] to avoid escalation and to ensure a peaceful resolution of the crisis.” The arrogance of this position is underlined by the concession to diplomacy’s importance and the role of dialogue, when there has been no dialogue or diplomacy to speak of. “We are in close contact with the United States, as well as regional and international partners to support and facilitate dialogue with all parties involved, leading to a negotiated, democratic, inclusive and peaceful resolution to the crisis, led by Venezuelans.” From the Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, there was not a whisper of Maduro’s abduction, or the US breach of the UN Charter. The phantom conveniently called the Venezuelan People stood as an alibi for lawbreaking, for they had a “desire to live in a peaceful and democratic society.” And there was the familiar call “on all parties to exercise restraint and uphold international law”, marvellous piffle in the face of illegal abductions. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did little to improve upon the weak formula in his shabby statement, similarly skipping over the violations of the UN Charter and Maduro’s abduction. “We urge all parties to support dialogue and diplomacy in order to secure regional stability and prevent escalation.” A bland acknowledgement of “the need to respect democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms” is made, along with the risible reference to supporting “international law and a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.” Who, then, are these idealised people? Presumably these Venezuelans are the vetted ones, sanitised with the seal of approval, untainted by silly notions of revolution and the poverty reduction measures initially implemented by the government of Hugo Chávez. But if EU officials and other states friendly to Washington thought that a Venezuelan appropriately representative of the People’s Will might be the opposition figure and travesty of a Nobel laureate, María Corina Machado, Trump had other ideas. To date the Maduro loyalist Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, has caught his fickle eye. “I think,” he said with blunt machismo, “it would be very tough for [Machado] to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect”. The Venezuelan people’s choice will be, putting democracy and dialogue to one side, the same as Trump’s. The post Venal Reactions: US Allies Validate Maduro’s Abduction first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Trump’s Unprovoked Attack on Venezuela and International Law
Every time I say “He wouldn’t go that far”, he goes farther. All bets are off. Donald Trump has demonstrated no respect for human life or international law. The United States government has committed crimes that transgress not only the law but all sense of human decency. It is not just Venezuela that is at risk–it is every nation that has something the US wants, every human being who stands up for democracy and human rights, and the planet itself. This is not the first time, but this is our moment to either react or resign ourselves to authoritarianism at gunpoint. To read this article, log in here or subscribe here. If you are logged in but can't read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies. More The post Trump’s Unprovoked Attack on Venezuela and International Law appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Every time I say “He wouldn’t go that far”, he goes farther. All bets are off. Donald Trump has demonstrated no respect for human life or international law. The United States government has committed crimes that transgress not only the law but all sense of human decency. It is not just Venezuela that is at risk–it is every nation that has something the US wants, every human being who stands up for democracy and human rights, and the planet itself. This is not the first time, but this is our moment to either react or resign ourselves to authoritarianism at gunpoint. To read this article, log in here or subscribe here. If you are logged in but can't read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies. The post Trump’s Unprovoked Attack on Venezuela and International Law appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Laura Carlsen.
Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie […] To read this article, log in here or subscribe here. If you are logged in but can't read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies. More The post Manufacturing Nuclear Consent appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie Groves press conference. Still from “Bombshell.” Courtesy PBS. Leslie […] To read this article, log in here or subscribe here. If you are logged in but can't read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies. The post Manufacturing Nuclear Consent appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ed Rampell.
They Kidnapped Maduro Because The World Is Ruled By Unaccountable Tyrants
Well, Trump finally did it. US special forces attacked Venezuela and abducted President Maduro from Caracas, reportedly killing at least 40 people in the process. And now that it’s all over, the White House is getting a lot more honest about the real motives behind its actions. After all those months of babbling about fentanyl and “narcoterrorism” and freedom […] The post They Kidnapped Maduro Because The World Is Ruled By Unaccountable Tyrants first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Well, Trump finally did it. US special forces attacked Venezuela and abducted President Maduro from Caracas, reportedly killing at least 40 people in the process. And now that it’s all over, the White House is getting a lot more honest about the real motives behind its actions. After all those months of babbling about fentanyl and “narcoterrorism” and freedom and democracy, the Trump administration has come right out and admitted that its regime change interventionism in Venezuela has always been a good old-fashioned oil grab. “We’re gonna take back the oil that frankly we should have taken back a long time ago,” Trump told the press following Maduro’s abduction, saying “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground, and that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela, and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country.” “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so,” Trump said. “We have tremendous energy in that country. It’s very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves, we need that for the world,” the president added. Trump made it explicitly clear that this is going to be some sort of long-term US occupation project, contradicting early claims of his supporters who had defended the president’s actions in Venezuela as a brief in-and-out, one-and-done special ops intervention. “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said. “So we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the president said. “And we have to have, we had boots on the ground last night at a very high level. Actually, we’re not afraid of it, we’re we don’t mind saying it, but we’re going to make sure that that country is run properly. We’re not doing this in vain.” You would think, after all these incredibly honest admissions, that this was a regime change operation aimed at controlling the resources of the nation with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet, people would get real and accept that they were lied to about the Trump administration’s real reasons for targeting Venezuela. But I am still getting Trump supporters prattling on about drugs, terrorism, and democracy in my social media replies defending my criticisms of his monstrous act of war. I had one Trump supporter try to tell me the president’s admissions that it was all about the oil don’t necessarily prove it wasn’t also about fighting drug trafficking, arguing that it could possibly have been motivated by both. Which to me kinda sounds like a grandmother acknowledging that yes, she had been victimized by an email scam, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the nice man who scammed her wasn’t also a Nigerian prince. Trump supporters would make excuses for literally anything he did. Literally anything. I am not using hyperbole for effect. There is literally nothing he could do that they wouldn’t twist themselves into cognitive pretzels trying to justify. Trump is spelling out the truth of what he is and what the US empire is, and anyone with open eyes can see it plain as day. For those whose eyes are open or are beginning to open, I hope you continue learning the same lessons with Venezuela that you learned with Gaza. The US empire always lies, the mass media always facilitate its lies, and the global south continues to be ransacked by the murderous abusers who run things. While I was decrying Trump’s Venezuela assault, some empire simp mockingly told me, “It must be sad for you to lose a tyrant.” I told him no, it’s sad for me that we live in a lawless world that is ruled by tyrants. It’s sad for me that we are ruled by chaotic despots who can invade a sovereign nation and abduct its leader and suffer no consequences. It’s sad for me that the people with their hands on the steering wheel of the fate of our species are a bunch of sociopathic thugs who can smash and rob any country they please with total impunity. It’s sad for me that our planet’s population is subject to the whims of a globe-spanning empire which topples governments, wages wars, sponsors genocides, targets civilians with starvation sanctions, backs proxy conflicts, drops bombs, brainwashes entire nations with propaganda, uses its military and economic might to bully and cajole states into bowing to its dictates, and sows suffering, destruction and death around the world every moment of every day. It’s sad to me that these are the people making the decisions that will determine humanity’s path into the future. The future of our society. The future of our planet’s resources. The future of our technological innovation. The future of our ecosystem. The future of our militaries. The future of our nuclear weapons. That is what is sad for me. I have no special emotional attachment to Maduro as an individual, but I do have a strong emotional attachment to the possibility of a healthy world emerging in the future. And as things stand right now, it’s looking pretty dark. I find that sad. The post They Kidnapped Maduro Because The World Is Ruled By Unaccountable Tyrants first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caitlin Johnstone.
The Don-roe Doctrine in Action: Trump’s Gangster Intervention in Venezuela
‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine”
Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices
It has been an accusation long levelled at certain US politicians that their brains might have been softened by a lengthy diet of television, Westerns, and the heroic triumphalism of the prattling cowboy. There was never going to be a break with this tradition regarding President Donald Trump, except for the fact that he claimed to […] The post The Don-roe Doctrine in Action: Trump’s Gangster Intervention in Venezuela first appeared on Dissident Voice.
It has been an accusation long levelled at certain US politicians that their brains might have been softened by a lengthy diet of television, Westerns, and the heroic triumphalism of the prattling cowboy. There was never going to be a break with this tradition regarding President Donald Trump, except for the fact that he claimed to be more restrained on the draw. Of late, that restraint has vanished. A buildup of US army personnel in the Caribbean; the bombing, on fatuous grounds, of vessels in the Caribbean Sea carrying fictional narco-cargo destined for the United States, and, just to top things, delirious notions about attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early hours of the morning in the event protestors are shot. It was clear after the release of the 2025 National Security Strategy that this administration was going to shred the inhibitions imposed by international law and opt for the more liberating costumery of gangsterism. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States would assert its muscle and dictate terms, as it has done previously, to countries in Latin America. Washington desired “a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations”, one “that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains,” and ensured “continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” Venezuela has become the first target of this corollary. On January 3, a little after 2 am local time, US forces attacked Caracas and other sites in the country as part of Operation Absolute Resolve. By 4:21 am, Trump announced that the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores had been captured. The Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, at a press conference held at the President’s Florida compound, spoke of, “An extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose, to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise.” Caine also revealed that US intelligence teams had been eyeing Maduro and his wife for months. With a thuggish flourish, the general explained that those teams had monitored the leader to “understand how he moved, where he lived, where he travelled, what he ate, what he wore, and what were his pets.” Trump, in explaining the rationale behind the Venezuelan action, spoke ever immodestly about the “Don-roe Doctrine.” The Maduro regime had hosted “foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten US interests and lives”. This was “in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy, dating back more than two centuries”. The Monroe Doctrine had been “a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, a real lot. They now call it the ‘Don-roe Doctrine.’” US Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly announced that Maduro had been indicted in the Southern District of New York on a fruit salad array of implausible charges: “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.” As with previous, implausibly elastic categories of combatant hatched by the US Justice Department and White House – that of “unlawful combatant” or “unprivileged belligerent” conceived by the administration of George W. Bush comes to mind – a category has been invented to inspire a false resolution. The invented category of narco-terrorism has revealed the limits of legal literacy of the Trump administration. Such a term, imputing links between government officials, organised crime and terrorism, supposedly vests war-making powers in the executive, along with, it transpires in the case of Maduro, abduction powers regarding the foreign leader of a state. The US Congress has again been roguishly sidestepped. The dress rehearsal for this commenced on September 2 last year when Trump stated in a War Powers Resolution notification to Congress that military strikes on alleged narco-vessels operating in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean were “self-defense” measures motivated by “the inability or unwillingness of some states in the region to address the continuing threat to United States persons and interests emanating from their territories”. In October, a presidential notice was issued turning those killed in alleged drug smuggling as “unlawful combatants”, thereby twinning this administration’s lexical imagination with that of George W. Bush. For Bush, that imagination extended to fictional weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) held by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that might be used against Americans and their allies at any given moment. Furthermore, they might fall into the hands of non-state actors. In Trump’s case, fantasies about Maduro as a wily drug chieftain hosting rebel groups proliferate. Much of this is sheer nonsense, given that the country has little to nothing to do with the flow of cocaine into the US. But there is oil to be seized and managed by US companies and the Don-roe doctrine to maintain. In responding to this act of breezy criminality, countries programmed to emphasise the “rules-based” international order find themselves in a bind. The European Union, instead of spluttering and raging, proved meek, mocking Maduro’s status as Venezuela’s leader yet finding it hard to condemn Trump’s flouting of convention and the UN Charter. The EU high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, was most indicative: “The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint.” In Britain, Trump fanboy and leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage expressed that ecstatic confusion that comes with admiring an untutored, unrestrained bully in international relations. “The American actions in Venezuela overnight are unorthodox and contrary to international law – but if they make China and Russia think twice, it may be a good thing.” The response from Roderich Kiesewetter, MP from Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, was more tutored. “The coup in Venezuela marks a return to the old US doctrine from before 1940: a mindset of thinking in terms of spheres of influence, where the law of force rules, not international law.” The reaction from the Cuban government was much in the same vein, though more colourful: “This is a blatant imperialist and fascist aggression with objectives of domination, aimed at reviving US hegemonic ambitions over Our America, rooted in the Monroe Doctrine, and at achieving unrestricted access to and control over the natural wealth of Venezuela and the region.” The kidnapping of leaders by bullying powers in the post-1945 world is not new. Hungary’s deceived Imre Nagy, seen as the figurehead of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, was seized by the Soviet Union for disciplinary action that culminated in his trial and execution. Czechoslovakia’s Alexander Dubček, leader of the crushed Prague Spring of 1968, was spared execution but faced similar ideological chastisement by the Soviet leadership for implementing reforms. Within their sphere of influence, the Soviets were keen to dissuade unruly contrarians that their leaders might, at any moment, be kidnapped, executed, or reprogrammed at will. Trump has, without knowing it, joined a most dubious club. The post The Don-roe Doctrine in Action: Trump’s Gangster Intervention in Venezuela first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Kidnap Presidents
What was defined at Nuremberg as the supreme international crime (one country attacking another one) is depicted by Trump and even the supposedly anti-Trump corporate media as some sort of law enforcement. Bombing is liberating. Kidnapping is capturing. Murdering people on boats is “impeding the flow of drugs.” Imagine if, say, Saudi Arabia or Norway […] The post Lies and the Lying Liars Who Kidnap Presidents first appeared on Dissident Voice.
What was defined at Nuremberg as the supreme international crime (one country attacking another one) is depicted by Trump and even the supposedly anti-Trump corporate media as some sort of law enforcement. Bombing is liberating. Kidnapping is capturing. Murdering people on boats is “impeding the flow of drugs.” Imagine if, say, Saudi Arabia or Norway or India were to impose deadly sanctions on the United States, attempt numerous comical coups, murder boaters off the U.S. coast, impose a no-fly-zone and naval blockade, bomb Washington, kidnap the U.S. president, and declare its intent to “run” the country and its most planetarily destructive resources. Unlike in Venezuela, in the United States, you could poll the public and find majority support for disappearing the president. The problem is that, after our national town square was deprived of its idiot, the country wouldn’t be “run” at all. Even a coalition of 100 nations couldn’t occupy the United States without massive tumultuous resistance of the predictable violent or the more powerful but less likely nonviolent sort. And if an occupied nation were ever well run, more bombings and kidnappings by someone else could put an end to that. Whether Trump and those bowing before his illegal orders simply pretend they are running Venezuela or attempt to militarily occupy it, Venezuela is in for worse times than ever. And so is the globe, with the rule of law shredded and the pirates of the Caribbean dressed up as cops of the world. And so is Trump, as his latest war promises to drag on as long as his Epstein ordeal. To state the obvious, the United Nations Charter makes it a crime to threaten war and a crime to wage war except in defense or by UN authorization, neither of which is the case here, and neither of which has even been alleged here. The shortcomings of a government provide no legal basis for a foreign government to attempt to overthrow it. Trump was just threatening to attack Iran should its government engage in any of the sorts of behavior Trump would celebrate if he were making a buck off it. If you could attack governments because they were barbaric or possessed weapons or possessed oil, obviously anyone could attack the United States. The illegal drug trade, even where real, provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder. Trump’s claims about the illegal drug trade regarding both Venezuela and over 100 people thus far murdered in boats with U.S. missiles from drones are without evidence and widely considered not even plausible. But they could be the perfect truth and would still do absolutely nothing to justify mass murder. (Trump’s now pretending to search for survivors of his attacks, though it’s not clear whether that’s to rescue them or to murder them.) Seizing a nation’s oil provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder. We can call it refreshing and exciting that Trump makes no pretense about hiding this motive. But ugly reasons for crimes don’t legalize them any more than beautiful ones. The U.S. Congress is a collection of court jesters masquerading as legislators. Trump told them there was no need to oppose this war because it wouldn’t happen. Now that the war or murders (call it whichever of its two names you like) has lasted this long and arrived at the “Mission Accomplished” commercial break, Congress Critters who failed to pass a redundant resolution against the war are now patting themselves on the back, supporting the Monroe Doctrine, endorsing murder and kidnap, and presenting themselves as so moronic as to believe the drug lies and to believe such drug lies are able to legalize the supreme international crime. These men and women expect to be able to go on not only threatening other nations but criticizing them as lawless, and doing so with a straight face. A Congress member who wanted respect would immediately demand of his or her colleagues that they End all war and hostilities toward Venezuela. Cut off the funding that allows such crimes. Free Venezuela’s kidnapped president. Bring all U.S. troops and equipment back to the United States from Venezuela and vicinity. Cancel the brutal economic sanctions, naval blockade, and no-fly zone. Renounce overthrows and the Monroe Doctrine. Impeach, convict, and remove President Trump from office. But what about us? We need to be protesting at every U.S. embassy the world over, at every state and local government in the United States, and in Washington D.C., in a manner to prevent the functioning of the Monrovian mafia. And those who think the United Nations or the Nobel Committee can still be saved should be protesting at those places as well. The post Lies and the Lying Liars Who Kidnap Presidents first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by David Swanson.
CEPR Condemns Trump Administration’s Dangerous and Illegal Military Assault on Venezuela and Violation of Its National Sovereignty
The Trump administration’s illegal military assault on Venezuela and its violation of Venezuela’s national sovereignty should be widely condemned, Center for Economic and Policy Research directors said today. US military strikes on Venezuelan territor...
The Trump administration’s illegal military assault on Venezuela and its violation of Venezuela’s national sovereignty should be widely condemned, Center for Economic and Policy Research directors said today. US military strikes on Venezuelan territory early this morning, and the reported abduction by US forces of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, are illegal under international law, were conducted without congressional authorization or ― reportedly ― notification, and set a dangerous precedent, they warned. While US administration officials initially described this morning’s attack as a law enforcement operation, President Trump’s remarks earlier today ― where he stated that the US would be “running Venezuela” and that US companies would be managing the oil infrastructure ― suggest that the goal is regime change and a long-term US occupation, much like the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. If Trump’s assertions reflect a concrete plan, then the US is now embarked on an unauthorized and unprovoked open-ended war against a country that poses no believable threat to US national security. “This is an illegal assault on a country that poses no security threat to the United States, and Trump himself has repeatedly said that he is going after the country’s oil, the largest proven reserves in the world,” CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said. “Only one in five Americans in the most recent poll said they supported such military intervention. Most people don’t like our government putting forth plans and threats, and taking actions that make it look like a criminal enterprise. Trump has repeatedly shown that he has no regard for international law.” According to media reports, the US military attack on Caracas was conducted without first notifying Congress, including members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Trump administration has not made a case for war against Venezuela to the US Congress, and “top Trump officials previously testified to Congress that the U.S. was not seeking to oust Maduro, and would seek congressional authorization for any ground operations in Venezuela,” as Axios notes. Various members of Congress are calling for a new War Powers Resolution vote. The Trump administration has offered a shifting pretext for its aggression toward Venezuela, focused on alleged drug trafficking by Maduro. But the administration has presented no evidence for its allegations, which have been widely debunked and dismissed by current and former US officials and experts. It is unclear what the next steps in the US’s attack on Venezuela might be, and the possible consequences are even more uncertain. Venezuelan officials have reported civilian and military killings, though the scale of human casualties remains unclear. President Trump today said that “we’re going to run” Venezuela, and suggested that he may order more military strikes inside Venezuela. He also threatened possible US action inside Mexico, and warned Colombian President Gustavo Petro to “watch his ass.” Currently, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and other top Maduro administration officials remain in office. Heads of state and other world leaders have condemned the US actions in Venezuela, including Brazil’s Lula da Silva, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and the government of South Africa, among others. Many others, including Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, are calling for deescalation. Prominent figures from across the political spectrum, such as Germany’s Roderich Kiesewetter on the right, the UK’s Jeremy Corbyn on the left, and France’s Marine Le Pen on the far right, have condemned the US’s violation of Venezuela’s national sovereignty. The United Nations issued a statement saying that UN Secretary-General António Guterres is “deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected” and “call[ed] on all actors in Venezuela to engage in inclusive dialogue, in full respect of human rights and the rule of law.” As CEPR Senior Research Fellow Guillaume Long, formerly the foreign minister for Ecuador and a former ambassador to the UN, has noted, the US’s actions violate Article 2(4) and the integrity of Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Today’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Maduro and First Lady Flores is the latest in a series of US regime change efforts in Venezuela over more than 20 years. State Department and CIA documents revealed the US role in the short-lived 2002 coup d’etat against then-President Hugo Chávez. That overturned coup was followed by an oil industry lockout that devastated Venezuela’s economy, and then a 2004 US-backed recall referendum that voters overwhelmingly defeated. The first Trump administration openly attempted to remove Maduro by recognizing as president a right-wing politician, Juan Guaidó, who openly called for a military ouster of Maduro. Starting in 2017, the first Trump administration imposed increasingly damaging economic sanctions against Venezuela that were largely maintained during the Biden administration. These have been a major driver of the country’s economic collapse and subsequent mass out-migration, as CEPR Senior Research Fellow Francisco Rodríguez has shown in multiple peer-reviewed studies. A 2019 CEPR report by Mark Weisbrot and Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs found that the US economic sanctions led to more than tens of thousands of deaths in Venezuela in 2017–2018 alone. Rodríguez estimates that US sanctions fueled an economic collapse equivalent to three Great Depressions. “President Trump’s actions are shocking and dangerous and a complete betrayal of his campaign promise to keep the US out of unnecessary wars. If, as his most recent remarks suggest, Trump continues to intervene militarily in Venezuela the consequences could be disastrous for Venezuelans and potentially for US service members, who risk being dragged into a deadly, protracted war. Other countries in the region should also be deeply concerned as it becomes clear that the so-called Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine involves asserting US domination throughout Latin America by deploying murky claims of ‘narco-terrorism’ as a fig leaf for constant aggression,” CEPR Director of International Policy Alexander Main said. CEPR has been tracking developments in the Trump administration’s aggression toward Venezuela and other countries in the region, and its illegal extrajudicial killings of people in the Caribbean and Pacific, and will continue to do so, here. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Special Report on Venezuela: U.S. Abducts Maduro, Trump Says "We Are Going to Run" Oil-Rich Nation
Trump Embraces Big Oil and Empire After Kidnapping Venezuela’s President
President Trump just delivered an hour-long press conference at Mar-a-Lago touting his attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicholas Maduro, adding that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for the foreseeable future and extract its oil ...
President Trump just delivered an hour-long press conference at Mar-a-Lago touting his attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicholas Maduro, adding that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for the foreseeable future and extract its oil resources. In response, Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman issued the following statement: “The president who once bragged untruthfully about his alleged opposition to the deadly and unconstitutional regime change war in Iraq has launched a deadly and unconstitutional regime change war for oil and empire. Even the best-case scenarios will be devastating. “There is no Congressional declaration of war nor authorization for the use of force in Venezuela, making Trump's actions transparently unconstitutional and illegal. “Importantly, Trump's actions in Venezuela would be illegal under international law even if there were Congressional authorization. No twisting of words can possibly conjure a story by which Venezuela constitutes a national security threat to the United States, let alone an imminent threat, justifying military action. “Trump’s shocking claim that the United States will occupy Venezuela, run the country and exploit the nation’s oil resources echoes the imperial arrogance of the United States after the invasion of Iraq and may well foretell a comparable disaster. “Trump is embracing both a resource imperialism and regime change mentality that the American people overwhelmingly reject, for good reason. Trump seems to think that Venezuelan oil belongs to the United States. In invoking the Monroe Doctrine, or a ‘much bigger’ ‘Donroe Doctrine,’ he explicitly embraces a lawless, immoral and dangerous claim that the United States has a right to dominate the Western Hemisphere by force. “Trump made fantastical claims that a Venezuelan-led drug trade had led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. In fact, Venezuela has no role in the fentanyl trade. Trump is cutting funding for drug addiction treatment. And Trump’s purported concern with international drug trafficking is mocked by Trump’s pardon of ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for moving tons of cocaine into the United States. “A federal indictment against Maduro changes nothing. Apart from the bitter irony that Trump benefits from the U.S. Supreme Court-conferred immunity for his illegal actions while in office, U.S. criminal charges against a foreign leader do not provide justification for war and kidnapping. “There's no way to know what unfolds now in Venezuela, but there is certainly a <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.gqh-2BaxUzlo7XKIuSly0rCw0GHnTk9-2FEwPLsqELmaRPcio8AMICykKlQRoQwS3EJj87F4YDqDhfL802Rrf31ArDDj09VbhSEqJiaCmMXDBt2g8hRInl3FMgq4-2Fd9ShKHVPg9L_s0lTyPdoyuzn-2FJTE9fjR8nSlryGpLl-2B7mxK4it06DfKhpucLPiMkMsi-2BcoCz3G4i3By-2F6hPHPoGqGY0FGOHDfOVOEVOHWsINhbkTsTRXgnVigypaldDULnbrDQsZ9Purefk4e7pmbbmCXh9WEqnvxVzZQ3jaSiLhfD6UquLEOoF3UUW00LiVdlkN-2FjfrAyNPOUQPhE659iH7I2RSGCnxCAVKpVwU0g-2BMmHt-2FUyEpCNuCCjGxu8qQxfQAtNgndI1UIO1ed9p6QzqDS5GAFPnrIUkL8RxwvSPF6nj5XPmIG6GOfVRrkPS9P-2Fk9kyCrpwBiVn1F5PdIkOJoaSScP6ONYA-3D-3D" rel="noopener noreferrer" >risk of widespread and persistent chaos, violence, death and instability, which may well involve the risk of American lives along with countless Venezuelans. “With this action, the Trump regime validates the notion that the world should live under rule by brute force, not rule of law. Never in modern history has an American president so explicitly embraced an imperial claim. This is an out-of-control presidency. The planet is today more cruel and dangerous than it was yesterday.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Government by gangsterism – The Grayzone live
‘A criminal act of imperial aggression’: Statement from Progressive International’s Cabinet on the US invasion of Venezuela
The Cabinet of the Progressive International firmly condemns the US military attack against Venezuela, the bombing of Caracas, and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro. On 2 January, US military forces l...
The Cabinet of the Progressive International firmly condemns the US military attack against Venezuela, the bombing of Caracas, and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro. On 2 January, US military forces launched an illegal and unprovoked military assault against Venezuela — bombing Fuerte Tiuna, La Carlota Air Base, the port of La Guaira, residential neighborhoods across Caracas, and military and civilian installations in the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira. Missiles fired from US helicopters killed military personnel and civilians, left entire neighborhoods without power, and terrorized the Venezuelan people. Hours later, President Donald Trump announced that US special forces "captured" President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The kidnapping of a sovereign head of state represents an act of imperial lawlessness with few precedents in history. President Donald Trump has clearly articulated the imperial logic of this intervention — to seize control over Venezuela's natural resources and reassert US domination over the hemisphere. The "Trump corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine — applied in recent hours with violent force over the skies of Caracas — is the single greatest threat to peace and prosperity that the Americas confront today. This armed attack on Venezuela is not an isolated event. It is the next step in the United States' campaign of regime change that stretches from Caracas to Havana — and an attack on the very principle of sovereign equality and the prospects for the Zone of Peace once established by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. This renewed declaration of impunity from Washington is a threat to all nations around the world. In this moment of clear, acute, and mounting violence against the people of Venezuela, silence is complicity. The Progressive International calls upon political parties, trade unions, social movements, and civil society organizations across the world to act with urgency and determination. We urge — and commit to collaborate with all efforts to develop — coordinated actions, worker strikes, and assemblies that promise to halt these acts of wanton aggression. The Progressive International stands in solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, with the people of Venezuela, and with all those in the region who refuse a future defined by foreign domination and imperial plunder. We enter 2026 with a renewed commitment to the struggle for a world in which peace is secured by social justice; not by force, but by sovereign self-determination. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Peace Action Statement on illegal US attack on Venezuela
Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund, issued the following statement today:“The United States’ military special forces attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, i...
Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund, issued the following statement today: “The United States’ military special forces attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, is illegal, immoral, dangerous, and must be condemned and repudiated by the American public, the international community, and the US Congress. While no one should shed a tear for Maduro, who is credibly depicted as a corrupt, authoritarian leader, concern for the people of Venezuela, already suffering under terrible economic conditions, must be in the forefront, as the possibility of internal conflict is now increased. Bogus assertions that Venezuela stole US oil raise suspicions this is not about narcotics trafficking, but rather seizing resources such as oil and minerals. Moreover, other countries in the region are surely on high alert that they might be next in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs, and US forces deployed worldwide could be targeted for reprisals. Trump just announced, ‘…we are going to run the country, until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.’ No one voted for that, nor has Congress authorized it on behalf of the American people. In less than a year in office, Trump has now attacked seven countries -- Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela, along with alleged drug boats at sea -- with at least 626 airstrikes, according to Military Times. So much for his being a peace president, or focusing on improving economic and social conditions for Americans. Just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives narrowly failed to pass War Powers Resolutions against US attacks on Venezuela, along almost entirely partisan lines, with Republicans refusing to vote against their president and in favor of their own authority over declaring war. Earlier, the Senate also narrowly failed to uphold its constitutional responsibilities, but US Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) stated a few days ago he would bring another War Powers Resolution up for a vote as soon as next week, and that should proceed without delay. The United States’ history of lawless imperialism in the Western Hemisphere and beyond cannot be overstated or discounted, and international condemnation of this episode will presumably be strong and sustained. It is up to Congress and the American public to rein in a lawless executive branch intent on concocting distractions from the Epstein Files, the anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, and the miserably failed policies of the Trump Administration. Emergency demonstrations against this illegal action will be held today in many US cities, and various actions to protest this attack and other ongoing US military adventurism will be ongoing.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Steve, David, Hannah, Jimmy, Matthew. and Francesco give Ralph a well-deserved break and highlight some of the clips they want to revisit from another challenging, inspiring, fascinating, infuriating, and galvanizing year. Featuring interviews with Chr...
Steve, David, Hannah, Jimmy, Matthew. and Francesco give Ralph a well-deserved break and highlight some of the clips they want to revisit from another challenging, inspiring, fascinating, infuriating, and galvanizing year. Featuring interviews with Chris Hedges, Jon Merryman, Mike German, and more. Featured Clips Douglas Brinkley — The Legacy of Jimmy Carter (January 11, 2025) Chris Hedges — A Genocide Foretold/ World BEYOND War (March 29, 2025) Peter Beinart — Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza (March 15, 2025) John Bonifaz — Impeach Trump!... Again (August 30, 2025) Mike German — Policing White Supremacy (March 8, 2025) Stephen Witt — The AI Prompt That Could End the World (November 8, 2025) Jon Merryman — Trading Life For Death (July 12, 2025) News 1/2/26 * Our top story this week is of course the news that the CIA has conducted a drone strike inside the sovereign borders of Venezuela. CNN reports U.S. Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support for this strike, though spec-ops leadership denies this claim. Unsurprisingly, the CIA itself declined to comment. Earlier this month, self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth compared Venezuelan “narcoterrorists,” to Al-Qaeda, indicating that the U.S. plans to use the same counterterrorism playbook that they deployed in the Middle East in Latin America. This, of course, begs the question of whether the United States is willing to reckon with creating a miniature Iraq or Afghanistan so close to home. * Giving the game away, Mike Pompeo – who served as Trump’s Secretary of State from 2018 to 2021, told Fox News that the U.S. “can help rebuild…their oil sector,” and that, following a successful ouster of President Nicolás Maduro, American energy companies like Halliburton and Chevron would be able to “go down to Venezuela, [and] build out an economic capitalist model.” This from CBS Austin. President Trump has certainly not been subtle about his designs on Venezuela’s oil, but this naked salivation over handing the country’s fossil fuel deposits over to Halliburton is another eerie re-rerun of Iraq. * In more news from Latin America, ABC reports workers in Bolivia have declared a general strike to protest the new neoliberal government’s announcement that they would scrap longstanding fuel subsidies in the impoverished nation. The fuel subsidies were first introduced under the Leftist government of Evo Morales nearly twenty years ago and have been maintained ever since; President Rodrigo Paz, who took office in November, marks the first non-leftist government elected in the country since 2006. The strike was called by Bolivia’s powerful Central Union of Workers, but so far has largely been led by miners with other sectors, such as transportation workers, appearing more hesitant. When united, organized labor in Bolivia has delivered stunning victories in the past, but it remains to be seen how this strike will unfold. * In more foreign policy news, Israel has become the first country to formally recognize the East African breakaway state of Somaliland. Many question why Israel is making this decision at all and particularly why they are doing so at this moment; speculation abounds about a potential quid pro quo, with Israel extending recognition in exchange for Somaliland agreeing to accept Palestinians pushed out of Gaza. Somalia is currently a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. In a statement with other non-permanent council members Algeria, Guyana and Sierra Leone, Somalia’s UN Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman said Somalia, “unequivocally reject any steps aimed at advancing this objective, including any attempt by Israel to relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia.” This from Reuters. * In more Israel-Palestine news, American Jewish activist Cameron Kasky – a survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting currently running in the primary to succeed Rep. Jerrold Nadler in New York’s 12th congressional district – took the unprecedented step of visiting Palestine over the holidays to see the “reality on the ground.” He spent Christmas at a “peace march in Bethlehem calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza,” and issued a statement on the need to “end the settlements that violate international law and stop encouraging New Yorkers to move there,” in a social media post that garnered nearly 2 million views. Kasky is seeking to consolidate progressive support in this crowded primary, which pits him against Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg, among many others. * Turning to domestic news, lawmakers in the House and Senate are considering their options to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the totality of the documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Among these are two tools often cited by Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein but rarely invoked by Congress: inherent contempt and impeachment. Per NBC, Representative Thomas Massie said “The quickest way, and…most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” with Congressman Ro Khanna adding that the lawmakers are “building a bipartisan coalition, and it would fine Pam Bondi for every day that she’s not releasing these documents.” Meanwhile, Newsweek reports Massie polled his followers and over 35,000 responded that Bondi should be impeached. However, no articles of impeachment against Bondi have yet been filed. It remains to be seen whether Congress will actually use the immense power vested in the body by the Constitution, or if these efforts will be stymied by the obsequious leadership of the Republican caucus. * Speaking of political party cowardice, this week the DNC announced that they would block the release of their own “autopsy” of what went wrong in the disastrous 2024 presidential election campaign. Writing in the Guardian, friend of the show Norman Solomon – director of RootsAction, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy – excoriated the party leadership for dodging hard questions such as “how much money went to insider consultants and advertising contractors as the Harris campaign managed to spend $1.5bn during the hallowed 107 days of her presidential campaign last year,” and the wisdom of “Harris continuing to toe the Biden line for huge arms shipments to Israel while its military continued to slaughter Palestinian civilians in Gaza.” More bluntly, an anonymous DNC member quoted in this piece said the decision to block the autopsy is, “about protecting people who fucked up.” RootsAction has released their own autopsy, which pulls no punches. * Our next two stories have to do with online gambling. First, in an address to mayors from across Italy this week, Pope Leo XIV denounced the “scourge of gambling,” which has “ruined many families,” and characterized the issue as a form of “loneliness.” He warned of a litany of other forms of loneliness as well, including “mental disorders, depression, cultural and spiritual poverty, and social abandonment,” according to the Catholic News Agency. Pope Leo cited a report from Caritas showing a surge in gambling across Italy, though this phenomenon is by no means constrained to the country. In the U.S., study after study shows Americans engaging in gambling at unprecedented levels. For example, a 2025 National Institutes of Health study showed 61.3% of adults in North America reported gambling within the past 12 months. * Meanwhile, USA Today reports Drake has been hit with a RICO lawsuit for “promoting an illegal online casino while using proceeds from the site to artificially inflate streams of his music.” This lawsuit, which also names streamers Adin Ross and George Nguyen, centers around Stake.us, which, the suit alleges “was created to bypass restrictions after Stake.com was banned from operating everywhere in the U.S.” As this piece explains, Stake claims that it does not allow gambling with real money in order to evade regulations, but in fact uses stand-ins like “Stake Cash” which can be exchanged for real currency. Drake and Ross were “paid to promote the platform by participating in livestreamed gambling with cash ‘surreptitiously’ provided by Stake.” In turn, Drake is accused of using the illicit funds to “[deploy] automated bots and streaming farms to artificially inflate play counts of his music across major platforms, such as Spotify,” as part of his feud with fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar. If nothing else, this story shows how ubiquitous online gambling has become, infecting all facets and all levels of popular culture. * Finally, for some good news, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was sworn in at midnight on New Years Eve. Mamdani took the oath of office in the decommissioned subway station underneath City Hall, in a small ceremony, followed by a large public inauguration on New Years Day. In his Executive Order 01, Mamdani officially rescinded “All Executive Orders issued on or after September 26, 2024,” otherwise known as the date of outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’ indictment on charges of corruption. These now-rescinded executive orders included officially adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a definition which includes antizionism, and other pro-Israel actions. That said, Mamdani explicitly stated he will retain an order establishing a Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism. Others include an order allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate on Riker’s Island, and a blanket ban on the city’s horse carriage industry. The New York Daily News notes “Mamdani has voiced support for banning the industry, but says he first wants to engage in dialogue with the union advocating for carriage drivers.” All in all, this marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of America’s largest city. We wish the city, and the mayor, good luck. This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.
Trump invades Venezuela, kidnaps Maduro, and hurls the Western hemisphere into chaos
In the early hours of Saturday morning, Venezuelans were jolted from sleep by the sounds of bombs falling. Video after shocking video shared over WhatsApp and social media captured the pre-dawn scenes of chaos: US helicopters whirling overhea...
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on January 3, 2026, in La Guaira, Venezuela. According to some reports, explosions were heard in Caracas and other cities near airports and military bases around 2 a.m. US President Donald Trump later announced that his country's military had launched a "large-scale" attack on Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images." decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="339959" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/trump-invades-venezuela-kidnaps-maduro-and-hurls-the-western-hemisphere-into-chaos/trump-says-maduro-captured-after-large-scale-attack-on-venezuela" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1706&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1706" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"5","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"Canon EOS R6m2","caption":"LA GUAIRA, VENEZUELA - JANUARY 03: Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on January 03, 2026 in La Guaira, Venezuela. According to some reports, explosions were heard in Caracas and other cities near airports and military bases around 2 am. US President Donald Trump later announce that his country's military had launched a \"large-scale\" attack on Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1767429729","copyright":"2026 Getty Images","focal_length":"135","iso":"1250","shutter_speed":"0.0003125","title":"Trump Says Maduro 'Captured' After Large-Scale Attack On Venezuela","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Trump Says Maduro ‘Captured’ After Large-Scale Attack On Venezuela" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on January 3, 2026, in La Guaira, Venezuela. According to some reports, explosions were heard in Caracas and other cities near airports and military bases around 2 a.m. US President Donald Trump later announced that his country’s military had launched a “large-scale” attack on Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254470337-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> In the early hours of Saturday morning, Venezuelans were jolted from sleep by the sounds of bombs falling. Video after shocking video shared over WhatsApp and social media captured the pre-dawn scenes of chaos: US helicopters whirling overhead, missile strikes, explosions across the capital Caracas and in three other states. AHORA: Aviones militares sobrevuelan Caracas. Se reportan explosiones en zonas aledañas a la Base Aérea La Carlota y Fuerte Tiuna. pic.twitter.com/yqM2kqHiXs — Gabriel Bastidas (@Gbastidas) January 3, 2026 THE U.S. IS BOMBING VENEZUELA! Explosions were heard over Caracas, according to comrades on the ground at Venezuelanalysis, amid unprecedented aggressive threats from the U.S. government under Donald Trump. This is what “foreign policy” looks like under U.S. imperialism:… pic.twitter.com/IiG1b0yqQH — Sovereign Media (@sov_media) January 3, 2026 Strikes against the 4F Barracks in the mountains overlooking Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, which houses a museum and the Mausoleum of Venezuelan politician, revolutionary, and military officer Hugo Chávez. pic.twitter.com/xJwiM6EN6Q — OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 3, 2026 President Donald Trump said over social media that the US had “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro amid a “large-scale” strike against the country. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="780" height="360" data-attachment-id="339960" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/trump-invades-venezuela-kidnaps-maduro-and-hurls-the-western-hemisphere-into-chaos/image-43" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?fit=1166%2C539&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1166,539" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="image" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?fit=300%2C139&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?fit=780%2C360&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?resize=780%2C360&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-339960" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?resize=1024%2C473&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?resize=300%2C139&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?resize=768%2C355&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?resize=780%2C361&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?resize=400%2C185&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image.png?w=1166&ssl=1 1166w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1024x473.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> That news was confirmed by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who also demanded Trump provide proof that Maduro and Flores are still alive. This is the first US invasion of another country in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, when the US kidnapped and detained Panamanian President Manuel Noriega under charges of drug trafficking. The Trump administration used the same excuse today to detain Maduro, despite lack of evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking, despite the fact that Trump recently pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández of his own drug trafficking conviction, and despite the fact that Trump broke international law and, according to lawmakers in his own party, violated the US Constitution to carry out Saturday’s operation. As I explained, at length, in the latest episode of my podcast Under the Shadow, Trump’s attacks on Venezuela mark our return to a terrifying, not-so-distant past when the United States felt emboldened and entitled to carry out unilateral military action against sovereign nations to achieve its goals: Trump’s Monroe Doctrine 2.0. But with this strike, the United States has taken an unprecedented step: this is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country. The US military operation in Venezuela has ended for now, but the seismic political fallout is unfolding in real time. Residents of Caracas tell me they are exhausted and scared. Many did not sleep last night, and electricity is still out in some neighborhoods. Some Venezuelans who opposed Maduro celebrated the attack over social media. This morning, Venezuelan supporters of Maduro hit the streets to protest the US invasion and Maduro’s kidnapping. Marches and protests are being planned in the United States and elsewhere. Venezuelans are taking to the streets against the US overnight invasion that saw bombs fall across the country and resulted in the kinapping of president @NicolasMaduro and his wife. #Venezuela. https://t.co/SZ5yKuOlHZ — Michael Fox (@mfox_us) January 3, 2026 Top Venezuelan officials have called for calm and unity. “Let’s not fall into their provocation,” said Venezuelan Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello, flanked by members of the Venezuelan armed forces, in a video shared over social media. “Let us not fall into despair. Let us have all the answers, and at the end of this battle, the people of Venezuela will emerge victorious. At the end of these attacks, we will prevail. Long live the homeland! Long live the homeland forever!” In an address to the nation, Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López denounced the “criminal military aggression,” and said that the country’s armed forces would be mobilizing across the country. Numerous Latin American leaders have denounced the attack, including Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who wrote that Colombia “rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” “The bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated in a post online. “These acts represent a grave affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty and yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.” Brazilian president @LulaOficial responds to the US invasion of #Venezuela: "The bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line. These acts represent a grave affront to Venezuela's sovereignty and yet another extremely dangerous… https://t.co/TAs5wKNNjS — Michael Fox (@mfox_us) January 3, 2026 Lula has called an emergency meeting in his government over the US attack on Venezuela. “The action recalls the worst moments of interference in the politics of Latin America and the Caribbean and threatens the preservation of the region as a zone of peace,” he wrote. “The international community, through the United Nations, needs to respond vigorously to this episode. Brazil condemns these actions and remains available to promote dialogue and cooperation.” The United States has kidnapped Maduro and his wife, invaded and bombed Venezuela, and President Trump claimed Saturday that the US would “run the country” and would be “very strongly involved” in the operation of Venezuela’s oil industry. It’s hard to guess what will happen next. But one thing is clear: The fallout across Latin America will be severe. The United States has once again shown that it has no respect for international borders or the sovereignty of foreign nations, but will act unilaterally and militarily to achieve its own ends by any means necessary. In this case, it’s clear that those ends were not about drug trafficking—if that were Trump’s concern, he wouldn’t have pardoned and released from US prison former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández. “The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, in an attempt to forcibly break the Nation’s political independence,” the government of Venezuela said in an official statement released shortly after 3 a.m. Caracas time. The goal is oil, as Trump himself has stated again and again. This is the international extension of Trump’s America First policy. “We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors,” Trump said at Saturday’s press conference, adding that “we’re gonna take back the oil.” “We have to be surrounded by safe, secure countries… and we also have to have energy.” “I would say that if you’re focused on America and America First, you start with your own hemisphere, where we live,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in early December. At Saturday’s press conference, Rubio also suggested that other Latin American countries—namely, Cuba—may soon experience the same imperialist fate as Venezuela. And, as numerous analysts told me recently, the US is prepared to use its military to force its agenda in the region. “The National Security Strategy that the Trump Administration just published is essentially saying, ‘We’re going to use our military to get more out of Latin America,’” said Alan McPherson, professor of Latin American history at Temple University. But McPherson says this is more than a continuation of US intervention: “You know, in a sort of raw, realist way, it makes sense, because the military is the thing that the United States does the best in the world. Its economy is actually not what it does the best. It’s the military. So it makes sense to use the military as leverage to get more raw resources, more markets. But at the same time, what’s also happening is not a return to the past. It’s an intensification of neoliberalism. Because what really comes out of the national security strategy, at least in terms of Latin America, is that the priority of the US government is US corporations. What essentially this government is saying is that governments are neoliberal puppets of corporations. And so we need to then apply this to foreign policy.” We saw this policy rolled out last night in Venezuela. But Venezuelans on the streets this morning say they will not simply roll over and accept US domination. “Today, we are calling on international institutions to denounce what has happened,” said one Venezuelan woman who turned out to protest last night’s US invasion. “Because the United States is not the police of the world and we Venezuelans are going to prove it. This is not about just a president. This is about a dignified people who are standing up,” she continued. “Long live a free Venezuela!” This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.
Statement of Sen. Bernie Sanders on Venezuela
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday condemned President Donald Trump’s unilateral military action against Venezuela as illegal and unconstitutional, warning that it violates international law, endangers global security and usurps Congress’ exclusi...
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday condemned President Donald Trump’s unilateral military action against Venezuela as illegal and unconstitutional, warning that it violates international law, endangers global security and usurps Congress’ exclusive authority to declare war. Sanders called on Congress to immediately pass a War Powers resolution to end the operation. Donald Trump has, once again, shown his contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. The President of the United States does NOT have the right to unilaterally take this country to war, even against a corrupt and brutal dictator like Maduro. The United States does NOT have the right, as Trump stated this morning, to “run” Venezuela. Congress must immediately pass a War Powers resolution to end this illegal military operation and reassert its constitutional responsibilities. Trump’s attack on Venezuela will make the United States and the world less safe. This brazen violation of international law gives a green light to any nation on earth that may wish to attack another country to seize their resources or change their governments. This is the horrific logic of force that Putin used to justify his brutal attack on Ukraine. Trump and his administration have often said they want to revive the Monroe Doctrine, claiming the United States has the right to dominate the affairs of the hemisphere. They have spoken openly about controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. This is rank imperialism. It recalls the darkest chapters of U.S. interventions in Latin America, which have left a terrible legacy. It will and should be condemned by the democratic world. Trump campaigned for president on an “America First” platform. He claimed to be the “peace candidate.” At a time when 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, when our healthcare system is collapsing, when people cannot afford housing and when AI threatens millions of jobs, it is time for the president to focus on the crises facing this country and end this military adventurism abroad. Trump is failing in his job to “run” the United States. He should not be trying to “run” Venezuela. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Trump’s Regime Change War on Venezuela is Patently Illegal
Today, President Trump announced a “large scale strike” on Venezuela that toppled its leader Nicholas Maduro, who has been kidnapped and flown to the U.S. to stand trial, according to attorney general Pam Bondi. In response, Lisa Gilbert, co-president...
Today, President Trump <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.gqh-2BaxUzlo7XKIuSly0rCxjEjxt6w9Ks4BKkTL7WsPrwuTIcnWrivXQTCiC03-2F0C-2BUe-2Bb58ItArgztrh2iPSVYAQFeRzLUxOPFT2z8-2Fbvqs-3DGJvu_s0lTyPdoyuzn-2FJTE9fjR8nSlryGpLl-2B7mxK4it06DfKhpucLPiMkMsi-2BcoCz3G4i3By-2F6hPHPoGqGY0FGOHDfOVOEVOHWsINhbkTsTRXgnVigypaldDULnbrDQsZ9Pur1TP5OcL9kme4LTvn5rMA5IXw7s-2Bp19mVU4VfXhthw94f0qfwSkz7dm06NZKNFrUmYEPO1X7iCx8iU30yHyRhfIWhFAY1VsjzEZsDkpCJWdeoYcXbKDEJNSAMozzFt2aG1zgVlb6y6VlJ7TdBdfrmDXeQL4E-2BtqMomdLhgTOB9fGa5czI0TeZOwBaORvMft4j38-2BTIyst5aPhVvgB2z-2BoEg-3D-3D" rel="noopener noreferrer" >announced a “large scale strike” on Venezuela that toppled its leader Nicholas Maduro, who has been kidnapped and flown to the U.S. to stand trial, <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.gqh-2BaxUzlo7XKIuSly0rC5x-2BhCrlhPW1eZ-2FHD3Tl4zU7HlSEpeXrjk32wXH2qoAo5lJnkHYS3BX-2B6UsHszUyCA-3D-3Dne0F_s0lTyPdoyuzn-2FJTE9fjR8nSlryGpLl-2B7mxK4it06DfKhpucLPiMkMsi-2BcoCz3G4i3By-2F6hPHPoGqGY0FGOHDfOVOEVOHWsINhbkTsTRXgnVigypaldDULnbrDQsZ9Pur1TP5OcL9kme4LTvn5rMA5IXw7s-2Bp19mVU4VfXhthw94f0qfwSkz7dm06NZKNFrUmYEPO1X7iCx8iU30yHyRhfIJgOzzKpeR954gRipRbYf8ygv4G9mYWY9lKpyUip8hj5liJ-2BIXmt4-2FvP0B8qvXJPctOGl5M62ROa1PpXrjaoIbui0xDH0gHUK9MALbQ5r74YlBLbc4HJBmtRYTTPSVtLQ-3D-3D" rel="noopener noreferrer" >according to attorney general Pam Bondi. In response, Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement: “President Trump has launched an unjustified regime-change war without seeking the required congressional approval for the use of force. This is patently illegal, and yet another demonstration of this administration’s disregard for the Constitution and the separation of powers in our democratic system. “We don’t know yet what the human toll of this attack will be for the Venezuelan people, but we do know that this is an assault on the rule of law in our country, and on the rules-based international order. Our system of checks and balances is being degraded before our eyes, and we urgently need Congressional accountability for this lawless president to put an end to this disintegration." This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Congress Must Urgently Stop Trump’s Illegal War with Venezuela
Early Saturday morning, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. conducted military strikes on Venezuela and abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The day before, Trump also said he was “locked and loaded and ready to go” into Iran. De...
Early Saturday morning, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. conducted military strikes on Venezuela and abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The day before, Trump also said he was “locked and loaded and ready to go” into Iran. Demand Progress is leading a campaign driving Americans to demand their representatives support a war powers resolution to stop the war with Venezuela, and drove millions of constituent contacts to Congress opposing war in 2025. The following is a statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian: “Invading a country and kidnapping their head of government without any congressional authorization is a terrifying and blatantly illegal act that tears at our Constitution. Congress must step in and stop this reckless, unconstitutional act of war. Politicians in both parties have spent the last 20 years denouncing endless wars after witnessing the devastation in the wake of regime change in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Now it’s time for them to put their votes where their mouths are. We have seen what happens when the White House invents a pretext to launch a regime change war with an oil-rich nation: disaster and suffering for innocent civilians, our troops and their families, all while costing the American taxpayer a fortune as well. Congress must do the right thing by voting to stop this obvious catastrophe.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Report from Caracas: The US Kidnaps President Nicolás Maduro, but Venezuela Fights Back to Maintains Its Revolution
The U.S. armed forces bombed Venezuela from approximately 2:00 to 2:45 a.m. on January 3. At least seven sites in the greater Caracas area were affected, as well as locations in Aragua State and the coastal city of Higuerote in Miranda State. Both military personnel and civilians were killed, including children. Infrastructure damage is significant. Some parts of the city lost power, but as of Sunday morning electricity has been fully restored. More The post Report from Caracas: The US Kidnaps President Nicolás Maduro, but Venezuela Fights Back to Maintains Its Revolution appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" 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sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395953" class="wp-image-395953 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="383" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez-600x338.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/VP-Delcy-Rodriguez.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President and acting president of Venezuela. Caracas, January 4, 2026. The U.S. armed forces bombed Venezuela from approximately 2:00 to 2:45 a.m. on January 3. At least seven sites in the greater Caracas area were affected, as well as locations in Aragua State and the coastal city of Higuerote in Miranda State. Both military personnel and civilians were killed, including children. Infrastructure damage is significant. Some parts of the city lost power, but as of Sunday morning electricity has been fully restored. What has occurred is a grave violation of international law and of Venezuela’s sovereignty. In the course of the attack, President Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped and taken to the United States. This happened despite fierce resistance from his security team. The entire inner circle stood their ground and died fighting. U.S. forces also abducted President Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores. Among the first to address the public after the bombings was Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. Speaking on national television early in the morning, he assured the country that the military remains loyal to President Maduro and is in control of the situation. He called on the population to remain calm. Indeed, there has been an impressive sense of calm in the city. This was evident from the first hours of the morning and throughout the day. There have been no demonstrations on the part of the opposition. Instead, people have mobilized in defense of the government, the President, and the revolution. A major rally took place near Miraflores Palace, where speakers—including Miranda State Governor Elio Serrano and parliamentarians Blanca Eekhout, Oliver Rivas, and Tania Díaz—defended President Maduro, denounced his kidnapping, and called for international solidarity with Venezuela and its revolution. A key event of the day was the 3:00 p.m. press conference by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who, according to Venezuelan constitutional law, currently heads the government. The vice president appeared on national television alongside all key members of the cabinet, including Padrino López, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil. Speaking with serenity, Rodríguez insisted that President Maduro must be returned, and she stated that she has no intention of negotiating with Donald Trump. Instead, she affirmed that the Venezuelan government, military, and people would ensure the country’s sovereignty and defeat the imperialist attack against Venezuela. The formula for defense, she said, is the civilian–military–police alliance, which has already been activated. The civilian–military–police alliance is a concept developed by the revolution’s supreme leader, Hugo Chávez, and further elaborated by President Nicolás Maduro. It calls on the entire population to resist foreign aggression. The concept draws on and resonates with the Vietnamese strategy of the People’s War. The alliance includes the active participation of Venezuela’s Bolivarian militias, which number over four million members. The Bolivarian militias have expanded significantly in response to the US’s massive military buildup in the Caribbean that has been occurring since August of last year. Yesterday, it was confirmed that the militias are active throughout the country, and that the government is continuing—and expanding—the distribution of arms to the people. Rodríguez’s statements, issued alongside all important members of the cabinet, amount to a clear and concrete refutation of US president Donald Trump’s claims, which were made minutes earlier, that he and his team were “running Venezuela” and that Rodríguez was willing to negotiate with them. Much to the contrary, Rodríguez indicated that she and the Venezuelan government are all loyal to Nicolás Maduro and are running the country. Instead of negotiating, she indicated that “Venezuela is a colony of no country” and that it will remain completely sovereign. Hence, despite Maduro’s kidnapping, Venezuela’s revolutionary government remains in charge. Regional governments, including Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, and Uruguay, have condemned the U.S. attack and expressed their support for Venezuela. Additional countries expressing support include Russia, China, and South Africa, among others. There have been important protests in solidarity with Venezuela and against the U.S. aggression in cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia. In the late afternoon on January 3, Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as acting president of Venezuela. However, Nicolás Maduro remains the president of the country. The post Report from Caracas: The US Kidnaps President Nicolás Maduro, but Venezuela Fights Back to Maintains Its Revolution appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Chris Gilbert.
Iran Mass Protests Continue, People Arrested
Response to U.S. military strikes in Venezuela: a fossil-fueled act of war
In response to U.S. military strikes in Venezuela, Elizabeth Bast, Executive Director, Oil Change International, said: “President Trump’s launch of large‑scale military strikes in Venezuela, including the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, is a flag...
In response to U.S. military strikes in Venezuela, Elizabeth Bast, Executive Director, Oil Change International, said: “President Trump’s launch of large‑scale military strikes in Venezuela, including the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, is a flagrant act of war and violation of international law. This reckless aggression is part of a shameful pattern of U.S. imperialism in Latin America, where military power secures economic interests, in particular fossil fuels and critical resources. “The Trump administration justifies hostility toward Venezuela with accusations of drug running and authoritarianism — but this escalation follows a historic playbook: undermine leftist governments, create instability, and clear the path for extractive companies to profit. The most powerful multinational fossil fuel corporations stand to benefit from these aggressions, and U.S. oil and gas companies are poised to exploit the chaos and carve up one of the world's most oil-rich territories. “This act defies the U.S. constitution’s delegation of Congress’ war making authority and disregards international rules that prevent acts of war without debate or authorization. The U.S. must stop treating Latin America as a resource colony. The Venezuelan people, not U.S. oil executives, must shape their country’s future.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
The US Attacks Venezuela and Seizes It President
A little after 2am, Venezuela time, on 3 January 2026, in violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, the United States began an attack on several sites in the country, including Caracas, the capital. Residents awoke to loud noises and flashes, as well as large helicopters in the sky. Videos began to appear More The post The US Attacks Venezuela and Seizes It President appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1236" height="994" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1236px) 100vw, 1236px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1236" height="994" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1236px) 100vw, 1236px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1236" height="994" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1236px) 100vw, 1236px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1236" height="994" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, 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loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1236" height="994" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1236px) 100vw, 1236px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1236" height="994" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1236px) 100vw, 1236px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="783" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w" sizes="(max-width: 783px) 100vw, 783px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395836" class="wp-image-395836 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png" alt="" width="680" height="547" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-680x547.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-783x630.png 783w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-768x618.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-500x402.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs-600x483.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/caracasbombs.png 1236w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Airstrikes on Caracas, screengrab from video posted to X. A little after 2am, Venezuela time, on 3 January 2026, in violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, the United States began an attack on several sites in the country, including Caracas, the capital. Residents awoke to loud noises and flashes, as well as large helicopters in the sky. Videos began to appear on social media, but without much context. Confusion and rumor flooded social media. Within an hour, the sky was quiet. US President Donald Trump announced that his forces had conducted attacks on Venezuela and had seized President Nicolas Maduro Moro and his wife Cilia Flores. A short while later, Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriquez confirmed that the whereabouts of Maduro and Flores are unknown. The US Attorney General Pamela Bondi confirmed that Maduro and Flores were in the United States and had been charged with ‘Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy’. The outcome of this attack on Venezuela is unclear. The government remains in control, even with the President having been kidnapped and with the people of Venezuela in shock but defiant; it is unclear if the United States will strike again, or if the US government has a clear political plan for the aftermath of this strike. The War Against Venezuela The attack on 3 January is not the first against Venezuela. In fact, the pressure campaign began in 2001 when the government of Hugo Chávez enacted a Hydrocarbons Law in accordance with the sovereignty provisions in the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999. That campaign had the following aspects (this is an illustrative and not a comprehensive list): + (2001) US funding of anti-Bolivarian social and political groups through the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID. + (2002) US role in the attempted coup d’état. + (2002) Creation by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives of a Venezuela program. + (2003-2004) Funding and political direction for the work of Súmate (led by Maria Corina Machado) to recall Chávez by referendum. + (2004) Development of a 5-Point Strategy to ‘penetrate’ Chávez’s base, ‘divide’ Chavismo, ‘isolate’ Chávez, build up groups such as Súmate, and ‘protect vital US business interests’. + (2015) US President Barack Obama signs an executive order that declares Venezuela to be an ‘extraordinary threat’, which is the legal basis for the sanctions that follows. + (2017) Venezuela banned from access to US financial markets. + (2018) International banks and shipping companies pressured to over-comply with illegal US sanctions, while Bank of England seized the Venezuelan Central Bank gold reserves. + (2019) Create an ‘interim’ government by ‘appointing’ Juan Guaidó as the US authorized president and organize a (failed) uprising, and freeze Venezuela’s ability to sell oil as well as seize its oil assets overseas. + (2020) Attempt to kidnap Maduro through Operation Gideon (and by placing a bounty for his capture), while the US put a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign on Venezuela during the pandemic (including International Monetary Fund denial of Venezuela’s own reserves). + (2025) Gift of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado with the Nobel Committee saying that Maduro should leave office. + (2025-2026) The attacks on small boats off the coast of Venezuela, the positioning of an armada to form an embargo of Venezuela, and the seizure of oil tankers from Venezuela. The attack on 3 January is part of this war that began in 2001 and will continue long after the engines of the Chinook helicopters cool down. The Eagle is Angry When the United States government decides to act unilaterally, whether against Iraq in 2003 or Venezuela between 2001 and 2026, no other force has been able to stop it currently. In 2003, millions of people—including in the United States—marched on the streets to demand no war, and most governments in the world cautioned against the war, but the governments of George W. Bush and Tony Blair (of the United Kingdom, acting as his no. 2) went ahead with their illegal war. This time, major powers informed the United States that a war in South America and the Caribbean would be immensely destabilizing: this was the view of leaders who govern countries that neighbor Venezuela (Brazil and Colombia) and major powers such as China (whose special envoy—Qiu Xiaoqi—met with Maduro only hours before the US attack). Not only could the world not stop the US in 2003, but it has also been unable to stop the US between 2001 and now in its obsessive war for oil against Venezuela. The attack on Venezuela was timed so that Trump could stand before the US houses of Congress on 4 January, when he will give his annual address, and claim that he has scored a major victory. This is not a victory. It is just another example of unilateralism that will not improve the situation in the world. The US illegal war on Iraq ended with the US forced to withdraw after a million civilians had been killed in a ruthless decade; the same transpired in Afghanistan and Libya—two countries ruined by the American Eagle. It is impossible to imagine a different future for Venezuela if the United States continues with its bombing and sends ground troops into the country. No good comes from these ‘regime change wars’, and none will come here either. There is a reason why Brazil and Colombia are uneasy with this attack, because they know that the only outcome will be long-term destabilization in the entire northern half of South America, if not in the entire region of Latin America. This is precisely what has transpired in the northern half of Africa (Trump’s bombing of Nigeria is part of the detritus of the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya). Trump will get his standing ovation at the US Congress, but the price for that has already been paid by hundreds of dead civilians in Venezuela and millions more who are struggling to survive the long-term hybrid war imposed by the United States on Venezuela for the past two decades. This article was produced by Globetrotter. The post The US Attacks Venezuela and Seizes It President appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad – Taroa Zúñiga Silva.
Trump’s Venezuela Regime Change Attempt an Illegal Act of War
In response to the United States launching military attacks in Venezuela, Center for International Policy Executive Vice President Matt Duss issued the following statement:“Donald Trump has launched an illegal and reckless regime change operation in V...
In response to the United States launching military attacks in Venezuela, Center for International Policy Executive Vice President Matt Duss issued the following statement: “Donald Trump has launched an illegal and reckless regime change operation in Venezuela. This act of war violates both U.S. and international law, and follows nearly one hundred extrajudicial killings at sea on Trump’s orders. “None of this use of military force has been authorized by Congress. Lawmakers must assert their constitutional war powers and force the president to remove U.S. armed forces from the hostilities with Venezuela that he has started. They should also seek other possible legislative measures to impose accountability on this administration for its lawless actions. “Americans across the political spectrum overwhelmingly do not want to fight another war of choice. 70 percent of U.S. voters oppose taking military action in Venezuela. “Trump was elected on a promise to end wars, not start them. His illegal aggression against Venezuela once again breaks that promise, and threatens to repeat some of the worst moral and strategic failures of past U.S. military adventurism, for which the American people and communities around the world have paid enormous costs.” This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Monroe Doctrine: the Bad Neighbor Returns
President Trump signaled the Monroe Doctrine’s return from the start of his second term. A volatile mix of geopolitical, hemispheric and local politics was in play. The world’s largest reserves of “Texas Tea” turned the wandering Eye of Sauron in Washington on the birthplace of the Bolivarian Revolution. The Trump Administration intends to juice US and global economic growth by reducing energy costs, as we saw in the 1980s and 1990s when oil prices dropped. Fossil fuels are the Trump Administration’s preferred choice of dirty energy to fuel the AI boom, which the US intends to lead. Oil-laden tankers departing from Venezuela en route to China are not part of the program. More The post Monroe Doctrine: the Bad Neighbor Returns appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 890px) 100vw, 890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="890" height="430" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 890px) 100vw, 890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="890" height="430" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 890px) 100vw, 890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="890" height="430" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 890px) 100vw, 890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="890" height="430" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 890px) 100vw, 890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="890" height="430" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 890px) 100vw, 890px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395864" class="size-medium wp-image-395864" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="329" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-680x329.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-768x371.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-500x242.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz-600x290.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumpoz.jpg 890w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> The man behind the curtain. Still from Wizard of Oz. President Trump signaled the Monroe Doctrine’s return from the start of his second term. A volatile mix of geopolitical, hemispheric and local politics was in play. The world’s largest reserves of “Texas Tea” turned the wandering Eye of Sauron in Washington on the birthplace of the Bolivarian Revolution. The Trump Administration intends to juice US and global economic growth by reducing energy costs, as we saw in the 1980s and 1990s when oil prices dropped. Fossil fuels are the Trump Administration’s preferred choice of dirty energy to fuel the AI boom, which the US intends to lead. Oil-laden tankers departing from Venezuela en route to China are not part of the program. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration treats the American public like turnip truck rubes. While Trump, in Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs fashion, blows sulfurous clouds of smoke behind the curtain regarding drugs and DEA arrests, we are expected to ignore that Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia by several multiples, is the bigger exporter of illicit substances to the United States. Fortunately for Colombia, they have the 34th largest reserves of oil in the world, rather than first, and unlike Venezuela, are supplicants to the United States, ergo, expect none of their leadership to be arrested and dragged off in handcuffs by Uncle Sam’s, ahem, DEA Agents. Latin America had roughly two decades of reduced attention from its weakening, yet nonetheless still powerful, northern neighbor in the 21st century. The US partially disengaged from Latin America with Dick Cheney’s 2003 war on Iraq. After all, one can only do so many things. When Cheney wasn’t shooting hunting companions in the face with demands for apologies thereafter, his focus was limited chiefly to two places, Iraq and Russia. Iraq and Russia both became targets of a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between liberal interventionist Democrats and neocon Republicans (the dominant factions of both parties) to see US hegemony retained in what neocons called the “Project for a New American Century.” The Middle East sat on gobsmacking amounts of oil, for which Madame Secretary of State Madeline Albright infamously asserted that the loss of 500k children’s lives was “worth it” to depose Iraq’s leader. And Russia was a veritable piggy bank of natural resources for which Zbigniew Brzezinski’s musings published in 1997 on the possible busting up of Russia into three states would not be unwelcome, certainly were noted in the Kremlin. “Mission Accomplished” and surrounding Russia with NATO (yes, those states bordering Russia, given their histories of being under Russia’s boot, wanted in) created two winners: US pensioners and Latin Americans. The former were about to see “W” Bush fully or partially privatize Social Security before the Iraq adventure required his administration’s attention. And the latter saw the wandering Eye of Sauron shift off its historical focus on Latin America. For the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, Latin America exercised some autonomy in the 21st century. Latin America’s renewed left turn began with Hugo Chavez’s 1998 election in Venezuela, and arguably only survived thereafter due to US distractions. The same goes for Lula da Silva in Brazil after winning office in 2002. Others were later elected, notably, such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and others. Even Cuba, the long-standing object of US-sponsored invasions such as the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and the CIA confirming several assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, saw the hemisphere’s largest island state get a brief respite as the US opened travel to it in 2016, even if the US’s economic war on the Pearl of the Antilles continued. The Monroe Doctrine is a continuation of the twin movements of conquest and revolt against empire in play from the US’s birth. Americans grew weary of rule from abroad in 1776, which included their demands for ever more seizure of land from indigenous peoples. The Crown disapproved, for settler conquest created no shortage of “Indian Wars” for which they bore the cost. Readers are familiar with the rest, but summarizing quickly, John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State to President James Monroe in 1823, boldly declared the hemisphere belonged to the United States’ sphere of influence. The policy was clear, while the US continued its Manifest Destiny in conquering much of North America, other powers were to check their ambitions in the Western Hemisphere. Dozens of interventions, large and small, ensued in the next century. On the “larger” side of the ledger was President “Jimmy” Polk’s grab of 55% of Mexico in 1848. Also of note on the bigger side of US Monroe Doctrine actions was the US occupation of Haiti in 1915, which lasted until 1934. Some 50,000 “natives” dying from the consequences of war in Haiti. The US did not so much covet Haiti’s resources as it wished to keep competitors, namely Germany, out of this country whose waters ships traveled through to access the Panama Canal. Still, money mattered. Much of the US occupation of Haiti was directed by the precursor to today’s Citibank’s Vice-President, Roger P. Farnham, whose personal investments and those of his bank were tied up in Haitian infrastructural loans. FDR turned a page by ending the US occupation of Haiti and announcing a Good Neighbor policy. The title itself announced that the US heretofore was a bad neighbor. FDR’s death brought the return of the US as a bad neighbor until the aforementioned 21st-century reprieve anchored in other US interests. And now, here we are with Maduro hauled off by the United States on January 3, 2026. What can we expect from the return of the Monroe Doctrine? + We can play Taps for International Law that previously was already ill. + Cuba’s government likely can’t survive. Mortally wounded and with social pathologies (e.g., street crime formally absent) laid over its poverty, its government likely falls. Marco Rubio and Trump are taking the victory lap with Florida’s substantial Cuban émigré community. + Latin American leaders are put on notice. Uncle Sam has returned to its historic norm of exercising dominance over the hemisphere. Latin American leaders will exercise caution in dealings with or joining the BRICS. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world outside the Americas and Europe will run toward inclusion in the BRICS. + China increasingly will see the US as aggressive, if not deranged. The Middle Kingdom will likely further develop its already substantial defensive capacities. If the US decides to force the issue of Taiwan’s future status, China may respond with a blockade of the island. + Russia will expect a quid pro quo from Washington on spheres of influence. Yet, Trump’s successful removal of Maduro will leave some in Russia asking if they needlessly endured a 4 year long war of aggression against Ukraine (yes, the Kremlin was endlessly provoked, but, nonetheless, the aggressor). The post Monroe Doctrine: the Bad Neighbor Returns appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey Sommers.
Donald Trump has, once again, shown his contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. The President of the United States does NOT have the right to unilaterally take this country to war, even against a corrupt and brutal dictator like Maduro. The United States does NOT have the right, as Trump stated this morning, to “run” Venezuela. Congress must immediately pass a War Powers resolution to end this illegal military operation and reassert its constitutional responsibilities. More The post Trump’s Contempt for the Constitution appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="507" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-844x630.png 844w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-768x573.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-1536x1146.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-2048x1528.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-500x373.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-600x448.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="507" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-844x630.png 844w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-768x573.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-1536x1146.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-2048x1528.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-500x373.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-600x448.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="507" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-500x373.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-600x448.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2506px) 100vw, 2506px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="844" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-844x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-844x630.png 844w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-768x573.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-1536x1146.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-2048x1528.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-500x373.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-600x448.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 844px) 100vw, 844px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395857" class="wp-image-395857 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png" alt="" width="680" height="507" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-680x507.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-844x630.png 844w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-768x573.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-1536x1146.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-2048x1528.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-500x373.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trumprubio-600x448.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Trump announces the US airstrikes on Venezuela and the rendition of Maduro and his wife to the US. Screen grab from CSPAN. Donald Trump has, once again, shown his contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. The President of the United States does NOT have the right to unilaterally take this country to war, even against a corrupt and brutal dictator like Maduro. The United States does NOT have the right, as Trump stated this morning, to “run” Venezuela. Congress must immediately pass a War Powers resolution to end this illegal military operation and reassert its constitutional responsibilities. Trump’s attack on Venezuela will make the United States and the world less safe. This brazen violation of international law gives a green light to any nation on earth that may wish to attack another country to seize their resources or change their governments. This is the horrific logic of force that Putin used to justify his brutal attack on Ukraine. Trump and his administration have often said they want to revive the Monroe Doctrine, claiming the United States has the right to dominate the affairs of the hemisphere. They have spoken openly about controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. This is rank imperialism. It recalls the darkest chapters of U.S. interventions in Latin America, which have left a terrible legacy. It will and should be condemned by the democratic world. Trump campaigned for president on an “America First” platform. He claimed to be the “peace candidate.” At a time when 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, when our healthcare system is collapsing, when people cannot afford housing and when AI threatens millions of jobs, it is time for the president to focus on the crises facing this country and end this military adventurism abroad. Trump is failing in his job to “run” the United States. He should not be trying to “run” Venezuela. The post Trump’s Contempt for the Constitution appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bernie Sanders.
CODEPINK Statement Against U.S. Bombing Venezuela and Kidnapping President Maduro
Last night, the United States government bombed civilian and military sites across Venezuela and illegally kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. These are blatant and illegal acts of war by the Trump Administration. This act of aggression is ...
Last night, the United States government bombed civilian and military sites across Venezuela and illegally kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. These are blatant and illegal acts of war by the Trump Administration. This act of aggression is a continuation of U.S. attempts to seize and plunder Venezuela’s natural resources and undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty as well as the sovereignty of other countries in Latin America. This war also does not reflect the will of the people. Nearly 70% of Americans oppose another war and reject the endless cycle of military interventions carried out in their name. In the past months, the United States has: bombed 36 boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific and killed more than 117 people; seized two tankers containing over 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan oil; unilaterally imposed a “total and complete blockade” on Venezuelan oil shipments; designated the democratically elected government of Venezuela a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”; backed opposition figures to push regime change; and launched psychological warfare with threats against the Venezuelan people. This comes after decades of unilateral coercive measures, including a lethal sanctions regime that has killed over 100,000 people, theft of companies like CITGO, and seizure of billions of dollars of sovereign assets. The U.S. now claims Maduro will face “criminal charges” in a U.S. court. This sham proceeding will be done under the auspices of “drug trafficking” — but we know it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with Trump’s policy of regime change. “Drug trafficking” in Venezuela is this generation's “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, a familiar pretext for regime change. Polls show that people in the U.S. may know better now than to sign off on a regime-change war. In the next few days, as the death toll and destruction of the U.S. attacks is revealed and the country faces continued imperialist aggression, we must stand steadfast with the people of Venezuela. This aggression is being carried out in our name, despite the overwhelming opposition of the U.S. public to war on Venezuela. The same playbook of lies that destroyed Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, as well as decades of coups across Asia, Africa, and Latin America is being used again. The Trump regime thinks Latin America is their backyard to squander and dictate. Let us rise against this Monroe Doctrine 2.0 and oppose imperialist aggression against Venezuela. History shows that wars can be stopped when people force them into the open. That is why we are calling for immediate, visible, nationwide action. Take to the streets. Organize emergency protests. Flood congressional offices with calls and demands. Make it impossible for this war to proceed quietly, legally disguised, or uncontested. The world does not need another U.S.-made catastrophe. Venezuela deserves sovereignty. Latin America deserves peace. And people in the United States deserve a future not stolen by endless war. This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
US Starts 2026 by Bombing Venezuela and Kidnapping Its President, Setting a Tone of Imperialist Violence for the Year
With its violent military intervention into Venezuela–a country I used to live in–the U.S. has begun this year with entitled and undisguised imperialism. The unapologetic kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and of Celia Flores (not just a wife as the media refers to her, but also former head of the National Assembly) and killing of at least 40 Venezuelans aims to cement and normalize the U.S.'s standard operating procedure for international relations as violence and control. It will take Venezuela's oil and the DRC's tech minerals, and to hell with Global South self-determination, agency, and ownership. More The post US Starts 2026 by Bombing Venezuela and Kidnapping Its President, Setting a Tone of Imperialist Violence for the Year appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395903" class="wp-image-395903 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nyprotestyear.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="907" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nyprotestyear.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nyprotestyear-472x630.jpeg 472w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nyprotestyear-500x667.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/nyprotestyear-600x800.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> NYC demonstration against the bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president. Photo: Susie Day. With its violent military intervention into Venezuela–a country I used to live in–the U.S. has begun this year with entitled and undisguised imperialism. The unapologetic kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and of Celia Flores (not just a wife as the media refers to her, but also former head of the National Assembly) and killing of at least 40 Venezuelans aims to cement and normalize the U.S.’s standard operating procedure for international relations as violence and control. It will take Venezuela’s oil and the DRC’s tech minerals, and to hell with Global South self-determination, agency, and ownership. I remember when I lived in Venezuela and we talked about what we would do if the U.S. attacked. We were already facing other kinds of attacks, including basic food shortages orchestrated by private companies, destabilization attempts, right-wing violence, and English-language mainstream media lies. The conversation particularly came up around elections, when the shortages and destabilization typically increased, and U.S. attacks felt less hypothetical. Even then, though, we would balance the very real and long history of violent U.S. interventions in Latin America with skepticism. How could they kill innocent people and bomb what felt like to me the closest thing to paradise? Venezuela was never a utopia – there were mistakes and much work to do, but the Andean mountains were intensely green, the coastal waters a peaceful turquoise, the nights full of fairy fog that you could see drifting down the streets. The days were full of the laughter of the tiny children I taught as part of our participatory education project. We solved our own local problems as an organized community, turned empty lots into community gardens, and there was always, always, political debate and high political literacy. People knew their constitution, often by heart, knew the laws, and the news. Venezuelans had and have this infinite urge to dance, even on moving buses or after two-day long meetings. How could anyone consider destroying that world? It felt inconceivable. It didn’t make sense, and it still doesn’t. Yet we all know that beautiful Gaza, with its beaches, shops, delicious zaatar bread, hospitals, books, and resilient people, has been turned into rubble and whole families wiped out. The U.S.-led destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq ruined people, communities and saw key cultural and archaeological sites irreparably damaged, and artifacts looted. I live in Mexico now, and here alone, the U.S. has used NAFTA and the so-called “War on Drugs” to militarize this beautiful country and systematically turn it into a vast grave (with 131,000 forced disappearances) and into an obedient neoliberal production line for nearshoring U.S. companies. So, in Venezuela, I guess we should have been less skeptical. Friends there messaged me on Saturday in shock, their ears ringing from the sounds of bombs. New Year’s weekend wasn’t meant to be this. However, throughout 2025, the U.S. had asserted itself more openly as global police chief at the service of big business. It “negotiated” (pressured) a “ceasefire” in the DRC which would give it access to the country’s highly sought-after tech minerals and metals and to security control, and it has supported Israel, bombed Nigeria, and killed Venezuelans with complete impunity. It closed its borders to refugees in violation of international law, and breached migrant and human rights within its own borders. It also bombed Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Somalia. It carried out or was partner to 622 overseas bombings in total, and also intervened in manipulative ways, such as Trump’s comments days before the Honduran election in November that led to the victory of the right-wing candidate he backed, or the U.S.’s role in the international “Gang Suppression Force” in Haiti. While global institutions like the International Criminal Court and the UN have demonstrated their ineffectiveness at doing anything at all about the U.S.’s illegal sanctions against Cuba, the genocide in Gaza, or climate destruction, Trump has been able to fortify the U.S. as a force that actually decides international affairs. In his press conference Saturday, Trump said the U.S. would be selling Venezuelan oil. Though he laid the groundwork for the military intervention into Venezuela with evidence-free talk of drug cartels, bombing what were likely fishing boats in the second half of 2025, most people knew this was always about regaining control over the country with the largest known oil reserves. However, Venezuela also represents defiance. The U.S. has sanctioned the country for such behavior for over a decade, killing or contributing to the deaths of over 40,000 people in 2017–18 alone. The U.S. doesn’t just treat the Global South as a resource buffet. In order to secure its access to the goods, it wants the countries’ governments at its beck and call. Venezuela, especially during the 2010s and through initiatives like CELAC, was playing a role of uniting Latin America against such dominance and towards independence and social and economic alternatives. The bombing of Venezuela, beyond the oil itself, is about U.S. control over Latin America and part of a right-wing push back against movements, grassroots empowerment, and alternatives to violent capitalism. Beyond Bukele in El Salvador and Milei in Argentina, in 2025 the right wing also won in Bolivia, Honduras, and Chile. With Trump, these “leaders” are furthering racist, homophobic, sexist, and privatization agendas. Normalizing empire and global human rights violations Beyond the horrific event itself, the events of January 3 are part of a move towards normalizing a global state of danger, insecurity, human rights abuses, and disregard for international law. It does not matter what anyone thinks of Maduro; whether he won the 2025 election is an important discussion for another place and time. The U.S. has no right to determine the heads of other countries. It wants to be, but is not the world boss, and beyond that, has no moral standing to decide or control anything. But Saturday’s move, as a continuation of U.S. policy in 2025, upholds military intervention as a solution to problems. It is a signal to wayward countries to obey. Such imperialism not only kills people, in the long term it perpetuates racist tropes of Global South countries that can’t run themselves, while legitimizing U.S.- and euro-centrisim that stipulates their monopoly on wisdom and democracy. Imperialism scares its victims into silence and submission and cements a global apartheid dynamic where some regions are politically and financially controlled, subjected to unlivable wages and to resource robbery. Through debt systems and trade and income inequalities, rich countries have drained US$152 trillion from the Global South since 1960. The intervention machine is rigging the world for U.S. big business interests, at the price of Global South dignity and agency. For invaded and intervened countries, there are hidden impacts as well; lower self-worth and an unsubstantiated belief that one’s education, art, and inventions are inferior, disillusion with organizing and movements, and often, a need to migrate that is then met with rejection by those forces causing that need – as of course is the case with the U.S. The Venezuelan people are not a threat. The country doesn’t even produce or traffic significant amounts of drugs. In reality, much of the cruelty and harm globally is coming from the U.S. The Trump government and the U.S. elites are the ones committing human rights violations, shirking democracy by orchestrating coups like the one on Saturday morning and shirking legality let alone decency, by killing people in Venezuelan boats under the pretext of opposing drug trafficking, but without any trials or any proof. With each intervention Saturday’s, the U.S. furthers its and Israel’s impunity for war crimes, abuses, and violations. The post US Starts 2026 by Bombing Venezuela and Kidnapping Its President, Setting a Tone of Imperialist Violence for the Year appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tamara Pearson.
With the Attack on Venezuela, Trump Has Put the Death of International Law in Plain Sight
What the United States is signaling in Venezuela is not merely a dispute over one government, one election, or one leader. It is a warning to the world that international law—already fragile, already selectively enforced—has now been openly pushed aside. And this warning comes from a man who presents himself as a global peacemaker, a would-be Nobel laureate, a self-styled dealmaker who claims to have “ended” nearly twenty wars that exist largely in his own imagination. More The post With the Attack on Venezuela, Trump Has Put the Death of International Law in Plain Sight appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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sizes="(max-width: 1519px) 100vw, 1519px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1519" height="715" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight.png 1519w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-680x320.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-1200x565.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-768x362.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-500x235.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-600x282.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1519px) 100vw, 1519px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1200" height="565" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-1200x565.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-1200x565.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-680x320.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-768x362.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-500x235.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-600x282.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight.png 1519w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395842" class="wp-image-395842 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-680x320.png" alt="" width="680" height="320" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-680x320.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-1200x565.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-768x362.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-500x235.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight-600x282.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f35lightningflight.png 1519w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> F-35 in flight. Photo: US Air Force. What the United States is signaling in Venezuela is not merely a dispute over one government, one election, or one leader. It is a warning to the world that international law—already fragile, already selectively enforced—has now been openly pushed aside. And this warning comes from a man who presents himself as a global peacemaker, a would-be Nobel laureate, a self-styled dealmaker who claims to have “ended” nearly twenty wars that exist largely in his own imagination. The contradiction is not incidental. It is the point. Under Donald Trump, the United States has not merely returned to coercive foreign policy; it has hyper-normalised it. Practices once associated with rogue states—economic strangulation, collective punishment, political blacklisting—have been repackaged as routine tools of diplomacy. Sanctions are no longer instruments of last resort; they are weapons deployed reflexively, indiscriminately, and punitively. European Union officials have been sanctioned for the offence of disagreement. International human rights advocates have seen their insurance canceled and their travel restricted after criticizing U.S. policy. Palestinian officials have been barred from entering the United States altogether. These are not measures aimed at resolving conflict or protecting civilians. They are warnings—meant to intimidate, isolate, and silence. On the other hand, European NATO members are trapped in a relationship they refuse to name. Security is outsourced upward; responsibility is displaced outward. When Washington acts illegally, allies are expected to align—or at least not resist. This is not collective defence. It is asymmetric dependence.The has resulted is moral paralysis. The threat to forcibly remove—or effectively kidnap—a foreign head of state crosses an even darker line. It is a clear violation of international law and the United Nations Charter, which explicitly prohibits the threat or use of force against the political independence of any state. Sovereignty is not a favour bestowed by Washington, nor is it conditional on ideological alignment. Yet the Trump administration has behaved as if these principles no longer exist, projecting a confidence born not of legitimacy, but of impunity. Just imagine Putin kidnapping Zelensky, or Xi Jinping snatching Lai Ching-te of Taiwan. What will the international community do then? This impunity is reinforced at home. Trump has openly asserted that the U.S. War Powers Act is unconstitutional—a claim that may take years to resolve in American courts, if it is resolved at all. In the meantime, the institutional safeguards designed to restrain executive overreach have been steadily dismantled. Career diplomats sidelined. Inspectors general purged. Congress bypassed. The result is a presidency with extraordinary freedom to act first, escalate fast, and justify later—or simply dare the system to stop it. The criminal charges levelled against Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, including allegations of large-scale drug trafficking, have been widely disputed by international legal experts. But even if they were not, the method matters. Unilateral indictments issued outside international courts, followed by sweeping sanctions that collapse entire economies, are not justice. They are punishment without trial. They are collective penalties imposed on civilian populations who have no power over the decisions being made in their name. Hospitals lose medicine. Food systems collapse. Migration accelerates. And then the resulting humanitarian crisis is cited as proof that the targeted government has failed. The consequences of this behaviour extend far beyond Venezuela. When the United States openly flouts international law, it does not merely weaken one norm—it hollows out the entire framework meant to restrain state violence. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Saudi Arabia’s devastation of Yemen and China’s growing pressure on Taiwan all unfold in a world where rules are applied selectively and enforcement depends on power, not principle. In such a world, legality becomes a talking point, not a constraint. Trump frequently invokes the language of peace, but his understanding of it is dangerously superficial. He confuses ceasefires with peace, dominance with stability, and submission with order. Starving economies, collapsing health systems, and political blackmail do not resolve conflict. They freeze it temporarily, radicalise it permanently, and export it elsewhere. Cuba has lived under economic siege for more than six decades for refusing to submit to U.S. demands. Venezuela is now subjected to the same logic. Any state that resists risks financial isolation, diplomatic erasure, and economic suffocation. Only China currently possesses the scale and leverage to resist such pressure, a reality that should alarm U.S. allies rather than reassure them. What happens to Ukraine—or to Europe—when American power itself is exercised without restraint? What does “rules-based order” mean when the chief architect of that order ignores its rules? Why has the international community failed to develop collective defences against coercion by its own supposed guarantor of stability? History offers little comfort. U.S. intervention in Central and South America is not an aberration; it is a pattern. From the Monroe Doctrine onward, Latin America was treated less as a constellation of sovereign nations than as a zone of extraction and control. Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic endured prolonged occupation or domination. During the Cold War, Washington backed coups and military dictatorships in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and beyond—crushing leftist movements, silencing civil society, and installing regimes that tortured, disappeared, and murdered their own citizens while American economic interests flourished. Long before Vietnam or Iraq, the United States financed proxy militias, death squads, and covert operations across the region. The “dirty wars” of the 1970s and 1980s left tens of thousands dead and entire societies traumatised. Venezuela does not represent a departure from this history. It represents its continuation—updated for a sanctions-based age. If the United States continues down this path, domestic unrest and international protest will be repurposed as pretexts for further confrontation—perhaps with Iran—deepening global instability and empowering hard-line actors everywhere. The lesson being taught is simple and corrosive: that might makes right, and law exists only when it is convenient. International law survives only if the strong are willing to restrain themselves. The United States no longer even pretends to try. By discarding the very rules it helped create, it exposes the “rules-based order” as a fiction—useful only when it serves American interests, disposable the moment it does not. What follows is not peace, but global cynicism; not justice, but revenge politics; not security, but endless escalation. The world is being taught a brutal lesson: that law means nothing, and power means everything. The question facing the international community and the European Union and NATO is particular is no longer abstract. It is whether it will continue to live under American impunity—or finally say no. The post With the Attack on Venezuela, Trump Has Put the Death of International Law in Plain Sight appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ibrahim Quraishi.
It has been an accusation long levelled at certain US politicians that their brains might have been softened by a lengthy diet of television, Westerns, and the heroic triumphalism of the prattling cowboy. There was never going to be a break with this tradition regarding President Donald Trump, except the fact that he claimed to More The post The Don-roe Doctrine in Action: Trump’s Gangster Intervention in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395919" class="wp-image-395919 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-680x382.png" alt="" width="680" height="382" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-680x382.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-1123x630.png 1123w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-768x431.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-1536x862.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-2048x1149.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-500x281.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rubiotrump-600x337.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Screen grab from Fox News broadcast of Trump and Rubio’s press conference on the US attacks against Venezuela. It has been an accusation long levelled at certain US politicians that their brains might have been softened by a lengthy diet of television, Westerns, and the heroic triumphalism of the prattling cowboy. There was never going to be a break with this tradition regarding President Donald Trump, except the fact that he claimed to be more restrained on the draw. Of late, that restraint has vanished. A buildup of US army personnel in the Caribbean; the bombing, on fatuous grounds, of vessels in the Caribbean Sea carrying fictional narco-cargo destined for the United States and, just to top things, delirious notions about attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early hours of the morning in the event protestors are shot. It was clear after the release of the 2025 National Security Strategy that this administration was going to shred the inhibitions imposed by international law and opt for the more liberating costumery of gangsterism. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States would assert its muscle and dictate terms, as it has done previously, to countries in Latin America. Washington desired “a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations”, one “that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains” and ensured “continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” Venezuela has become the first target of this corollary. On January 3, a little after 2 am local time, Caracas, and other sites in the country, were attacked by US forces as part of Operation Absolute Resolve. By 4:21 am, Trump announced that the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores had been captured. The Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, at a press conference held at the President’s Florida compound, spoke of, “An extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose, to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise.” Caine also revealed that US intelligence teams had been eyeing Maduro and his wife for months. With a thuggish flourish, the general explained that those teams had monitored the leader to “understand how he moved, where he lived, where he travelled, what he ate, what he wore, and what were his pets.” Trump, in explaining the rationale behind the Venezuelan action, spoke ever immodestly about the “Don-roe Doctrine.” The Maduro regime had hosted “foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten US interests and lives”. This was “in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy, dating back more than two centuries”. The Monroe Doctrine had been “a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, a real lot. They now call it the ‘Don-roe Doctrine.’” US Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly announced that Maduro had been indicted in the Southern District of New York on a fruit salad array of implausible charges: “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.” As with previous, implausibly elastic categories of combatant hatched by the US Justice Department and White House – that of “unlawful combatant” or “unprivileged belligerent” conceived by the administration of George W. Bush comes to mind – a category has been invented to inspire a false resolution. The invented category of narco-terrorism has revealed the limits of legal literacy of the Trump administration. Such a term, imputing links between government officials, organised crime and terrorism, supposedly vests war making powers in the executive along with, it transpires in the case of Maduro, abduction powers regarding the foreign leader of a state. The US Congress has again been roguishly sidestepped. The dress rehearsal for this commenced on September 2 last year when Trump stated in a War Powers Resolution notification to Congress that military strikes on alleged narco-vessels operating in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean were “self-defense” measures motivated by “the inability or unwillingness of some states in the region to address the continuing threat to United States persons and interests emanating from their territories”. In October, a presidential notice was issued turning those killed in alleged drug smuggling as “unlawful combatants”, thereby twinning this administration’s lexical imagination with that of George W. Bush. For Bush, that imagination extended to fictional weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) held by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that might be used against Americans and their allies at any given moment. Furthermore, they might fall into the hands of non-state actors. In Trump’s case, fantasies about Maduro as a wily drugs chieftain hosting rebel groups pullulate. Much of this is sheer nonsense given that the country has little to nothing to do with the flow of cocaine into the US. But there is oil to be seized and managed by US companies and the Don-roe doctrine to maintain. In responding to this act of breezy criminality, countries programmed to emphasise the “rules-based” international order find themselves in a bind. The European Union, instead of spluttering and raging, proved meek, mocking Maduro’s status as Venezuela’s leader yet finding it hard to condemn Trump’s flouting of convention and the UN Charter. The EU high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, was most indicative: “The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint.” In Britain, Trump fanboy and leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage expressed that ecstatic confusion that comes with admiring an untutored, unrestrained bully in international relations. “The American actions in Venezuela overnight are unorthodox and contrary to international law – but if they make China and Russia think twice, it may be a good thing.” The response from Roderich Kiesewetter, MP from Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, was more tutored. “The coup in Venezuela marks a return to the old US doctrine from before 1940: a mindset of thinking in terms of spheres of influence, where the law of force rules, not international law.” The reaction from the Cuban government was much in the same vein, though more colourful: “This is a blatant imperialist and fascist aggression with objectives of domination, aimed at reviving US hegemonic ambitions over Our America, rooted in the Monroe Doctrine, and at achieving unrestricted access to and control over the natural wealth of Venezuela and the region.” The kidnapping of leaders by bullying powers in the post-1945 world is not new. Hungary’s deceived Imre Nagy, seen as the figurehead of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, was seized by the Soviet Union for disciplinary action that culminated in his trial and execution. Czechoslovakia’s Alexander Dubček, leader of the crushed Prague Spring of 1968, was spared execution but faced similar ideological chastisement by the Soviet leadership for implementing reforms. Within their sphere of influence, the Soviets were keen to dissuade unruly contrarians that their leaders might, at any moment, be kidnapped, executed or reprogrammed at will. Trump has, without knowing it, joined a most dubious club. The post The Don-roe Doctrine in Action: Trump’s Gangster Intervention in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Brazil’s President Lula condemns US Bombing and Kidnapping in Venezuela
The following statement was made by President Lula on the morning of January 3, in response to the US government’s attack against Venezuela. The bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line. These acts represent an extremely serious affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty and yet another extremely dangerous precedent for More The post Brazil’s President Lula condemns US Bombing and Kidnapping in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-395840 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ab059fe3-54ef-4236-8f77-b209dfb18123_900x506-680x382.webp" alt="" width="680" height="382" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ab059fe3-54ef-4236-8f77-b209dfb18123_900x506-680x382.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ab059fe3-54ef-4236-8f77-b209dfb18123_900x506-768x432.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ab059fe3-54ef-4236-8f77-b209dfb18123_900x506-500x281.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ab059fe3-54ef-4236-8f77-b209dfb18123_900x506-600x337.webp 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ab059fe3-54ef-4236-8f77-b209dfb18123_900x506.webp 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> The following statement was made by President Lula on the morning of January 3, in response to the US government’s attack against Venezuela. The bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line. These acts represent an extremely serious affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty and yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community. Attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism. The condemnation of the use of force is consistent with the position Brazil has always adopted in recent situations in other countries and regions. This action recalls the worst moments of interference in the politics of Latin America and the Caribbean and threatens the preservation of the region as a zone of peace. The international community, through the United Nations, must respond vigorously to this episode. Brazil condemns these actions and remains ready to promote the path of dialogue and cooperation. This first appeared on De-Linking Brazil The post Brazil’s President Lula condemns US Bombing and Kidnapping in Venezuela appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Brian Mier.
The US Government is Not the Daddy of US Oil Companies
Among the many rationalizations that the Trump administration is using to initiate massive force and violence against the Venezuelan people is that the Venezuelan government nationalized American oil interests many years ago. The notion is that since “they stole our oil” several decades ago, it is entirely proper, U.S. officials say, for the U.S. government More The post The US Government is Not the Daddy of US Oil Companies appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395846" class="wp-image-395846 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Orinoco_USGS-680x578.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="578" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Orinoco_USGS-680x578.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Orinoco_USGS-500x425.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Orinoco_USGS-600x510.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Orinoco_USGS.jpg 719w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Oil reserves of the Orinoco Belt, Venezuela. US Geological Survey. Among the many rationalizations that the Trump administration is using to initiate massive force and violence against the Venezuelan people is that the Venezuelan government nationalized American oil interests many years ago. The notion is that since “they stole our oil” several decades ago, it is entirely proper, U.S. officials say, for the U.S. government to retaliate against Venezuela, including, presumably, getting back the oil they supposedly “stole from us.” But contrary to what many Americans now have convinced themselves is true, Venezuela never stole “our oil,” especially if one is referring to you and me and most other American citizens with the use of the possessive pronoun “our.” That’s because neither you nor I or the vast majority of other Americans ever owned Venezuelan oil. For that matter, the U.S. government didn’t own any Venezuelan oil either. It was U.S. oil companies that were granted concessions from the Venezuelan government near the beginning of the 20th century to extract oil from Venezuela in return for payment of concession fees to the Venezuelan government. The situation was similar to what happens when an oil company enters into a lease contract with a private landowner here in the United States. The oil company pays the landowner a bonus to sign the lease. If it later strikes oil, the oil company pays royalties to the landowner. Essentially, the same thing happened with Venezuela, with the Venezuelan government serving as owner of the mineral rights. It should be pointed out that the terms of the concessions were extremely generous to the oil companies. But there is one critically important point that we must keep in mind: There is always the risk of nationalization when it comes to operating in foreign countries. Every oil company executive knows that. Nationalization, of course, is impossible to defend on a libertarian basis. It constitutes a severe breach of contract. But the fact is that it happens, and everyone knows that. It’s a risk of doing business in a foreign country. If an oil company doesn’t want to take that risk, then it should simply limit its operations to the domestic United States. In other words, oil company executives are big boys. They themselves choose to take the risk of nationalization if they decide to drill in a foreign country. If things don’t pan out and their operations are nationalized, they shouldn’t be looking to the U.S. government to be their daddy. They simply have to take their lumps. And don’t forget: the U.S. oil companies made a lot of money with their oil concessions in Venezuela before the Venezuelan government nationalized their oil interests in 1976. We also shouldn’t forget that it’s not only foreign countries that engage in nationalization. So does the U.S. government. In the 1930s, it nationalized privately owned gold coins, which had been the official money of the American people under the Constitution for more than 125 years. In other words, the U.S. government “stole our money.” When is it going to return “our money” to us? It’s also worth reminding ourselves that we’ve heard this “they stole our oil” argument before. When the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, nationalized British oil interests in Iran in 1951, British officials ran to U.S. officials to seek their help in getting “their oil back.” That’s what led to the CIA coup that ousted Mossadegh from power, installed the brutal, tyrannical, and dictatorial rule of the Shah, and destroyed Iran’s democratic system. That U.S.-installed and U.S.-supported tyranny led to the Iranian revolution in 1979, which brought the brutal theocratic regime in Iran that is now considered to be a permanent official enemy of the United States. What happened in Iran was just another dark and sordid legacy of the U.S. national-security state and its foreign policy of interventionism, including coups, assassinations, sanctions, embargoes, ship seizures, freezing of assets, single-tap and double-tap killings, and military invasions. No doubt the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA are hoping to have better results with their interventionism against Venezuela. This first appeared on Hornberger’s Explore Freedom blog. The post The US Government is Not the Daddy of US Oil Companies appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jacob G. Hornberger.
Trump’s Venezuelan Coup: Criminal Attacks by a Criminal Empire
There is only one word to describe the US attacks on Venezuela. That word is criminal. It is the only word that describes the act of invading another nation and kidnapping its president. Of course, it is also a word that describes the essential nature of the US empire—an empire currently run by a band More The post Trump’s Venezuelan Coup: Criminal Attacks by a Criminal Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="900" height="600" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="900" height="600" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395838" class="wp-image-395838 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/El_Salvador_President_at_Maduro_inauguration_2019_02.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> World leaders greet Maduro at Maduro’s second inauguration on 10 January 2019. Photo: Office of the President of El Salvador. There is only one word to describe the US attacks on Venezuela. That word is criminal. It is the only word that describes the act of invading another nation and kidnapping its president. Of course, it is also a word that describes the essential nature of the US empire—an empire currently run by a band of psychopaths whose actions are only outdone by their equally psychotic comrades in Tel Aviv. Let’s be clear, Donald Trump may have pulled the trigger, so to speak, but Washington has been pointing a loaded gun at Venezuela since its people elected Hugo Chavez in 1998. By electing Chavez, the Venezuelan popular majority instituted a process that redistributed wealth inside the country, bringing popular education and free health care to the millions of Venezuelans previously denied these human rights–human rights which are under serious attack in the heart of the US empire as I write, by the way. This attack, and any further military action by the US against Venezuela, must be opposed by those around the world who care about peace. If those who support a more peaceful version of the US Empire in the mainstream parties oppose this escalation, they should speak up in Congress, the media and in the streets. Those on the Left who disagree with Maduro for reasons real or manufactured by the consent organs of the Empire need to set those concerns aside and oppose these attacks. Folks whose concerns tend towards the concerns of family and their home should resolve to voice their opposition to a White House whose go-to solution is murder, war and repression. Already, those with loved ones in the US military—from the Air Force to the Air Guard, the Marines to the Coast Guard—have seen them sent to kill people in Venezuela, Iran, Palestine and the Caribbean (for starters). Here in Vermont, where I live, the skies above my home no longer resound with the inhuman noise of the F-35s that are based five miles away; those planes and their crews are now involved in attacking Venezuelans just minding their own business. The basing of the planes in Vermont was supported by its entire Congressional delegation, including Bernie Sanders. The National Guard spokespeople and their hacks in the media called the planes’ deafening sound the “sound of freedom.” I can assure you, that’s not what the Venezuelans are calling that noise. The last seventy years of history makes it clear that the only freedom the US military brings is the freedom to exploit the country being invaded. The Empire’s “sound of freedom” is the sound of death and repression to those who bear the brunt of its bombs, its troops, and its economic strangulation. Let’s be clear. Although it is the Trump White House that has launched this attack on Venezuela and apparently kidnapped its president, these actions are the result of an ongoing bipartisan assault on Venezuela. Bill Clinton began the attacks in 1998, mostly keeping his opposition to words and providing money to the wealthy comprador right-wing opposition in Venezuela. His wife, Hillary, accepted a million-dollar donation to her presidential campaign in 2015 from Gustavo Cisneros, a leading figure in Venezuela’s far-right politics. In 2002, the George W. Bush administration helped fund and plan a coup attempt that ultimately failed despite Washington’s immediate support for the coup plotters. After Hugo Chavez died in 2013 and Maduro was elected, Barack Obama intensified the sanctions against the government in Caracas and in 2015, labeled Venezuela as a clear and present danger. Donald Trump continued the threats and sanctions against Venezuela, as did Joe Biden (although his administration did make a short-lived deal to purchase gas from the country). Meanwhile, Washington’s sanctions intensified the economic problems being experienced by the Venezuelan people. One might say the sanctions were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Despite the hardships, Venezuela persevered, refocusing its efforts on organizing responses to the US offensive by working towards self-sufficiency. Trump pulled the trigger, but every administration that preceded his provided ammunition and paved the way for Trump’s illegal and immoral assault. While the main focus of this short piece is the attacks on Venezuela, it is essential that we pay attention to what’s going on elsewhere in the world. Trump had the US military attack Nigeria on Christmas Day; he has once again threatened Iran and the US recently approved millions more dollars in arms shipments to Israel, which continues to murder Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, while also bombing Lebanon and Syria. It’s been a long time since the world was so close to a global conflict. Indeed, it seems reasonable to say that the last time we stood so close to world war was when Hitler’s armies invaded its neighbors to the east. His actions were considered rash and dangerous when they happened. One can say the same about the actions of Donald Trump today. The post Trump’s Venezuelan Coup: Criminal Attacks by a Criminal Empire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ron Jacobs.
A Predawn Op in Latin America? The US has Been Here Before, But the Seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro is Still Unprecedented
An image of a captured Nicolás Maduro released by President Donald Trump on social media. Truth Social In the dead of night during the holidays, the United States launched an operation inside a Latin American country, intent on seizing its leader on the pretext that he is wanted in U.S. courts on drug charges. The More The post A Predawn Op in Latin America? The US has Been Here Before, But the Seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro is Still Unprecedented appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1724&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/710550/original/file-20260103-56-k1qoc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1724&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A man in a blindfold holds a bottle of water." />An image of a captured Nicolás Maduro released by President Donald Trump on social media. Truth Social In the dead of night during the holidays, the United States launched an operation inside a Latin American country, intent on seizing its leader on the pretext that he is wanted in U.S. courts on drug charges. The date was Dec. 20, 1989, the country was Panama, and the wanted man was General Manuel Noriega. Many people in the Americas waking up on Jan. 3, 2026, may have been feeling a sense of déjà vu. Images of dark U.S. helicopters flying over a Latin American capital seemed, until recently, like a bygone relic of American imperialism – incongruous since the end of the Cold War. But the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife, Cilia Flores, recalls an earlier era of U.S. foreign policy. U.S. President Donald Trump announced that, in an overnight operation, U.S. troops captured and spirited the couple out of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. It followed what Trump described as an “extraordinary military operation” involving air, land and sea forces. Maduro and his wife were flown to New York to face drug charges. While Maduro was indicted in 2020 on charges that he led a narco-terrorism operation, his wife was only added in a fresh indictment that also included four other named Venezuelans. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he “anticipates no further action” in Venezuela; Trump later said the he wasn’t afraid of American “boots on the ground.” Whatever happens, as an expert on U.S.-Latin American relations, I see the U.S. operation in Venezuela as a clear break from the recent past. The seizure of a foreign leader – albeit one who clung to power through dubious electoral means – amounts to a form of ad hoc imperialism, a blatant sign of the Trump administration’s aggressive but unfocused might-makes-right approach to Latin America. It eschews the diplomatic approach that has been the hallmark of inter-American relations for decades, really since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s took away the ideological grab over potential spheres of influence in the region. Instead, it reverts to an earlier period when gunboats — yesteryear’s choppers — sought to achieve U.S. political aims in a neighboring region that American officials treated as the “American lake” – as one World War II Navy officer referred to the Caribbean. Breaking with precedent The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” – one of the earliest acts of the second Trump administration – fits this new policy pivot. But in key ways, there is no precedent to the Trump administration’s operation to remove Maduro. Never before has the U.S. military directly intervened in South America to effect regime change. All of Washington’s previous direct actions were in smaller, closer countries in Central America or the Caribbean. The U.S. intervened often in Mexico but never decapitated its leadership directly or took over the entire country. In South America, interventions tended to be indirect: Lyndon Johnson had a backup plan in case the 1964 coup in Brazil did not succeed (it did); Richard Nixon undermined the socialist government in Chile from 1970 on but did not orchestrate the coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973. And while Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – the architect of U.S. foreign policy under Nixon and his successor, Gerald Ford – and others encouraged repression against leftists throughout the 1970s, they held back from taking a direct part in it. A post-Maduro plan? U.S. officials long viewed South American countries as too far away, too big and too independent to call for direct intervention. Apparently, Trump’s officials paid that historical demarcation little heed. What is to happen to Venezuela after Maduro? Taking him into U.S. custody lays bare that the primary goal of a monthslong campaign of American military attacking alleged drug ships and oil tankers was always likely regime change, rather than making any real dent in the amount of illegal drugs reaching U.S. shores. As it is, next to no fentanyl leaves Venezuela, and most Venezuelan cocaine heads to Europe, anyway. What will preoccupy many regional governments in Latin America, and policy experts in Washington, is whether the White House has considered the consequences to this latest escalation. Trump no doubt wants to avoid another Iraq War disaster, and as such he will want to limit any ongoing U.S. military and law enforcement presence. But typically, a U.S. force changing a Latin American regime has had to stay on the ground to install a friendly leader and maybe oversee a stable transition or elections. Simply plucking Maduro out of Caracas does not do that. The Venezuela constitution says that his vice president is to take over. And Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is demanding proof of life of her president, is no anti-Maduro figure. Regime change would require installing those who legitimately won the 2024 election, and they are assuredly who Rubio wants installed next in Miraflores Palace. Conflicting demands With Trump weighing the demands of two groups – anti-leftist hawks in Washington and an anti-interventionist base of MAGA supporters – a power struggle in Washington could emerge. It will be decided by men who may have overlapping but different reasons for action in Venezuela: Rubio, who wants to burnish his image as an anti-communist bringer of democracy abroad; Trump, a transactional leader who seemingly has eyes on Venezuela’s oil; and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has shown a desire to flex America’s military muscle. What exactly is the hierarchy of these goals? We might soon find out. But either way, a Rubicon has been crossed by the Trump administration. Decades of U.S. policy toward neighbors in the south have been ripped up. The capture of Maduro could displace millions more Venezuelans and destabilize neighboring countries – certainly it will affect their relationship with Washington. And while the operation to remove Maduro was clearly thought out with military precision, the concern is that less attention has been paid to an equally important aspect: what happens next. “We’re going to run the country” until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” occurs, the Trump promised. But that is easier said than done. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/272664/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post A Predawn Op in Latin America? The US has Been Here Before, But the Seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro is Still Unprecedented appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alan McPherson.
Louisiana town fights for relief after a billion-dollar oil disaster
Federal and state officials have sued the company behind the blast, but Roseland, Louisiana, residents say the case won’t bring relief to their town.
Four months have passed since a Louisiana oil facility burst apart, spewing a dense black sludge that drifted across homes, farms, and waterways as far as 50 miles away. Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice and Louisiana environmental regulators have filed a sweeping lawsuit against Smitty’s Supply, the company that ran the facility storing oil and vehicle lubricants. But residents in the majority-Black town are skeptical that they’ll benefit from the $1 billion federal lawsuit. Much of that belief stems from the fact that despite repeated calls for help, the black goo still clings to walls, roofs, and soil of more than half of the town’s properties, according to Van Showers, the mayor of Roseland, Louisiana. “People want to know when they’re going to receive help, and there is nothing to make them think that this process would lead to that,” said Showers, who works at a local chicken processing plant and has struggled financially through the clean-up process. That skepticism is rooted in hard experience — and in a broader history of environmental racism that has left Black communities shouldering disproportionate burdens. The gap has left residents in a state of prolonged uncertainty about their water, their health, and whether the legal action unfolding in distant courtrooms will ever reach their homes. It is a familiar pattern, particularly in Louisiana, where environmental disasters have consistently hit Black and low-income communities hardest while leaving them last in line for recovery. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GettyImages-2245219147-e1762813265453.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="Front of the National Gallery of Art with sign that it is closed due to federal shutdown." class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GettyImages-2245219147-e1762813265453.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GettyImages-2245219147-e1762813265453.jpg?resize=330%2C185&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GettyImages-2245219147-e1762813265453.jpg?resize=768%2C431&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GettyImages-2245219147-e1762813265453.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GettyImages-2245219147-e1762813265453.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="575" width="1024" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> How government shutdowns give polluters a free pass Naveena Sadasivam Initially, residents in the town, where the average person earns just $17,000 per year, were told to clean up the mess themselves. The explosion had sprayed the community of 1,100 residents with dozens of chemicals, including cancer-causing ones known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” One resident living on a fixed income told Capital B that in the weeks after the event she went over $1,000 in credit card debt to replace the stained panels on her trailer. However, in October, after sustained pressure from residents, the tide seemed to turn. Federal and state agencies ramped up their presence in the disaster zone, canvassed the community, brought the lawsuit, and began testing wildlife — including fish and deer — for contamination. But even with the increased governmental response, attorneys, residents, and local officials warn that it is not nearly enough. The lawsuit compensation, if ever paid out, will most likely not trickle down to residents, Showers and local lawyers said. Civil penalties collected from federal lawsuits are generally deposited into the U.S. Treasury’s general fund and are often used exclusively to fund environmental cleanup costs, not to support residents. “As far as the lawsuit, I don’t think it’s going to benefit the community,” Showers said. Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="A middle-aged man in a mariokart t-shirt stands in front of a house with a severely damaged facade covered in torn construction tarp and mesh. Near the house, a small green plastic worm toy stands propped up next to a sidewalk" class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 3000w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=2048%2C1152&quality=75&strip=all 2048w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Louisana-Dean-Web-HR.jpg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="1688" width="3000" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> They survived the hurricane. Their insurance company didn’t. Zoya Teirstein The government’s suit alleges that for years, Smitty’s knowingly violated safety rules and pollution permits. The company failed to maintain basic spill-prevention and emergency response plans, regulators said. The complaint says millions of gallons of contaminated firefighting water, oil, and chemicals flowed off-site into ditches, and seeks more than $1 billion in fines and penalties tied to the explosion and spill. In response to the lawsuit, a representative of Smitty’s wrote, “Smitty’s has been and remains committed to following all applicable laws and regulations, and to operating as a responsible member of the Tangipahoa Parish community.” The disaster was the “result of an unforeseen industrial fire,” the representative added, and the company is “implementing measures to help prevent future incidents and protect our waterways and neighbors.” Yet even since the lawsuit was brought, according to state documents, Smitty’s was caught pumping unpermitted “oily liquids” into local waterways. Meanwhile, a recent Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality report shows a state contractor has recovered at least 74 live wild animals from the disaster zone and 59 of them had either digested the oily substance or were covered in it. At least eight animals were found dead, including four turtles and an alligator. Dozens more pets and livestock, including cattle and horses, have been coated in the residue. Many residents, including Showers, have seen their animals die. Those findings, combined with reports of stillborn calves, underscore how deeply the contamination has seeped into daily life, residents said. The explosion has not only unleashed lasting environmental and health threats — the kind that, as Showers worries, “can lay dormant for years and then all of a sudden … you start getting a lot of folks with cancer” — it has also shuttered Roseland’s largest employer, Smitty’s Supply, indefinitely. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandportrait.webp?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A Black woman in a pink tee shirt sits in a chair outside a house" data-caption="Millie Simmons lives less than a mile from the explosion site. She has felt lingering health effects from the disaster. " data-credit="Adam Mahoney / Capital B"/> Millie Simmons lives less than a mile from the explosion site. She has felt lingering health effects from the disaster. Adam Mahoney / Capital B For weeks after the explosion, Millie Simmons, a 58-year-old child care worker, had difficulty being outside in Roseland for longer than 10 minutes without respiratory irritation. Even when inside her home, she felt “drained” and “sluggish” for weeks. Showers said she is not alone. The biggest complaints he is still receiving are that “people are still sick” and “want to know when they’re going to receive help as far as getting their property cleaned.” “Most definitely, we deserve something,” Simmons said. A nation’s environmental divide In October, the federal government delegated the cleanup process entirely to the state and Smitty’s. Some residents say they have seen Smitty’s contractors cleaning a few properties, but others, including the mayor, say their claims have gone unanswered. Showers said the company reimbursed him for just one night in a hotel when he was forced to leave the town after the explosion and never responded to his request for compensation after a litter of his dogs fell ill and died in the weeks after. Advocates with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, or LEAN, who have notified Smitty’s and federal and state environmental regulators of their intent to sue, said residents continue to approach them about contaminated crops and water wells. They’re unsure if their water is safe, even months later. “There’s so many unanswered questions that bring such huge anxiety to the communities,” said Marylee Orr, LEAN’s executive director. “People don’t feel safe in their homes.”​​ <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mayorshowers2023litter.webp?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="" data-caption="A litter of dogs owned by Roseland's mayor, Van Showers, in 2023. His most recent litter died after the explosion, he said. " data-credit="Courtesy of Van Showers"/> A litter of dogs owned by Roseland’s mayor, Van Showers, in 2023. His most recent litter died after the explosion, he said. Courtesy of Van Showers Orr said she is especially worried that the courtroom path now unfolding will repeat familiar patterns from other environmental disasters. In places like Grand Bois in south Louisiana and in Flint, Michigan, she noted, residents waited years for historic settlements to turn into actual checks they could cash — only to see large portions of the money eaten up by legal fees. In Flint, residents have waited over a decade for compensation for the country’s most notorious water crisis that caused clusters of neurological and developmental issues among children. When it is all said and done, only a portion of the impacted residents will receive checks for about $1,000. In Roseland, Showers has found himself operating in an information vacuum. He is relying more on outside news reports than official briefings to learn the full extent of contamination in his own town. In fact, he did not know about the state report showing the harms to local animals until Capital B shared it with him. “No one from the government has ever told me anything,” he said. “It’s aggravating.” That lack of transparency makes it harder, he added, to answer the basic questions residents bring to him at the grocery store, at church, and outside town hall: “Is my water safe? What’s happening to the animals? Am I going to be OK?” <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=1152 1152w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/roselandcleanup2.webp?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="" data-caption="In October, Showers and residents of Roseland organized a town cleanup. " data-credit="Courtesy of the City of Roseland"/> In October, Showers and residents of Roseland organized a town cleanup. Courtesy of the City of Roseland This is a dynamic that reflects both the long-standing political dynamics of Louisiana and deepening uncertainty under the Trump administration. His position as a Black Democrat leading a majority-Black town in a state dominated by white, conservative leadership has only intensified that isolation, he told Capital B in September. Historically Black communities have received less recovery aid than white areas with comparable damage during environmental disasters. Now, experts warn that federal support for environmental disasters in Black and Democratic areas is poised to weaken even further under the Trump administration, which has slashed EPA and DOJ enforcement to historic lows. During the first 11 months of Trump’s second term, the EPA and DOJ have filed just 20 enforcement actions against polluters, imposing $15.1 million in penalties. During the final 19 days of the Biden administration last January, the EPA and DOJ imposed $590 million in penalties. The current administration has also instructed EPA officials not to consider whether affected communities are “minority or low-income populations” when prioritizing enforcement actions. Showers estimates that fewer than three-quarters of properties have been cleaned and that many residents who dutifully called the claims hotline are still living with stained roofs, sticky yards, and lingering health problems. “There’s just not enough information being put out or work being done to make people feel at ease about what’s going on.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Louisiana town fights for relief after a billion-dollar oil disaster on Jan 3, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Adam Mahoney, Capital B.
Venezuela’s Communes: Socialism of the Twenty-First Century
The United States is committed to removing Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro, along with the government he leads. The pretext—that Maduro is involved in sending drugs to the US—is even refuted by the US government’s own intelligence agencies, so many wonder why a carrier fleet has been sent to threaten war. To answer that question, it More The post Venezuela’s Communes: Socialism of the Twenty-First Century appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
The United States is committed to removing Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro, along with the government he leads. The pretext—that Maduro is involved in sending drugs to the US—is even refuted by the US government’s own intelligence agencies, so many wonder why a carrier fleet has been sent to threaten war. To answer that question, it is necessary to look at what has been going on inside the country. What do most Americans know about Venezuela? Coverage in the corporate media has focused largely on actions of the upper-class opposition—coup attempts, violent demonstrations, economic sabotage, claims of electoral fraud, etc. We learn about how effective the United States’ blockade on Venezuela’s international commerce has been in impoverishing the country, but the media assure us that the real cause of poverty is “corruption and mismanagement” by the government. The fact that the Venezuelan people have not overthrown what they call the “regime” is explained as evidence of “authoritarianism” and “repression.” Most Americans have no further information, and many assume that it is all really just about control of the oil. But there is more to the story: a revolutionary process over the last quarter-century that envisions a viable alternative to the capitalist world order, a peaceful transition to a form of socialism based on a truly bottom-up democracy in which decisions are made by the people in their communities. That is an outcome that the United States’ government is sworn to prevent. Our corporate media does its part by its virtual silence about the Venezuela’s communes, even as the late President Hugo Chávez put them at the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. They are the key to understanding why the Bolivarian revolution has survived 25 years of relentless attack. Chávez summed it up in the slogan Commune or nothing!–¡Comuna o nada!–in his last major speech. He argued that capitalism had led the country into poverty and subjugation; the commune is the path to survival, a peaceful and constructive transition to a form of socialism that is profoundly democratic and egalitarian. What Chávez called “socialism of the 21st century” has been taken up by millions of Venezuelans, members of thousands of communes, urban and rural; people whose hope for a decent future would be swept away if a US puppet were to be installed. Conceptually, the transition to socialism is easy to outline: The government, with its Bolivarian constitution of 1999, is a necessary instrument for running the mostly capitalist economy that exists in Venezuela today; the Bolivarian movement recognizes that fact, and manages the county’s affairs through its ministries and other institutions. At the same time, that government encourages communities to organize themselves into communes. These are productive entities that are socially owned, managed by their workers, and which produce to satisfy social needs, not for someone’s profit. The government, for its part, channels development funds toward these self-governing, autonomous bodies, and enables them to coordinate their activities regionally and nationally. Eventually they are to become the dominant factor in the economy and the management of the country’s affairs, overtaking and ultimately replacing the capitalist system. A plan of this kind would seem far-fetched if one were to propose it for other countries, but there are historical and social reasons why there are millions of people in Venezuela who are committed to making it happen. To understand why, a little history is essential. Throughout the last decades of the 20th century, Venezuela was a neo-colony of the United States. American firms led the development of the oil industry, working closely with the bureaucracy of the State owned oil company. Meanwhile, Venezuelan oligarchs monopolized the food supply by importing food and other products to be sold at prices that undercut local producers. Peasants moved to cities where they joined the huge underclass of desperately poor people trying to survive. They settled wherever they could find a place to construct shelter. The country was governed by an oligarchy made up of oil company executives, monopolists who controlled importing and the industries, and rural land owners. Their role was essentially to facilitate the extraction of the country’s oil and other resources by foreign corporations, while keeping the local population under control. Their share of the profits enabled them to live a lavish life style, importing big cars, building highways and tall buildings in the cities. A very small share went toward providing streets, water, education, health care, or other basic services to the millions of people in the self-constructed homes that surrounded those cities. The police were given a free hand to control the barrios as they saw fit, often working together with (or as) criminal gangs. A bare minimum of services was provided only when people organized with sufficient militancy, by demonstrating, blocking highways, etc.. The masses of people who needed shelter had to find land to live upon; Caracas and other cities were surrounded by vacant land owned by private interests, the church, or the government. Large groups of homeless people organized themselves to carry out “invasions” of vacant areas surrounding Caracas and other cities. The owners fought those seizures, often with police or other private “security” forces; the “invaders” developed strategies and tactics to overcome that resistance, and the hills were settled. Well before Chávez was elected, rural and urban cooperatives and communes were being formed; after his election they flourished in the new political climate. These experiences contributed to the political consciousness and organizational skills of the Venezuelan popular classes, a factor that has been crucial throughout the history of the Bolivarian revolution as well as the commune movement. Desperation and anger reached the boiling point in 1989, when an uprising, the “Caracazo,” erupted across the country; masses of poor people looting stores and warehouses. The army was called in and ordered to shoot anyone on the streets—hundreds, maybe thousands, were killed and wounded, and “order” was restored. But unlike many other Latin armies, whose officers are from the upper classes, Venezuela’s officers were often from the popular classes; many were disturbed by the orders to kill civilians. One such officer was Major Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, who led a coup in 1992. The coup failed, but many people admired Chávez for having made the attempt and for his honorable behavior after it collapsed. He went to jail, but the winner of the next presidential election promised that if elected, he would release Chavez; he did so in 1994. Chávez went on to run for president in 1998, taking office in 1999. That first year was a whirlwind: A constituent assembly wrote the most progressive constitution in the world—it passed in a referendum by a landslide. Chávez was re-elected again under the new constitution—another landslide—and he went to work redirecting the profits of the oil industry toward economic recovery and human development. The effects were dramatic: Illiteracy wiped out, food subsidized, doctors’ offices set up in barrios…Most of all, people were encouraged to get organized, participate in neighborhood meetings, form co-ops, to get involved in creating an economy based on improving the lives of the masses of people who had been left out. “Participation” and “protagonism”–the people creating their own future—was working. Like many countries, Venezuela had its own “deep state:” bureaucrats who resisted the rapid changes that Chávez intended to bring. His response was to create new government organizations called “missions” with their own independent funding. These were set up as needed to provide things like job training, child care, literacy, land reform, infrastructure investment, adult education including free college, housing and many other needs. There was even one called Misión Milagro (“miracle mission”) that flew planeloads of people to Cuba to have their cataracts removed and their sight restored. It was an impressive demonstration of what can be accomplished by a government that seriously intends to direct the country’s resources toward making life better for the majority rather than toward the Venezuelan oligarchy and American corporations. The oligarchs responded with a coup on April 11, 2002. Two massive demonstrations, one pro- and the other anti-Chavez, were happening a short distance apart. Assassins working for the opposition fired down from nearby high-rises, killing people on both sides and provoking chaos. The local corporate media broadcast a false account blaming Chávez for what was happening, and a faction of the military took Chavez prisoner. The United States instantly recognized a leader of the oligarchs as president, but millions of Venezuelans filled the streets of Caracas and other cities, and the US backed self-proclaimed president (later called “Pedro the Brief”) fled; after 47 hours Chavez was back in power. Soon after that failed plot, the oligarchs regrouped and launched a “lock-out.” All major businesses—stores, employers, importers– closed their doors for many months; even the oil company stopped shipping oil. The economy was devastated, but Chavez got control of the oil tankers, the lock-out fizzled away, and people voted decisively to support Chåvez in a recall referendum. The economy eventually recovered, and people’s well-being was noticeably improving throughout the last half of the first decade of the century. Venezuela began using its oil wealth to help other countries in the region, opening up mutually beneficial trade and barter and strengthening relations with other progressive governments.. By the middle of the first decade of the century it was clear that the oligarchy, working with the United States, would continue to use economic power to try to overthrow the Bolivarian government. The strategy was to undermine the country’s economy by cutting it off from trading with the rest of the world. It started with an embargo on spare parts to maintain oil extraction and refining equipment, most of which was US made. Next, key members of the government were blacklisted by the US government—falsely accused of terrorism, drug dealing or human rights violations. This blacklisting is called “imposing sanctions” by the United States in order to give them an aura of authority and righteousness—the US punishing “wrongdoers.” In fact, no international body has recognized the right of the US to attack individuals or countries in this way. “Sanctions” are imposed arbitrarily, to further US interests, whatever those may be. Anyone doing business with a sanctioned person or company is at risk of penalties or prosecution by the US. “Sanctioning” officials makes it dangerous for any company to do business with them. The shortages and bottlenecks this causes in supply chains have led to inflation, unemployment, and hunger and death resulting from the blockade of food and medicine. The US expected the Venezuelan people to blame the resulting poverty and hardship on the government and vote the oligarchs back into power. But they had had a taste of what could be done by a government committed to serving people’s needs—the fact that the oligarchs were actually encouraging the United States to impoverish the country did not make people trust them to run the country. The international corporate media blamed the country’s problems on “corruption and mismanagement,” but Venezuelans knew they were under attack, and why. Bolivarian revolutionaries generally agreed that capitalism was at the root of the country’s problems, and they were inclined toward socialism. But they were also aware of how the top-down planning of Soviet socialism and the ‘co-operatives-relating-through-the-market’ Yugoslav socialism had both failed, each in its own way. They knew they would have to figure out how to build a new model of socialism. Chávez assembled a team: activists and intellectuals, some with detailed understanding of 20th century socialisms, all with experience in social movements. Together, they articulated a model of sustainable socialism along with a plan for a peaceful transition that would take advantage of the political awareness and class consciousness of the people. It was a bold and sophisticated plan, but Chávez used his immensely popular Sunday call-in TV program to explain it in plain terms. He proposed that the Venezuelan people create a communal society based on communal councils (consejos comunales) as the fundamental building blocks of democratic power. and that those councils function according to three principles: social ownership of the means of production, workers managing the own work, and production for need, not profit. While communal councils had precursors in spontaneous neighborhood organizations, their formal recognition by the government was an outgrowth of one of the many initiatives of the early 2000’s. The Urban Land Councils (Consejos de Tierras Urbanas) were set up to serve the many people who had migrated to cities and built a house on vacant land. They didn’t have titles for their homes; they wanted their ownership legally recognized. The Bolivarian government convened assemblies, neighborhood by neighborhood, for people to get together and agree on property lines, etc. so they could get deeds. This got people talking to each other. They prioritized the infrastructure improvements they needed most—water, streets, schools, whatever—rather than have those decisions made for them by someone downtown. They had control of how the money was spent, and the books were open, so there was public accountability. The fact that the government would pay attention to their decisions and actually delivered what they asked for made the program very popular, and it spread. Communal councils (consejos comunales) were given legal status in 2006. They are geographically defined areas with about 200 to 400 households (fewer in rural or indigenous areas). These are open assemblies where every resident may fully participate, and which carry out productive and social activities in their community. The councils’ affairs are managed by local people. The books are open, so anyone can see how money from the government is spent and how the community’s enterprises are managed, with community members often volunteering their labor to carry out projects. These assemblies turned out to be very popular, and with Chavez’s encouragement communal councils formed across the country. Many contiguous communal councils went on to form communes (comunas): a higher level of organization involving thousands of people and larger scale production and infrastructure facilities. The Organic Law of the Communes was passed in 2010. This gave communes legal status, recognizing their intent to combine communal councils into communes, and communes into communal cities and larger combinations. It specified bottom-up decision making processes and social auditing of results. It also gave the communes the right to establish communal banks and other institutions needed to share and grow the communes’ resources. , While all members may participate in meetings of communal councils, the actual day to day business of the communal councils is handled by committees. Committees of the commune are made up of people from the communal councils The way these individuals are selected and their role in committees is an important part of the system; it is very different from the way our system works. Our form of government is based on representation. We elect someone and they represent us in Congress, the legislature, etc. for a certain length of time. Once elected, they vote based on their own views, influenced by lobbyists, campaign contributors and other powerful forces. Constituents get a chance to review their performance at the end of their term of office, but only by voting for a different candidate—possibly someone worse. In contrast, members of Venezuelan communal councils select spokespersons (voceros). These people are expected to express the views of their community in the deliberations of the higher body—the commune–and they are replaced if they do not. They also may be replaced as issues change, the community’s situation evolves, and the consensus shifts. The main idea is to select the people who manage things based on how effectively they speak and act in accordance with the consensus of those who sent them. Communes have begun to organize along these principles into larger groupings—communal cities—with the long range goal of replacing the current form of ‘representative’ government by one that is more accountable and responsive. The last two decades have been difficult for Venezuela. The United States views any Latin American government that promotes redistribution of wealth and asserts national sovereignty as a challenge to its hegemony. Over the years the oligarchs, fully backed by the United States, have staged several more coups, all of which failed for lack of popular support. They often lose elections, so they routinely cry fraud—except when they do win. There has been sabotage of the energy grid and oil production, assassination attempts, and financial manipulation to induce hyperinflation. In such a context it has been hard for communes to get the resources they need to have a significant role in the economy. Land reform has enabled rural communes to take root, but they need seeds, machines, transportation to markets, etc.; urban communes need production facilities. The government has limited resources and many responsibilities. The years 2016 through 2021 were a time of intense hunger and death after President Obama acted to cut off food and medicine imports. The communes responded with a surge in production that has contributed to the fact that Venezuela today is almost completely self-sufficient in food. In recent years President Maduro has accelerated reforms designed to turn over decision making power to the people. In the spring of 2024 he established a four-times-a-year participatory budgeting process, whereby communal councils reach a consensus on a slate of proposed projects and a commune wide election decides between them. In the most recent election 6.5 million people voted in 5,336 communes and communal circles (communes in formation.) Communities have begun to elect judges to handle disputes between individuals and certain low-level offenses with an emphasis on restorative justice. Local formations of the people’s militia elect their leaders. These are part of the process of empowering the people. Venezuela has steel mills, limestone, and the energy to power cement factories, so even with the economic blockade in force, the government has continued building free or very affordable homes—more than five million units so far, in a country with fewer than 28 million people. In contrast to the projects built in the US to warehouse the poor, Venezuelan housing complexes are designed with facilities that promote community connections. Day care, cooking and dining space, sports fields, laundry rooms, practice space for the youth music programs that Venezuela is known for…architecture that brings people together for convenience and neighborly cooperation. Most importantly, there is a place for the communal council to assemble. Communes are nothing new. For most of human history people lived in groups that hunted, farmed and tended animals on common land, deciding among themselves on communal projects like building a long house or a fish trap, clearing land for crops, producing things that they and their community needed. They got along well without a system where some people ”own” the land and the tools while others have to work for them in order to survive There are many indigenous communities in Venezuela that have always functioned that way; they fit comfortably into the communal structure. The challenges involved in creating a modern society based on cooperation rather than competition are enormous, not just because the world’s most powerful military power is committed to preventing them from doing so, but also because so many of the values and assumptions of capitalistic society seem to be “common sense,” based on “human nature.” Venezuela’s economy is still essentially capitalistic, with all that implies: competition, greed, exploitation, alienation, etc. The Venezuelan popular classes are unusually politically sophisticated due to their lived experience, but every organization and every individual needs to come to terms with those influences. There is no guidebook, no blueprint, for building a communal society. It would be a long, complicated struggle even if there were no external influence. But there are literally millions of Venezuelans who are committed to that goal. If their revolution survives it may point the way to a genuinely equitable, sustainable, and democratic future. The post Venezuela’s Communes: Socialism of the Twenty-First Century appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Lackowski.
Special Report on Venezuela: U.S. Kidnaps Maduro, Trump Says “We Are Going to Run” Oil-Rich Nation
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez host breaking news coverage on U.S. forces attacking Venezuela and seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. We speak to Venezuelan reporter Andreína Chávez in Caracas as well as professors Miguel Tinker Salas and ...
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez host breaking news coverage on U.S. forces attacking Venezuela and seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. We speak to Venezuelan reporter Andreína Chávez in Caracas as well as professors Miguel Tinker Salas and Alejandro Velasco. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Ground Drones Are Helping Ukraine Battle Russian Troops
Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society
I’ve noticed a lot of angry comments underneath my posts these past few days, which bizarrely mention the words “Islam” and “Muslims” completely out of the blue. “Why don’t you turn your attention sometimes to the genocidal intent of the radical Muslims, or does that suit your racist narrative?” reads one tweet. “What can you say about […] The post Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society first appeared on Dissident Voice.
I’ve noticed a lot of angry comments underneath my posts these past few days, which bizarrely mention the words “Islam” and “Muslims” completely out of the blue. “Why don’t you turn your attention sometimes to the genocidal intent of the radical Muslims, or does that suit your racist narrative?” reads one tweet. “What can you say about Islamic Jihadists Muslims murdering thousands of Christians in Sudan and other parts of Africa?” reads another. “The muslims must be irradicated,” reads another. There are too many examples to quote here, but here’s what’s so funny about all this: I haven’t been saying anything about Islam or Muslims on Twitter — I’ve been tweeting about Israel. Hasbarists just babble about Islam when they can’t defend Israel’s actions. It is not a coincidence that they’ve been doing this. In September of last year, Drop Site News published a leaked polling report that had been commissioned by the Israeli government, which found that while Israel’s reputation is crumbling throughout the Western world, one way to salvage it would be to foment panic about Muslims. Drop Site reports the following: “Israel’s best tactic to combat this, according to the study, is to foment fear of ‘Radical Islam’ and ‘Jihadism,’ which remain high, the research finds. By highlighting Israeli support for women’s rights and gay rights while elevating concerns that Hamas wants to ‘destroy all Jews and spread Jihadism,’ Israeli support rebounded by an average of over 20 points in each country. ‘Especially once the situation in Gaza is resolved, the room for growth in all countries is very significant,’ the report concludes.” So if you speak critically about Israel online and suddenly find your replies inundated with Zionists shrieking about Islam and Muslims, that’s why. Their research has concluded that convincing Westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to love Israel. In addition to committing genocide and starting wars and working to stomp out free speech throughout the Western world, Israel is also doing everything it can to make our society more racist and hateful. A foreign state is actively fomenting division and discord in Western countries, in exactly the way Western empire apologists claimed Putin was doing at the height of Russia hysteria. But because it’s a Western “ally”, nothing is being done to stop it. In addition to being evil and disgusting, this tactic is also just sloppy argumentation. Deflection is the lowest form of argument. Even if Islam really were as dangerous as they pretend it is and even if Muslims really did present a threat to our society, pointing this out would not address a single criticism of Israel. Yelling “Muslims bad!” does not magically erase Israel’s abuses or address the grievances of its critics; it just diverts attention to another target and says, “Stop looking at Israel’s actions and hate THOSE people instead!” Mention Israel, and you’ll get hasbarists babbling about Islam, but Islam and Israel are not opposites, and the mention of one has no bearing on the other. One is a worldwide religion with nearly two billion adherents, while the other is a genocidal apartheid state. Framing the issue as a conflict between two diametrically opposed parties is a false dichotomy created by propagandists and manipulators. And that’s exactly the false dichotomy Netanyahu is trying to feed into when he tells Americans that Israel is in an alliance with Christianity against “radical Shiite Islam” and “radical Sunni Islam,” calling it “our common Judeo-Christian civilization’s battle.” He’s working to foment fear of Islam among Americans to boost support for Israel. All this to manufacture consent for human butchery and apartheid. Israel could improve its support among Westerners by simply ending its genocidal atrocities in Gaza and ceasing to try to start a war between the US and Iran, but instead, it’s working around the clock to foment racism and division while demanding increased censorship and authoritarianism to stomp out pro-Palestine sentiment throughout Western society. Israel is doing this because it cannot exist in its present iteration as a state without nonstop violence and abuse. Under the political ideology known as Zionism, peace, justice, truth, and freedom are simply not an option. The post Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caitlin Johnstone.
DV coeditor Faramarz Farbod joined a panel on AnewZ.tv (Baku, Azerbaijan) on 31 December, the 3rd day of protests in Iran — now in its sixth day — to discuss the evolving situation. The post Iran Faces New Round of Protests first appeared o...
DV coeditor Faramarz Farbod joined a panel on AnewZ.tv (Baku, Azerbaijan) on 31 December, the 3rd day of protests in Iran — now in its sixth day — to discuss the evolving situation. The post Iran Faces New Round of Protests first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Faramarz Farbod.
Recovered from decades of industrial waste dumping, one river in the nation’s capital is again threatened—this time by federal budget cuts.
Recovered from decades of industrial waste dumping, one river in the nation’s capital is again threatened—this time by federal budget cuts. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Paul Gordon.
Donald Trump’s tanker grab is different from the Houthis’ anti-genocide blockade.
Donald Trump’s tanker grab is different from the Houthis’ anti-genocide blockade. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Medea Benjamin.
Mobilizing Communities, Plant by Plant with Braiding Sweetgrass’ Robin Wall Kimmerer [Full Uncut …
Cuts threaten to undermine a successful program that provides care to students in need.
Cuts threaten to undermine a successful program that provides care to students in need. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Eleanor J. Bader.
The Supreme Court is weighing whether an Alabama man is mentally fit to be put to death.
The Supreme Court is weighing whether an Alabama man is mentally fit to be put to death. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Mike Ervin.
Eight New Year’s Resolutions for NPR and CEO Katherine Maher to Consider
The reasons Congress created NPR (National Public Radio) under the Nixon Administration were to fill the yawning gaps of commercial radio in local, national, and international news coverage and to give voice to the people without the censorship that co...
The reasons Congress created NPR (National Public Radio) under the Nixon Administration were to fill the yawning gaps of commercial radio in local, national, and international news coverage and to give voice to the people without the censorship that comes from advertisers. It was to be publicly funded by taxpayers. Almost 55 years later, NPR… This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader and was authored by nader.
For a country so upset about recognition being afforded to people under their thumb and control, the Israelis have decided to get into the state recognition business with festive aplomb. Africa’s Somaliland presented itself as a suitable candidate, an entity that remains part of Somalia but has asserted its own autonomy since 1991. Israel’s recognition […] The post Secessionist Pantomime: Israel Recognises Somaliland first appeared on Dissident Voice.
For a country so upset about recognition being afforded to people under their thumb and control, the Israelis have decided to get into the state recognition business with festive aplomb. Africa’s Somaliland presented itself as a suitable candidate, an entity that remains part of Somalia but has asserted its own autonomy since 1991. Israel’s recognition on December 26 of that entity carried a vengeful sting. With a majority of UN Member States recognising the rubble and rump of a State of Palestine, despite arguments by the Netanyahu government that this was a reward for terrorism, the Israelis have clearly decided to turn the matter on its head. Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Jonathan Miller, captured the moment by saying that the recognition of Somaliland was not a “hostile step toward Somalia” when it evidently was, and did not “preclude future dialogue between the parties”, as well as it might. The salesman in Miller seemed to come through. “Recognition is not an act of defiance. It is an opportunity.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shamelessly plagiarised the lingo and language kit of those Member States of the UN who dared treat the Palestinians as a national group worthy of acknowledged sovereignty. In a call with Somaliland President Abdirhaman Mohamed Abdullahi on December 26, Netanyahu stressed the importance of Somaliland’s “right to self-determination” in recognising it. In a paper published in November 2025 by the Israeli-based Institute for National Security Studies, Asher Lubotzky recommended that Israel, along with its sympathisers in Washington, push the United States towards recognition. While falling short of endorsing the recognition gambit, the paper notes the value of the territory in terms of offering “an operational area” for Israeli military operations. Israel required allies in the Red Sea area for various reasons, “among them the possibility of a future campaign against the Houthis.” There were also economic and reputational issues for Israel to advance, “given the minerals located in Somaliland and Israel’s interest in cultivating relationships with Muslim populations in the region.” The prattle about Somaliland’s sound credentials is evident in the world of think tanking. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute can be found making the point through a Somilander Australian, Abdi Daud, who writes that the territory has had “consistent peaceful democratic government over the past two decades”. While “imperfect”, this made Somaliland “a role model for the global south.” Recognising it would fill the “diplomatic and strategic vacuum” all too ripe for exploitation by Yemen’s Houthis, “terrorist organisations, China and other authoritarian regimes.” Daud evidently fails to appreciate that Somaliland’s recognition can just as well create a situation inspiring secessionist and separatist movements across the African continent. Opposition to the recognition of Somaliland came in a stern joint statement by 21 Arab, Islamic, and African nations made on December 27, 2025. The move would have “serious repercussions of such unprecedented measure on peace and security in the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea,” and have “serious effects on international peace and security as a whole, which also reflects Israel’s full and blatant disregard for international law.” To recognise “parts of states constitutes a serious precedent and threatens international peace and security, and violates the cardinal principles of international law and the United Nations Charter.” Looming darkly in the motives behind Israeli foreign policy was the possibility that something far more sinister was afoot. The joint statement finishes with “a full rejection between such measure and any attempts to forcibly expel the Palestinian people out of their land, which is unequivocally rejected in any form as a matter of principle.” This was certainly the view of the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Speaking at a special press conference held on December 30, 2025, Anwar declared that such actions would “violate international law and humanitarian principles, and would only perpetuate injustice rather than contribute to peace”. Using Somaliland “for the forced transfer of Palestinians is totally and wholly unacceptable.” This concern is far from unreasonable: a number of news outlets reported in November that Israeli feelers had been put out to Somaliland on the possibility of relocating Palestinians. This chilling arrangement has many of the hallmarks of those debates from the 1930s on, where Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany might eventually be sent. The Somaliland Foreign Ministry is playing dumb on the issue of becoming a dumping ground for Palestinians, effectively turning into a client state for Israeli interests. In a statement, it rejected “the false claims by Somalia’s president about resettling Palestinians or establishing military bases in Somaliland.” The relationship with Israel was of a diplomatic nature and cognisant of international law. “These accusations,” the ministry huffed, “are designed to mislead the international community and undermine Somaliland’s diplomatic progress.” As if giving the game away, the diplomatic arm affirmed its commitment “to regional stability, and peaceful international cooperation.” Support for Israel’s chess play by member states has been skimpy, though any worthwhile mention was bound to come from Washington. The United States, showing itself to be utterly muddled in its entanglement with its ally, decided to treat recognition as a parlour game show. Tammy Bruce, US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, summed up the cheap mood in her address during an emergency session of the UN Security Council: “Earlier this year, several countries, including members of this Council, made a unilateral decision to recognise a non-existent Palestinian state, and yet no emergency meeting was called to express this Council’s outrage”. The merits of international law, in the current cut and thrust of statecraft, remain increasingly in the jaundiced eyes of the beholder. The post Secessionist Pantomime: Israel Recognises Somaliland first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
Zohran Mamdani: I will govern as a democratic socialist
The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 2, 2026
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 2, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 2, 2026 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
AOC, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams & Poet Cornelius Eady: Voices from Mamdani Inauguration
"I Will Govern as a Democratic Socialist": Watch Zohran Mamdani & Bernie Sanders at NYC Inauguration
Zohran Mamdani Supporters Celebrate “Politics of Optimism” at His Inauguration
Mamdani Takes Oath at Abandoned NYC Subway Station to Highlight Plan to Improve Public Transit
Top U.S. & World Headlines — January 2, 2026
We call it the “best of,” but these are just a few of the void-filling conversations it’s been our pleasure to host in the last year.
https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260102.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). The Best of CounterSpin for 2025 features Silky Shah on mass deportations, Gregory Shupak on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Paul Offit on RFK Jr.’s pro-virus policies, Karen Thompson on policing pregnancy, Erin Reed on anti-trans pseudo-science, Farrah Hassen on criminalizing homelessness, Mumia Abu-Jamal on unheard stories and Tom Morello on music as protest. We call it the “best of,” but, as always, we are deeply thankful to all of the activists, researchers, reporters and advocates who appear on the show. These are just a few of the void-filling conversations it’s been our pleasure to host in the last year. 2025 was a rough one; we appreciate everyone who helps us stay informed, forward-looking and in communication. Featured Image: Top row: Silky Shah, Gregory Shupak, Paul Offit and Karen Thompson; second row: Erin Reed, Farrah Hassen, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Tom Morello This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.
‘Enough Is Enough’: New Year Protests Expose Iran’s Deepening Crisis
Swatted on Thanksgiving: The threats against journalists #shorts
“I Will Govern as a Democratic Socialist”: Watch Zohran Mamdani & Bernie Sanders at NYC Inauguration
Zohran Mamdani hailed “a new era” for New York on Thursday, promising in his inaugural address to deliver on the ambitious agenda that electrified progressives in the city and saw him defeat the political establishment in both the ...
Zohran Mamdani hailed “a new era” for New York on Thursday, promising in his inaugural address to deliver on the ambitious agenda that electrified progressives in the city and saw him defeat the political establishment in both the Democratic primary and the general election last year. Addressing thousands of supporters who braved freezing temperatures to attend the ceremony at City Hall, Mamdani vowed to “govern expansively and audaciously” for residents. “I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical,” he said. Mamdani was sworn in by Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who also spoke during the ceremony. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
AOC, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams & Poet Cornelius Eady: Voices from the Mamdani Inauguration
“We have chosen courage over fear. We have chosen prosperity for the many over spoils for the few,” said Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her introduction to the historic inauguration of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdan...
“We have chosen courage over fear. We have chosen prosperity for the many over spoils for the few,” said Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her introduction to the historic inauguration of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor. We feature part of her remarks, along with poet Cornelius Eady, who performed his original poem “Proof” during the inauguration ceremony, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who began to cry as he addressed part of his speech to his younger self. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers braved freezing temperatures and police barricades to be part of Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration as mayor on New Year’s Day. Democracy Now! spoke with many Mamdani supporters, including a high school ...
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers braved freezing temperatures and police barricades to be part of Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration as mayor on New Year’s Day. Democracy Now! spoke with many Mamdani supporters, including a high school student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, about what the day represented to them, their hopes for the new administration and how it could set a model for progressives across the country. “Organized people will always be more powerful than organized money,” said Diana Moreno, a fellow democratic socialist who is running for Mamdani’s vacant seat in the New York State Assembly. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
New York City started 2026 with a new mayor, as democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani made history when he was sworn in as the city’s first Muslim, first South Asian and first African-born leader, as well as the youngest in over a century...
New York City started 2026 with a new mayor, as democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani made history when he was sworn in as the city’s first Muslim, first South Asian and first African-born leader, as well as the youngest in over a century. Ahead of a public ceremony on New Year’s Day that drew tens of thousands of people in the freezing cold, Mamdani was privately sworn in at midnight by New York Attorney General Tish James in a small ceremony held at a decommissioned subway station below City Hall. He took his oath using two Qur’ans, including one that belonged to his grandfather. Andrew Epstein, one of Mamdani’s closest advisers, spoke with Democracy Now! about the significance of the private ceremony and how it connected the new mayor to the history of the city he now leads. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Zohran Mamdani Sworn In as New York’s First Muslim and First Democratic Socialist Mayor, U.S. Federal Minimum Wage Remains Flat for 16th Straight Year as Billionaires’ Wealth Skyrockets, Trump Hosts Netanyahu as Guest of Honor at Lavish Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Party, Winter Storms Batter Tents Housing Displaced Palestinians in Gaza, Killing Two More Children, Israel Demolishes Palestinian Homes in West Bank Refugee Camp, Approves Even More Settlements, Hundreds of Thousands March in Istanbul to Demand End to Israel’s Genocide in Palestine, Pentagon Says It Blew Up 5 More Boats in Caribbean and Pacific, Killing at Least 8, Governor of Russian-Occupied Kherson Says Ukrainian Attack Killed 24 and Wounded 50, Trump Says He’ll Withdraw National Guard Troops from Chicago, L.A. and Portland, ICE Plans $100 Million “Wartime Recruitment” Campaign Targeting Military and Firearms Enthusiasts, Trump Administration Freezes Federal Child Care Funds Nationwide, “We Are Locked and Loaded”: Trump Threatens to Attack Iran as Protesters Clash with Security Forces
Zohran Mamdani Sworn In as New York's First Muslim and First Democratic Socialist Mayor U.S. Federal Minimum Wage Remains Flat for 16th Straight Year as Billionaires' Wealth Skyrockets Trump Hosts Netanyahu as Guest of Honor at Lavish Mar-a-Lago New Year's Party Winter Storms Batter Tents Housing Displaced Palestinians in Gaza, Killing Two More Children Israel Demolishes Palestinian Homes in West Bank Refugee Camp, Approves Even More Settlements Hundreds of Thousands March in Istanbul to Demand End to Israel's Genocide in Palestine Pentagon Says It Blew Up 5 More Boats in Caribbean and Pacific, Killing at Least 8 Governor of Russian-Occupied Kherson Says Ukrainian Attack Killed 24 and Wounded 50 Trump Says He'll Withdraw National Guard Troops from Chicago, L.A. and Portland ICE Plans $100 Million "Wartime Recruitment" Campaign Targeting Military and Firearms Enthusiasts Trump Administration Freezes Federal Child Care Funds Nationwide "We Are Locked and Loaded": Trump Threatens to Attack Iran as Protesters Clash with Security Forces This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! Friday, January 2, 2026 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Friday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD
Friday Democracy Now! show for rebroadcast - HD This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters - HD MP4.
Wildfire smoke is a national crisis, and it’s worse than you think
Greenhouse gas and particulate emissions from fires globally may be 70 percent higher than once believed.
Wildfire smoke is an emerging nationwide crisis for the United States. Supercharged by climate change, blazes are swelling into monsters that consume vast landscapes and entire towns. A growing body of evidence reveals that these conflagrations are killing far more people than previously known, as smoke travels hundreds or even thousands of miles, aggravating conditions like asthma and heart disease. One study, for instance, estimated that January’s infernos in Los Angeles didn’t kill 30 people, as the official tally reckons, but 440 or more once you factor in the smoke. Another recent study estimated that wildfire haze already kills 40,000 Americans a year, which could increase to 71,000 by 2050. Two additional studies published in December paint an even grimmer picture of the crisis in the U.S. and elsewhere. The first finds that emissions of greenhouse gases and airborne particles from wildfires globally may be 70 percent higher than once believed. The second finds that Canada’s wildfires in 2023 significantly worsened childhood asthma across the border in Vermont. Taken together, they illustrate the desperate need to protect public health from the growing threat of wildfire smoke, like better monitoring air quality with networks of sensors. The emissions study isn’t an indictment of previous estimates, but a revision of them based on new data. Satellites have spied on wildfires for decades, though in a somewhat limited way — they break up the landscape into squares measuring 500 by 500 meters, or about 1,600 by 1,600 feet. If a wildfire doesn’t fully fill that space, it’s not counted. This new study increases that resolution to 20 by 20 meters (roughly 66 feet by 66 feet) in several key fire regions, meaning it can capture multitudes of smaller fires. Individually, tinier blazes are not producing as much smoke as the massive conflagrations that are leveling cities in the American West. But “they add up, and add up big time,” said Guido van der Werf, a wildfire researcher at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands and lead author of the paper. “They basically double the amount of burned area we have globally.” With the 500-meter satellite data, the previous estimate was around 400 million hectares charred each year. Adding the small fires bumps that up to 800 million hectares, roughly the size of Australia. In some parts of the world, like Europe and Southeast Asia, burned area triples or even quadruples with this improved resolution. While scientists used to think annual wildfire emissions were around 2 gigatons of carbon, or about a fifth of what humanity produces from burning fossil fuels, that’s now more like 3.4 gigatons with this new estimate. The type of fire makes a huge difference in the emissions, too. A forest fire has a large amount of biomass to burn — brushes, grasses, trees, sometimes even part of the soil — and turn into carbon dioxide and methane and particulate matter, but a grass fire on a prairie has much less. Blazes also burn at dramatically different rates: Flames can race quickly through woodland, but carbon-rich ground known as peat can smolder for days or weeks. Peat fires are so persistent, in fact, that when they ignite in the Arctic, they can remain hidden as snow falls, then pop up again as temperatures rise and everything melts. Scientists call them zombie fires. “It really matters where you’re burning and also how intense the fire can become,” van der Werf said. But why would a fire stay small, when we’ve seen in recent years just how massive and destructive these blazes can get? It’s partly due to fragmentation of the landscape: Roads can prevent them from spreading, and firefighters stop them from reaching cities. And in general, a long history of fire suppression means they’re often quickly extinguished. (Ironically this has also helped create some monsters, because vegetation builds up across the landscape, ready to burn. This shakes up the natural order of things, in which low-intensity fires from lightning strikes have cleared dead brush, resetting an ecosystem for new growth. Which is why Indigenous tribes have long done prescribed burns.) Farmers, too, burn their waste biomass and obviously prevent the flames from getting out of hand. Whereas in remote areas, like boreal forests in the far north, lightning strikes typically ignite fires, the study finds that populated regions produce a lot of smaller fires. In general, the more people dotting the landscape, the more sources of ignition: cigarette butts, electrical equipment producing sparks, even chains dragging from trucks. Yes, these smaller fires are less destructive than the behemoths, but they can still be catastrophic in a more indirect way, by pouring smoke into populated areas. “Those small fires are not the ones that cause the most problems,” van der Werf said. “But of course they’re more frequent, close to places where people live, and that also has a health impact.” Read Next <img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all" alt="A postal carrier makes deliveries in San Francisco, the mid-day sky darkened and orange from smoke wafting in from wildfires burning hundres of miles away." class="js-modal-gallery__hidden" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?quality=75&strip=all 1600w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?resize=1200%2C675&quality=75&strip=all 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?resize=330%2C186&quality=75&strip=all 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?resize=768%2C432&quality=75&strip=all 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?resize=1536%2C864&quality=75&strip=all 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?resize=160%2C90&quality=75&strip=all 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/wildfire-smoke-health-risks-deadly-.jpeg?resize=150%2C84&quality=75&strip=all 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" height="900" width="1600" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year Matt Simon That is why the second study on asthma is so alarming. Researchers compared the extremely smoky year of 2023 in Vermont to 2022 and 2024, when skies were clearer. They were interested in PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, from wildfire smoke pouring in from Quebec, Canada. “That can be especially challenging to dispel from lungs, and especially irritating to those airways,” said Anna Maassel, a doctoral student at the University of Vermont and lead author of the study. “There is research that shows that exposure to wildfire smoke can have much longer-term impacts, including development of asthma, especially for early exposure as a child.” This study, though, looked at the exacerbation of asthma symptoms in children already living with the condition. While pediatric asthma patients typically have fewer attacks in the summer because they’re not in school and constantly exposed to respiratory viruses and other indoor triggers, the data showed that their conditions were much less controlled during the summer of 2023 as huge wildfires burned. (Clinically, “asthma control” refers to milder symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath, as well as severe problems like attacks. So during that summer, pediatric patients were reporting more symptoms.) At the same time, climate change is extending growing seasons, meaning plants produce more pollen, which also exacerbates that chronic disease. “All of those factors compound to really complicate what healthcare providers have previously understood to be a safe time of year for children with asthma,” Maassel said. Researchers are also finding that as smoke travels through the atmosphere, it transforms. It tends to produce ozone, for instance, that irritates the lungs and triggers asthma. “There’s also the potential for increased formation of things like formaldehyde, which is also harmful to human health. It’s a hazardous air pollutant,” said Rebecca Hornbrook, who studies wildfire smoke at the National Center for Atmospheric Research but wasn’t involved in either study, though a colleague was involved in the emissions one. (Last month, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle NCAR, which experts say could have catastrophic effects.) As wildfires worsen, so too does the public health crisis of smoke, even in places that never had to deal with the haze before. Governments now have to work diligently to protect their people, like improving access to air purifiers, especially in schools. “This is no longer an isolated or geographically confined issue,” Maassel said. “It’s really spreading globally and to places that have never experienced it before.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildfire smoke is a national crisis, and it’s worse than you think on Jan 2, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Matt Simon.
University of Nebraska is eliminating a key climate research department
As Nebraska's weather intensifies, farmers are losing a critical resource to understand it.
In his 15 years of farming full time, Quentin Connealy has weathered his share of storms — literally. The first major flood hit in 2011. Three more came in 2019. The waters rose again in 2024 and ruined about 20 percent of his crops. This past summer, he dealt with at least three hail and wind events that damaged his corn and soybeans. To Connealy, whose family has been farming in Nebraska for 131 years, the weather has grown more extreme, posing a greater threat to his family’s farmland, which extends across thousands of acres in Burt County about an hour north of Omaha. He tries to plan as much as possible and relies on multiple sources of scientific information to do so. “The weather’s so unpredictable, we need as many resources around as possible,” Connealy said. But one of those resources that he — and others — rely on is going away. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quentin-Connealy_FlatwaterFreePress.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="Quentin Connealy looks back at his crops from the seat of his tractor. Connealy, who has been farming full time for the past 15 years, said he has had to deal with increasingly extreme weather." data-caption="Quentin Connealy’s farmland in Burt County, Nebraska flooded three times in 2019. When forecasts allow enough notice, Connealy tries to take steps to protect his farming equipment. " data-credit="Photo courtesy of Quentin Connealy via Flatwater Free Press"/> Quentin Connealy’s farmland in Burt County, Nebraska flooded three times in 2019. When forecasts allow enough notice, Connealy tries to take steps to protect his farming equipment. Photo courtesy of Quentin Connealy via Flatwater Free Press Last month, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents voted to eliminate the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and three other programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, or UNL. The move means the university system’s flagship campus will no longer be able to produce homegrown meteorologists and geologists — professions that monitor for severe weather and study groundwater, both of which are critical in a state where agriculture remains the economic backbone. The cuts have raised alarm both in and out of the soon-to-be shuttered department. “The (department) … is a nationally recognized program,” wrote nine professors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a letter of support. “Particularly for a state in the center of ‘Tornado Alley,’ there is a need for trained meteorologists and climatologists which contribute to Nebraska residents’ safety. More nationally, the need for geologists to secure domestic sources of critical minerals is a stated National security concern. Closing this program disrupts a crucial pipeline of qualified professionals for all of these fields.” While acknowledging the pain inflicted by the cuts, regents and university leadership said action was needed. UNL, the largest of the University of Nebraska System’s four campuses, and the largest college in the state, faces a $21 million structural budget deficit. Eliminating the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, estimated to save $1.85 million, was part of a larger effort to erase the deficit. “My family, we’ve got 26 degrees from this institution, so to say that this decision comes lightly is as far from the truth as it can be,” Regent Tim Clare said at a December 5 meeting where the board voted to eliminate the department. “We’re confronting a serious budget challenge that threatens the long-term stability of our university system.” But proponents of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department say its elimination will do long-term harm to Nebraska. “Outside of cutting agronomy, animal science or plant pathology, I don’t think you could have another department at the university that was more important to agriculture, because that’s your groundwater, that’s your weather,” said Eric Hunt, assistant extension educator of agricultural meteorology at the University of Nebraska Extension. “We just cut something that is vital to the long-term viability of agriculture in the state.” Losing local knowledge and expertise Adam Houston is blunt about the importance of his students’ work when they leave UNL, particularly those who become forecasters at the National Weather Service, the federal agency responsible for issuing extreme weather warnings. “The work that we’re doing is training these students to go out and save lives,” said Houston, a professor of atmospheric sciences in the soon-to-be eliminated department. Other Nebraska universities offer courses similar to those in the department, but the earth and atmospheric sciences degree program is the only one of its kind in the state, according to regents meeting documents. While weather forecasts are easily accessible these days, there is a human element to that data and forecast, said Martha Durr, a faculty member at the Nebraska Indian Community College and a former state climatologist. “There is still a human at the forecast desk, and they are using their local knowledge and expertise to nudge that forecast model output in a certain way, or to issue a watch and a warning,” Durr said. Nebraska is no stranger to extreme weather. The past few years alone have brought flash flooding, drought, outbreaks of tornadoes, and strong thunderstorms. These types of weather events are expected to become more frequent due to climate change — making homegrown local expertise all the more valuable. Already, Nebraska is 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer today than in 1970, and rain events now drop 24 percent more water. The state has also experienced 36 billion-dollar disasters since 2005 — up from four in the previous 20-year period. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Flooding-photo_Quentin-Connealy.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="Quentin Connealy’s farmland in Burt County, Nebraska flooded three times in 2019. When forecasts allow enough notice, Connealy tries to take steps to protect his farming equipment." data-caption="Quentin Connealy’s farmland in Burt County, Nebraska flooded three times in 2019. When forecasts allow enough notice, Connealy tries to take steps to protect his farming equipment. " data-credit="Photo courtesy of Quentin Connealy via Flatwater Free Press"/> Quentin Connealy’s farmland in Burt County, Nebraska flooded three times in 2019. When forecasts allow enough notice, Connealy tries to take steps to protect his farming equipment. Photo courtesy of Quentin Connealy via Flatwater Free Press “What further sets our (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) alumni apart is their deep familiarity with Nebraska’s regional climate and weather patterns,” wrote KLKN-TV Chief Meteorologist Rusty Dawkins in a letter of support for the department. “Their localized knowledge enables them to offer context-sensitive forecasts and risk assessments that out-of-state professionals may miss.” This need for local expertise also translates to other subjects taught by the department, including geology, Hunt said. Geologists from the department have worked with local natural resources districts monitoring groundwater — the primary source of drinking water in Nebraska and an essential resource for the state’s ag economy. At a press conference earlier this year, Governor Jim Pillen referred to water as the state’s lifeblood and called the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in North America, “our pot of gold,” the Nebraska Examiner reported. Asked specifically about the cuts to the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, spokesperson Laura Strimple said the governor applauded “university leadership for having the courage to make tough decisions in eliminating bloated and duplicative programs to achieve cost savings. More is still needed.” The department does work on similar topics as other UNL programs, specifically the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. But State Climatologist Deborah Bathke, who has worked in both departments, said the focus in each program varies greatly. “I can say without any doubt that they are not the same thing.” The department’s alumni have gone on to serve critical roles within the state — the current heads of the Nebraska State Climate Office, the National Drought Mitigation Center, the Conservation and Survey Division, and the Nebraska Water Center all graduated from the department, according to department documents. Others have gone on to work for local natural resource districts, the Air Force, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, and TV stations across the state. “We are losing the ability to train the next generation of scientists that want to serve Nebraska … and serve the country the way that we all do with our scientific expertise,” said Bathke, an Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department alum. Far-reaching research There are about 17 faculty in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, Houston said. Their research carries benefits locally, nationally, and internationally. Department chair Clinton Rowe highlighted faculty’s research in carbon sequestration opportunities underneath the state. This subject is of national interest. “Those kinds of things are important for the economic future of Nebraska,” Rowe said. And the department has received national renown. Sherilyn Fritz, a professor in the department, was elected this past April to the National Academy of Sciences for her research reconstructing “the history of the environment.” Fritz is also a lead investigator for the Trans-Amazon Drilling Project, an international research project looking at the evolution of the Amazon rainforest over geologic time. David Harwood studies past climates and environments as part of the department. He is a leader for the Antarctic Drilling Program, or ANDRILL, an international research effort to understand how ice sheets behaved in the past so we know what to expect from current global warming. And then there’s the climate and weather research. Houston led the TORUS project, where his team chased storms to understand their internal structures through drones, mobile mesonets, and radars. Houston’s and the department’s work in meteorology is nationally and internationally recognized, Fritz said. Houston even consulted on the 2024 movie Twisters. <img decoding="async" src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" srcset="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=330 330w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768 768w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200 1200w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1536 1536w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=160&h=90&crop=1 160w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640&h=853&crop=1 640w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=96&h=96&crop=1 96w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=150 150w, https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1143147495_moldy-seeds.jpg?quality=75&strip=all 1024w" alt="A farmer inspects rotten soybeans on a field destroyed and flooded by the Missouri River near Omaha, Nebraska in 2019." data-caption="A farmer inspects rotten soybeans on a field destroyed and flooded by the Missouri River near Omaha, Nebraska in 2019. " data-credit="Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images"/> A farmer inspects rotten soybeans on a field destroyed and flooded by the Missouri River near Omaha, Nebraska in 2019. Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images Research from the department also informs work coming out of other parts of UNL, including the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Associate Professor Andrea Basche is among the ag institute researchers who have used Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department research in the past. “Getting rid of this department degrades the state’s capacity to predict and adapt to weather and weather extremes that dictate our agricultural success,” Basche said. Some faculty say they have been offered alternate positions at the university. It is unclear how many will take them or stay in Nebraska. In her role as state climatologist, Bathke was the lead author on the 2024 Climate Change Impact Assessment Report, detailing how a warming planet is impacting Nebraska. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department members served as advisers on the report, and one faculty member was also a lead author. There were plans for follow-ups, such as using regional climate modeling with crop modeling to determine specific impacts to agriculture and natural resources in Nebraska. Now, Bathke is unsure if those follow-up studies will happen. “We would have to contract that out to someone who does not have the local expertise of Nebraska,” Bathke said. “Anytime you contract something out, it’s more expensive than if you do it in house.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline University of Nebraska is eliminating a key climate research department on Jan 2, 2026. This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Anila Yoganathan.
The media like to present themselves as objective, balanced, and free from any bias or agenda. Reality suggests something quite different. The media function as weapons of mass distraction. Much of what passes as news is, sometimes subtle, sometimes cr...
The media like to present themselves as objective, balanced, and free from any bias or agenda. Reality suggests something quite different. The media function as weapons of mass distraction. Much of what passes as news is, sometimes subtle, sometimes crude, propaganda. The media are large conglomerates that serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate state and corporate power. In democratic societies, populations are not controlled by force. Rather, they are subject to more refined forms of ideological manipulation. Emotionally potent oversimplifications and necessary illusions are created and repeated endlessly. Embedded ideas, such as Washington’s right to intervene anywhere in the world, go unexamined and unchallenged. Consent is manufactured. The public, reduced to being spectators, is marginalized. This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.
The Impending US Colonial Administration over Gaza, Palestine
Behind the diplomatic language of ‘reconstruction’ and ‘stabilisation’, a new colonial framework for Gaza is being assembled. The following is why the latest Security Council resolution matters and what it sets in motion. On 17 November, the UN Security Council approved a draft resolution authored by the United States endorsing President Donald Trump’s plan for […] The post The Impending US Colonial Administration over Gaza, Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Behind the diplomatic language of ‘reconstruction’ and ‘stabilisation’, a new colonial framework for Gaza is being assembled. The following is why the latest Security Council resolution matters and what it sets in motion. On 17 November, the UN Security Council approved a draft resolution authored by the United States endorsing President Donald Trump’s plan for administering the devastated Gaza Strip. The resolution mandates transferring control of Gaza to a so-called ‘Peace Council’ led by Washington, alongside another body called the ‘International Stabilisation Authority’ tasked with ‘security’ functions and likewise deployed in Gaza. Ultimately, both bodies fall under the authority of Trump and operate in constant and ongoing coordination with Israel. The draft resolution faced no veto from any permanent members. Algeria voted in favour, giving the resolution thirteen supporting votes, while both Russia and China abstained. Luis Felipe Noe (Argentina), Free Palestine, n.d. Palestinian factions and political forces described the resolution as ‘an instrument of tutelage and international partnership in the extermination of our people’, stressing that it bypasses international legal frameworks and paves the way for field arrangements imposed outside the Palestinian national will. They warned that any international force in the proposed form would become ‘another form of foreign occupation’ and ‘a new instrument of aggression’. Law for Palestine warned, in a policy brief, that the resolution does not rest on any international legal framework but instead aims to create a ‘parallel system’ based on security and foreign control. International law expert Craig Mokhiber, former senior official at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, argued that the resolution ‘ignores international law, punishes Palestinians, and rewards those responsible for genocide’. According to Mokhiber’s reading, the most troubling aspect of the resolution is that the Security Council hands control of Gaza – and of the survivors of genocide – to the United States, a partner in the commission of genocide, while stipulating Israeli participation in decision-making. Under this plan, Palestinians would not be permitted to take part in decisions concerning their rights, governance, or lives. Mokhiber states: ‘The United Nations has not behaved in such a blatantly colonial manner (and beyond its legal authority), nor trampled so carelessly on the rights of a people, since it partitioned Palestine in 1947 against the will of the indigenous population, paving the way for 80 years of Nakba.’ <img decoding="async" class="CToWUd a6T" tabindex="0" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NYjajCFvdH1vkP7RFH1adSMgi7eaKJF7YAYcRlCeNzgDLIaV9CWxR7Y9OGvHaspH668szBgpWAAfsPpNm0k_YDOkqiw6ZZbd0uJlyUW62kkbLNztFXwYRsLccXAvHSh7XlRfm_J77bBSYapP7mKOKo-SCb2mzHHhnteYv08zTvOnrc=s0-d-e1-ft#https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/500676117_742787661419234_3558175874453758779_n.jpg" alt="" width="1080" border="0" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133745" data-bit="iit" /> Abdul Al Rahman Al Muzzian (Palestine), Untitled, n.d. The resolution also disregards the recent findings of the International Court of Justice and rolls back Palestinians’ inalienable right to self-determination. A vague, excessively conditional, and non-binding clause states that after the bodies led by Trump decide that Palestinians have met unspecified ‘reform and development’ criteria, ‘conditions may finally be available for a credible path towards self-determination and Palestinian statehood’. Instead of recognising the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination as a binding legal right – as affirmed by the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2024 Advisory Opinion and UN General Assembly Resolution 10/24 – the plan presents it merely as ‘aspirations of the Palestinian people’, tied to reconstruction and reform as judged by external actors. At the same time, the resolution entrenches Israeli impunity for the crime of genocide it has committed. The resolution enables the Trump-chaired Peace Council to operate as a transitional administration governing the entirety of Gaza: controlling services, aid, and movement of people; overseeing reconstruction frameworks; and managing Gaza’s financing. It grants the council a dangerously broad mandate to carry out ‘any other tasks that may be required’ and gives prior authorisation to establish undefined ‘operational bodies’ and ‘transaction authorities’ at its discretion. Law for Palestine emphasises that the inclusion of unelected Palestinian figures in this Peace Council does not change its imposed foreign character; throughout history, all occupying powers have cooperated with local representatives. Sliman Mansour (Palestine), Prison, 1982. To grasp the scale of the contradictions in the Security Council’s action, the resolution also establishes what Mokhiber describes as an outsourced armed occupation force – the ‘International Stabilisation Force’. This force would operate under the supervision of the Trump-chaired Peace Council. Its leadership must be approved by the council, its membership determined ‘in cooperation with’ Israel, and its function would be to exert control over the Palestinian survivors in Gaza. The force would be tasked with securing borders (effectively imprisoning Palestinians), stabilising the security environment in Gaza (suppressing resistance to occupation, apartheid, or genocide), disarming Gaza (but not Israel), destroying Gaza’s defensive military capabilities (but not Israel’s), dismantling Palestinian resistance weapons (but not those of Israel), and training Palestinian police to maintain control over the population. The International Stabilisation Force would also ‘monitor the ceasefire’ – a US-guaranteed arrangement under which Israeli attacks on Gaza have continued daily since its announcement. Monitoring by such a force would focus primarily on Palestinians rather than on Israel as the occupying power. Mokhiber notes that the resolution grants both the colonial Peace Council and its proxy occupation force, the International Stabilisation Force, a two-year mandate, with the possibility of renewal through consultation with Israel (and Egypt) – but not with Palestine. The resolution contradicts the substance of international law itself. The Security Council derives all its authority from the UN Charter. This charter, as a treaty, forms part of international law; it is not above it. The council is therefore bound by the rules of international law, including, in particular, the highest rules known as peremptory norms (jus cogens) and obligations owed to all (erga omnes), such as the right to self-determination and the prohibition on acquiring territory by force. The council’s blatant disregard of the ICJ’s findings on these issues reveals to what extent many of the resolution’s provisions are unlawful and ultra vires (beyond the council’s authority). <img decoding="async" class="CToWUd a6T" tabindex="0" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_Nbn9QmTEH32qQINTvP_SQbf0nfkhASPH1kD8TtXB4KxxywjQMjPjOAwVocjFxggLgBCSt9iOjkY0eyoP93iBabDlTflaANB4JdJ5VoMofsH3d2R4ntWi60lCpT9yAR_v7WUxgi-UCTYrgrv2omNLlw0_g=s0-d-e1-ft#https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/And-the-Convoy-Keeps-Going-RSFW.jpg" alt="" width="505" border="0" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133765" data-bit="iit" /> Sliman Mansour (Palestine), And The Convoy Keeps Going, 2016. Mokhiber, who resigned from the UN Human Rights Office in 2023 after issuing a letter condemning the UN’s failure to protect civilians in Gaza and accusing Israel of committing genocide, observes that the consequences of the Security Council’s rogue behaviour extend far beyond Palestine. If the council does not abide by international law, it becomes a dangerous instrument of repression and injustice. This is precisely what has unfolded here: the council ignored international law and effectively handed the survivors in Gaza over to the partners in the genocide. He concludes that such schemes are fundamentally flawed from the outset, as they seek to impose outcomes that are unlawful (under international law), illegitimate (by excluding Palestinian agency), and devoid of any practical chance of success (given their near-universal rejection in Palestine and across the world). For those committed to justice, human rights, and the rule of law, the task is clear. This plan must be opposed in every capital and at every turn. Madaar — a progressive media platform that seeks the truth and exposes corruption and tyranny in all their forms and wherever they exist. It defends the working people and aims to make the voices of the excluded and those whose rights are violated heard, in pursuit of freedom, social justice and equality. The post The Impending US Colonial Administration over Gaza, Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Tricontinental Asia.
KPFA News Year In Review Part 2 – January 1, 2026
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. KPFA News Year In Review Part 2. The post KPFA News Year In Review Part 2 – January 1, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. <img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-469402" src="https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-345x230.png" alt="" width="345" height="230" srcset="https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-345x230.png 345w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-1024x683.png 1024w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-175x117.png 175w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM.png 1250w" sizes="(max-width: 345px) 100vw, 345px" /> KPFA News Year In Review Part 2. The post KPFA News Year In Review Part 2 – January 1, 2026 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the very first Gaslit Nation episode of 2026, one of the most consequential years for humanity, because the world is about to find out whether American democracy survives Donald Trump and his MAGA crime cult. Will they try to steal the midterms? Will Trump attempt another January 6-style power grab as 2028 approaches? Stick with Gaslit Nation as we fight back and build a new American revolution, one act of hope and defiance at a time. This special bonus show, made for our Patreon community, highlights a thoughtful question from Ken B., a listener and Democracy Defender supporter on Patreon. Ken asks us to focus on a dangerously undercovered issue: the GOP's coordinated effort to loot America's public lands. From rolling back the Roadless Rule to gutting park budgets and opening millions of acres to extraction, Trump and his donors are positioning massive areas of national parks and forests for a sell-off. Ken, thank you for your insights, and thank you to all of our listeners who keep our show going. Your questions shape our show. If you want to submit your questions, comments, and hear them on the show, subscribe at the Democracy Defender tier or higher on Patreon.com/Gaslit. If you want to hear this full episode, including our three major predictions for 2026 and what they mean for democracy, join us on Patreon. Get ready for another big year of the people fighting back. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the very first Gaslit Nation episode of 2026, one of the most consequential years for humanity, because the world is about to find out whether American democracy survives Donald Trump and his MAGA crime cult. Will they try to steal the midterms? Will Trump attempt another January 6-style power grab as 2028 approaches? Stick with Gaslit Nation as we fight back and build a new American revolution, one act of hope and defiance at a time. This special bonus show, made for our Patreon community, highlights a thoughtful question from Ken B., a listener and Democracy Defender supporter on Patreon. Ken asks us to focus on a dangerously undercovered issue: the GOP's coordinated effort to loot America's public lands. From rolling back the Roadless Rule to gutting park budgets and opening millions of acres to extraction, Trump and his donors are positioning massive areas of national parks and forests for a sell-off. Ken, thank you for your insights, and thank you to all of our listeners who keep our show going. Your questions shape our show. If you want to submit your questions, comments, and hear them on the show, subscribe at the Democracy Defender tier or higher on Patreon.com/Gaslit. If you want to hear this full episode, including our three major predictions for 2026 and what they mean for democracy, join us on Patreon. Get ready for another big year of the people fighting back. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit! This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
“Self-Hating Jew, Kapo, What About Hamas?”
Zionists have attempted to teach me the following: 1) Because I am Jewish, all Palestinians clamor and scheme to have me erased from the Earth. 2) There is no such entity as the Palestinian people. Damn convenient: The people you are perpetrating a genocide upon do not exist. Damn odd: The people you are erasing […] The post “Self-Hating Jew, Kapo, What About Hamas?” first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Zionists have attempted to teach me the following: 1) Because I am Jewish, all Palestinians clamor and scheme to have me erased from the Earth. 2) There is no such entity as the Palestinian people. Damn convenient: The people you are perpetrating a genocide upon do not exist. Damn odd: The people you are erasing — who do not exist — aim to erase you. I have been instructed — because I understand the reason for Palestinian resistance — that I am a Kapo (defined as, a Jew who gained privileges by their cooperation with their oppressors within Nazi concentration camps). Yet I am met with belligerent obtuseness, mental walls of bristling denial, when I point out, before my grandfather was arrested and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, he was a member of the anti-Nazi underground. He was, in short, a member of a resistance organization that stood in violent opposition to a nation attempting to create a highly militarized, ethno-supremacist state. Yet when I aver, Israel is exactly that, Zionist apologists snarl, “I am a Kapo.” Think this through: If my grandfather and his fellow Jewish prisoners had managed to stage an uprising against their Nazi prison keepers and an attendant prison breakout, including their resistance spilling out into the streets of Berlin, without a doubt, history would have regarded them as heroes. Yet, history as related by Third Reich Nazis, if Germany had emerged victorious in the end, would have label them as Oct 7 type of rampaging terrorists. Therefore, in memory of my grandfather, I stand in solidarity with the besieged, living in constant terror, Palestinian people, and their acts of resistance against their ethno-supremacist oppressors, the latter, the actual betrayers of Jewish resistance against state sanctioned hate. Pictured: My maternal grandfather, Heinrich Meyer, anti-Nazi resistance fighter. Regarding, “but Hamas,” My late father, orphaned as an infant, adopted by a Jewish mother from The Lower Eastside, New York and a gentile father, a New Orleans denizen via Staten Island, snapped the iconic photograph below on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. He sold the photograph, for the purpose of keeping a roof over our family’s head, to his photo-journalism syndicate and the image was subsequently published on the front page of the New York Times and the pages of Life Magazine. When people demand why, as a Jewish person, I am repelled by Zionism, I offered in reply variations of: 1) My mother is a survivor of the Holocaust 2) Growing up, as I did in Jim Crow-ruled Birmingham, Alabama, upon my first visit to Israel, I detected a pronounced and ruling, bigotry-rancid mindset of the Zionist citizenry that was an analog to the mindset of Third Reich Germans and Jim Crow era US Southerners, complete with all the noxious casuistry and soul-defying psychological projections to which individuals in possession of majority status privilege in ethno-supremacist societies are prone. My family was scorned as “n-word lovers” by Jim Crow-clinging Alabamians as I am slandered as a “Kapo” by Zionist true believers. When, as a child, walking the streets of Birmingham with my mother, according to Jim Crow law, Black men were obliged, under threat of arrest, to cross the street when in the path of an approaching White woman. As is the case with present day Zionists, the mindset evinces a pathological fear within the head of the oppressor in regard to the oppressed. As is the case with its fear-based and brutal analog in the Zionist state, the mindset is a progenitor of all manner of societal pathology, from casual cruelty to genocidal impulses. Thus when Zionists accuse me and other anti-Zionist Jews of tribe-betraying treachery thus enabling of Israel’s savage, blood-crazed mortal enemies, the following truism comes to mind in regard to Zionist apologists and other authoritarian, bigoted brutes, “every accusation is a confession.” To wit, every accusation regarding the crimes against humanity committed by Hamas, the Israeli thugocracy has exceeded ten thousand fold. Moreover, opinion polls of the Israeli citizenry reveal they are in full support of the worst of the uniformed thugs of the IDF’s war crimes, including the wholesale and planned starvation of Gaza’s children. When Jews such as myself regard with mortification and condemn in the strongest terms the conflation of Judaism and Zionism — the abominations perpetrated by the latter group are the type of unforgivable actions that we dread will be associated, in a broad, indiscriminate manner, with us the primary group. All war crimes should not only be regarded as reprehensible but there is a minefield of false equivalence stretching between Palestinian resistance and Zionist war criminality, between Palestinians’ struggle for survival and Israel’s attempt to erase not only their presence from the land of their ancestors but their history as a viable people from collective memory. Hence, an inadvertent confession of genocidal intent. Then there is this: before you gibber “but Hamas too…” allow this to sink in: place yourself in the position of the people of Gaza (a location human rights organizations termed an “open air prison” well before the Oct 7 prison break out. Considering the evils that have been perpetrated on Gazans by the Zionist regime those kinds of condemnations should be regarded as facile and feckless declarations and utterances of casuistry. Then there is this to consider: The history of the West reveals: Acts of suppression inflicted on powerless people abroad will engender a “chickens coming home to roost” effect (i.e., The Principle Of Perpetual Poultry Returns (POPPR). State perpetrated repression and violence in foreign policy traveled homeward. In the US, to greater and greater degrees, speech is censored, ICE thuggery reigns, religious zealotry acts in the service of mercenary agendas, and there seethes on the highest seat of power a within-the-threshold-of Alzheimer’s president, surrounded by lickspittle tools and manic fools, who is an ambulatory caricature of a preening dictator. The dismal and deranged criteria dovetails and cross-pollinates with Western acceptance and enabling of Israel’s brutal and endless oppression of the Palestinian people. As noted above, every accusation aimed at the resistors of tyranny is, in fact, an admission of intent. Image: 1963, The Civil Rights Era “Children’s Campaign” assaulted with police water cannons on the Jim Crow-ruled streets of Birmingham, Alabama. Photograph by Frank H. Rockstroh (When Palestinian Civil Rights campaigners (e.g., during The Gazan Great Walk Of Return) have emulated the tactic, IDF snipers have shot them down outright.) Foundation mythos and blood-drenched folly: The notion of Jews returning to the Promised Land is mythos created by Bronze Age Barbarians. My Ashkenazi Jewish DNA reports my ancestral home is as follows: Germany, France, Spain, Greece/Albania — with 4% coming from northern Iran/Iraq i.e., ancient Persia…the sum total of nada from Israel. In contrast, the DNA of Palestinians reveals…wait for it…they are the true descendants of Biblical era Jews. They possess “the right to return”. Not my pasty, narrow ass. Yet European settlers-colonialists, my relatives, expelled them from their rightful homeland and force Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors to live on their knees in perpetual supplication for the sins of Europe. The fantasy, turned-into-waking-nightmare of returning to “the Promised Land,” is, as noted above, the noxious mythology of Bronze Age barbarians. The mythos is noxious indeed: When any system lapses into extremis, a psychical version of The Second Law of Thermodynamics kicks in; negative entropy is in play, and collapse becomes inevitable. As is the case with Zionists, the Nazis swooned in false mythos. To wit, They believed the reign of the Third Reich would herald the rebirth of Teutonic Knights thus will bring about a German Golden Age. <img decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hitler-knight.jpeg" alt="" width="505" height="509" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-164102" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hitler-knight.jpeg 505w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hitler-knight-298x300.jpeg 298w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hitler-knight-150x150.jpeg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px" /> Third Reich era propaganda poster portraying Adolf Hitler as a Teutonic Knight The Thousand Year Reich lasted all of twelve years. Extremists have a pronounced proclivity to set in motion their own demise. As with the Civil Rights era campaigns in the US Deep South, the hateful, casually racist, and cruel nature of Jim Crow apologists, as is the case with Israelis and their unhinged apologists infesting social media, and their attendant serial posting of vile and vicious content reveals the ugly, bullying character of the genocidal prone nation — thus is proving to be self-undermining. The graphic below, despite the relentless torrent of Zionist propaganda retailed on legacy media outlets, reveals the soul-defying actions of a nation of bullies, if not homicidal maniacs. How is it possible to ignore the massive degree of wanton carnage that the IDF has inflicted on Gaza’s tiny land mass — on a more massive level — than the death and destruction wrought by the bombs, incendiary weapons (add present day murder-bots) that were targeted on major cities by both the Allies and Axis powers during aerial warfare campaigns of World War 2. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bombing-Gaza.jpeg" alt="" width="505" height="544" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-164103" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bombing-Gaza.jpeg 505w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bombing-Gaza-278x300.jpeg 278w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px" /> Every red dot represents an Israeli bomb that hit Gaza in the last two years Withal, the world has witnessed a war crime — of the collective punishment kind — that has surpassed any in the modern era. Yet the major powers of the West have not only remained silent — but provided Zionist war criminals with the weaponry to perpetuate mass murder. When a nation’s foundational mythos is: Because Jews (i.e., members of a broad and varied religious group) were victims of a campaign of annihilation (i.e., by a European power) — we Zionist (a political movement that engendered the establishment of a nation-state) have been granted carte blanche to eliminate anyone, any group or nation that we insist is a threat. It is inane to ask whether I sympathize with Hamas. The question should be: Are you in simpatico with your own humanity? Am I a self-hating Jew for my lack of simpatico with these kippah-bedecked jerkopaths? The post “Self-Hating Jew, Kapo, What About Hamas?” first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Phil Rockstroh.
“Empire of AI”: Karen Hao on How AI Is Threatening Democracy & Creating a New Colonial World
In this holiday special, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of the new book Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI....
In this holiday special, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of the new book Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment. “This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms,” says Hao, in an extended interview. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
American Pogrom: the Year in ICE Abductions
A year into Trump’s mass purge of immigrants from the United States, it’s beyond debate that the people orchestrating and conducting the raids, round-ups and deportations have committed more grievous crimes than the vast majority of the people they’ve harassed, assaulted, arrested, jailed and sent into exile. They’ve committed crimes against the Constitution of the government they’re acting in the name of and they’ve used the force, often violent force, of the federal government against innocent people. They’ve lied to Congress and federal judges. They’ve systematically violated judicial orders. They’ve denied people the most fundamental right guaranteed to residents, regardless of legal status, in the US: the right to due process of law. More The post American Pogrom: the Year in ICE Abductions appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="680" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png" class="alignright wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1128" height="1128" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1128px) 100vw, 1128px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="630" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-630x630.png 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-680x680.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-768x768.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-500x500.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-600x600.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby-100x100.png 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/teargassedbaby.png 1128w" sizes="(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-389267" class="wp-image-389267 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-680x1056.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-680x1056.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-406x630.jpg 406w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-768x1193.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-989x1536.jpg 989w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-500x777.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-600x932.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl.jpg 1218w" alt="" width="680" height="1056" /> A young girl who had been tear-gassed with her father in their car by ICE, while on their way to a Wal-Mart. Screengrab from a video posted on X. A year into Trump’s mass purge of immigrants from the United States, it’s beyond debate that the people orchestrating and conducting the raids, round-ups and deportations have committed more grievous crimes than the vast majority of the people they’ve harassed, assaulted, arrested, jailed and sent into exile. They’ve committed crimes against the Constitution of the government they’re acting in the name of and they’ve used the force, often violent force, of the federal government against innocent people. They’ve lied to Congress and federal judges. They’ve systematically violated judicial orders. They’ve denied people the most fundamental right guaranteed to residents, regardless of legal status, in the US: the right to due process of law. The man running Trump’s border policy, Thomas Homan, was under FBI investigation for accepting grocery bags stuffed with cash to steer contracts to the Trump administration. The man running Border Patrol’s commando squads, the maniacal Gregory Bovino, was excoriated by a federal judge for lying in a deposition about the circumstances of his violent crackdowns on protesters in Chicago. Traditional sanctuaries–churches, schools, day care centers, hospitals and courthouses–have been violated. Members of Congress, including a U.S. senator, have been roughed up and arrested. Religious leaders have been tear-gassed, tasered and beaten. People have been deported to squalid prisons in unstable countries on continents they’ve never visited, never mind lived on. Arrest warrants and deportation orders have been post-dated and falsified. For years, the libertarian right has warned about the militarized takeover of law enforcement. Using an entirely fictitious “immigrant invasion” as an excuse, Trump chucked these constitutional anxieties aside, along with the Posse Comitatus Act, and ordered federal troops into DC, Chicago, LA, Memphis and Portland. People have been detained and deported for their political views and columns they’ve written. People have been deported for embarrassing the government. People have been deported for the hats and shoes they wear and their tattoos. Babies have been ripped out of their mothers’ arms. Children as young as four years old have been forced to defend themselves in immigration court. The torture cells of El Salvador’s most notorious prison were rented out for more than 200 Venezuelans swept up and deported in secret flights that violated a federal judge’s order. Conditions in US detention prisons are just as bad, if not worse. The vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record. Many of them were arrested at their jobs washing cars, mowing lawns, cultivating plants, putting roofs on houses. Others were arrested while checking in with their immigration officers or showing up for scheduled court hearings. Apparently, it’s much easier to abduct people who are abiding by the law, than those who aren’t. Who knew? People are being grabbed off the street or chased down in their cars because they “look” like they might be immigrants. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of American citizens, have been illegally stopped, interrogated, tasered, tear-gassed, arrested and detained by masked ICE and Border Patrol agents, who have routinely dismissed documents, even REAL IDs, as forgeries. Several American citizens have been wrongly deported. Racial profiling in the service of deportation has been sanctified by the Supreme Court, with Brett Kavanaugh calling such stops a minor inconvenience, even when they result in specious arrests. Since Trump bought off most of the large law firms at the beginning of his term, most of the legal heavy-lifting to expose the corruption and criminality of the administration’s immigration crackdown has been done by small firms and non-profits, who have routinely kicked the government’s ass in courtrooms from Portland to Nashville, Las Cruces to Boston. ICE has proven itself to be a lawless agency whose mission is to spread terror through immigrant communities across the US. But they’ve succeeded in turning much of the country against them. Public support for immigration has climbed to record highs. Block by block, city by city, the barbarous legions of ICE are being confronted, driven back and defeated. The Trump/Miller pogrom against immigrants is failing in all of its objectives except one: to inflict maximum cruelty on a vulnerable population that it has used as a scapegoat for the decline of the American economy, resulting from four decades of ruthless neoliberal policies. This shameful episode will stand as the ghastly hallmark of this misbegotten administration. – JSC <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-358045" class="wp-image-358045 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-680x510.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/welcometoamerica-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> “Welcome to America.” Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. +++ “Many people — many nations — can find themselves holding, more or less wittingly, that ‘every stranger is an enemy’. For the most part this conviction lies deep down like some latent infection; it betrays itself only in random, disconnected acts, and does not lie at the base of a system of reason. – Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz + On January 31, Julio Noriega, a US citizen born in Chicago, was walking in Berwyn, Illinois, to get a pizza when ICE descended on him, placed him in handcuffs, and shoved him into a van with other shacked men. His wallet, which held his ID and Social Security card proving his citizenship, was confiscated. He was detained overnight before being released without a record of what occurred. + At 5:30 in the morning of January 27, Jhony Godoy Gregerio was driving with his brother Bayron to work in Maywood, Illinois, when he was pulled over. Bayron was wearing an ankle bracelet mandated by ICE. The officer asked if his name was “Brian.” After Jhony answered “no,” the officer opened the car door and pulled Jhony from the car, his hands and feet cuffed. As multiple trucks carrying 15 armed officers surrounded the vehicle, the officer said he was from ICE. The ICE agent didn’t show Jhonny a warrant, and he has no criminal history other than a few traffic citations. He was taken to Indiana, and before he was able to contact his wife and child or a lawyer, he transferred to the same Louisiana prison where ICE sent Mahmoud Khalil. Jhony has been living legally in the US for 15 years. That same day, Jhony’s brother Marco Godoy Gregerio, who was driving in a second car, was also pulled over and arrested by ICE. The ICE agent also asked Marco if he was “Brian.” Marco said, “No,” and handed the officer his ID from the Guatemalan consul’s office. As armed ICE agents surrounded his car, Marco was told to turn the car off and that he was going to be placed under arrest. He wasn’t told why, and he wasn’t shown a warrant. Marco had no criminal record. Like his brother Jhony, he was taken into custody, held in Indiana, and quickly transferred to Louisiana without being able to contact his family or a lawyer. He was held for 25 days before being able to request bond from an immigration judge. + On January 26, ICE agents surrounded an apartment building in Chicago where Sergio Bolanos Romero lived. As he got into his car and started driving to work, he was pulled over by armed ICE agents who told him to exit the vehicle and demanded he show them proof of his immigration status. After Sergio didn’t provide any, he was handcuffed, taken to a parking lot, which served as an ICE processing center, and then transferred to a jail in Wisconsin. It turned out that ICE had mistaken Sergio for the target of a planned raid who lived in the same building, even though Sergio’s car did not match ICE’s intended target. Sergio had not committed a crime and was not shown a warrant for his arrest. He was released two days later. + On January 29, ICE pulled over Bernandino Randa Marinas on his way to work in Chicago. After handing his ID to an ICE agent, Bernandino was ordered to keep his hands on the steering wheel of his car and not to move. He was held this way for around 40 minutes before one of the ICE officers told him he was under arrest. When Bernando asked to see a warrant, the officer quickly flashed him his cell phone. But he was not shown a Notice to Appear, and at the time of his arrest, there were no pending proceedings against him. Bernandino has lived in the US for more than 20 years, has two children who are US citizens, and a third is due in May. He has no criminal history. + On the morning of February 6, 2025, Jose Ortega Gonzalez was arrested by ICE while driving to work in Kansas. Jose has lived in the US for 20 years and is the father of children who are US citizens. Armed ICE officers surrounded his car and demanded his immigration papers. Jose told them he didn’t have proof of his legal status on him. He was then asked if he’d been arrested for drug trafficking. Jose told the officers he had no criminal history besides a couple of traffic tickets. Jose was then handcuffed, taken to a local police station, and then to an ICE detention center, where he was held for three weeks before seeing a judge who freed him on bond. + On January 26, Abel Orozco Ortega was driving back from the grocery store to the same Lyons, Illinois house he’s lived in for 15 years when he was stopped and arrested by ICE. The ICE agents had mistaken him for his son, Abel Jr., who is more than two decades younger. After Abel handed an ICE officer his driver’s license, the immigration cop reached inside Abel’s car window, unlocked and opened the door, then grabbed Abel’s arm and told him he was under arrest. He was hauled out of the car, cuffed, and put into an ICE vehicle. Abel’s son Eduardo came out of the house to see what was going on. As Eduardo, who is a US citizen, tried to speak with his father, the driver of the ICE car drove over his foot. These traumatic events caused Abel to experience a severe health episode, which required his hospitalization. After he was discharged from the hospital, ICE transferred him to a detention center in Indiana, where he remains. Abel Ortega has no criminal record and was never shown a warrant for his arrest. + On the morning of January 27, ICE agents showed up at an apartment building in Chicago. They were looking for a man named Carlos. When one of the residents of the apartment told them no one named Carlos lived there, eight ICE officers busted through the door and began searching the apartment. They found 24-year-old Jockneul Hernandez Rojas in his room watching television while in bed. The officer told him to get dressed and that he was under arrest. Jockneul was handcuffed and led out of the building. Jocknuel was not shown a warrant and had no criminal record. He had previously been issued a Notice to Appear by ICE, but the immigration court had dismissed the case against him. Jocknuel was taken to the ICE center in Indiana and then swiftly transferred to Louisiana, where he was later released on the orders of an immigration judge. + In the early morning hours of January 28, federal agents broke down the door of Raul Lopez Garcia’s house in Elgin, Illinois. They located Raul in an upstairs bedroom, where they handcuffed him and confiscated his identification documents. He was taken to an ICE facility for processing. Raul was not shown a warrant for his arrest and had no criminal record. ICE later claimed that they encountered Raul while looking for his stepson. Raul was eventually released on bond by a federal judge. + ICE agents broke down the door of Senen Becerra Hernandez’s Chicago apartment, looking for his roommate. Senen was placed in handcuffs and ordered to wait outside for more than an hour as they looked for the target of their raid. Instead of releasing him, the ICE officers took Senen to a detention center. ICE later justified his warrantless arrest by falsely claiming that he didn’t live at the address and had no community ties. In reality, Senen lived in the apartment where the raid occurred, had a job, and attended a local church. + At 11 AM on February 7, an ICE team entered El Potro’s Mexican Café and Cantina in Liberty, Missouri. The 10-member team was armed and dressed in tactical gear. Several of the agents wore masks over their faces. One of the ICE agents told the cafe owner they were looking for someone and ordered him to make all his employees available for questioning. They didn’t provide a name, show him a photograph, or provide a warrant. Still, the owner felt he had to comply. As two ICE agents guarded the door, the employees were rounded up and placed in separate booths in the restaurant, where each employee was ordered to provide their ID. One employee was almost immediately placed in handcuffs, while the others were detained in the booths for more than two hours as ICE seized the employment records from the restaurant. At 12:30, 12 employees were placed in handcuffs, marched out of the cafe, and taken into custody. Eleven workers were detained in Kansas, while another was taken to Kentucky and later to Indiana. All but two of the workers were soon released on minimal bonds. One was deported, and the other remains in detention. + In their mass roundups of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, ICE has been using tattoos as justification to deport noncitizens to a life of hard labor and torture in Salvadoran prisons. Among those deported are: a tattoo artist who entered the US legally seeking asylum: a teenage boy in Arlington, Texas, who got a tattoo on his left hand of a rose with paper money as its petals because, his sister said, he thought it “looked cool;” and a 26-year-old man whose tattoos his wife claims are unrelated to any gangs, never mind TdA. + Here’s the declaration of immigration attorney Linette Tobin on the arrest and deportation to El Salvador of her client Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player and dissident from Venezuela who was seeking asylum in the US as a political refugee. 1. I am the immigration attorney for Jerce Reyes Barrios, born in [sic] January 16, 1989 in Venezuela. 2. In February and March 2024, Mr Reyes Barrios marched in two demonstrations in Venezuela, protesting the authoritarian rule of Maduro. At the second demonstration, he was detained and taken to a clandestine building where he was tortured (electric shocks and suffocation) along with other demonstrators. 3. Shortly after his release, he fled Venezuela for the United States. He registered with CBP One in Mexico, then presented himself to CBP officials on the day of his appointment. He was taken into custody and detained at Otay Mesa Detention Facility in September 2024. 4. We applied for asylum, withdrawal of removal, and CAT protection in December 2024. His final individual hearing is set for April 17, 2025, before Judge Robinson at the Otay Mesa immigration court. 5. On March 15, 2025, Mr. Reyes Barrios was deported to El Salvador with no notice to counsel or family. It was not until March 18, 2025, that counsel was able to reach an ICE official and learn that he had, in fact, been deported. 6. Mr. Reyes Barrio was/is a professional soccer player in Venezuela. He has never been arrested or charged with a crime. He has a steady employment record as a soccer player, as well as a soccer coach for children and youth. 7. Initially, Mr Barrios was placed in maximum security at Otay Mesa and accused of being a Tren de Aragua gang member. The accusation is based on two things. First, he has a tattoo on his arm of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball with a rosary and the word “Dios.” DHS alleges that this tattoo is proof of gang membership. In reality, he chose the tattoo because it is similar to the logo for his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid. See the logo below. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358055" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes1-680x183.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes1-680x183.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes1-768x207.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes1-500x135.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes1-600x161.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes1.png 810w" alt="" width="680" height="183" />8. Second, DHS reviewed his social media posts and found a photo of Mr. Reyes Barrios making a hand gesture that they allege is proof of gang membership. In fact, the gesture is a common one: It means “I Love You” in sign language and is commonly used as a Rock-and-Roll symbol. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358056" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes2-680x219.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes2-680x219.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes2-500x161.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes2-600x194.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/reyes2.png 688w" alt="" width="680" height="219" />9. After submitting a police clearance from Venezuela indicating no criminal record, multiple employment letters, a declaration from the tattoo artist who rendered the tattoo, and various online images showing similar soccer ball/crown tattoos and explaining the meaning of the hand gestures, Mr Reyes Barrios was transferred out of maximum security. 10. Nevertheless, on March 10th or 11th, he was transferred from Otay Mesa to Texas without notice. Then, on March 15, 2025, he was deported to El Salvador. Counsel and family have lost all contact with him and have no information regarding his whereabouts or condition. + If this is how they’re treating opponents of Maduro, imagine how they’re treating dissidents of the Bukele regime in El Salvador. + How does ICE justify these arrests and deportations to Buekele’s concentration camp-like prison, where torture, food deprivation and killings are commonplace? In truly Kafkaesque terms: “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358061" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GmU1piQWYAALYre-680x234.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GmU1piQWYAALYre-680x234.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GmU1piQWYAALYre-768x264.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GmU1piQWYAALYre-500x172.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GmU1piQWYAALYre-600x206.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GmU1piQWYAALYre.jpeg 1000w" alt="" width="680" height="234" /> + In late February, the Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney was kidnapped by ICE after she tried to renew her work visa at the US/Mexico border. She was cuffed, thrown into a van, held prisoner for 12 days, denied access to a lawyer, made to sleep on concrete floors and given a forced pregnancy test before being sent back to Canada with no explanation from DHS officials for the brutality of her treatment. Mooney described her surreal ordeal in vivid terms for an article in The Guardian. + On March 5, Ranjani Srinivasan was told by email that her student visa had been revoked after she attended a couple of protests and liked some social media posts in support of Palestinians in Gaza. Ranjani, a 37-year-old architect from India who was on the verge of completing her doctoral program in urban planning at Columbia, withdrew from school and fled to Canada after ICE knocked on her dorm door and accused her of advocating “violence and terrorism.” In an interview with Boston radio station WBUR, Ranjani said: I’m not a terrorist sympathizer. I’m not pro-Hamas. And I think it’s really dangerous to label any free speech that somebody disagrees with, or any sort of peaceful objection to global issues, as terrorism. I think it just creates a climate of fear where people are scared to share their opinions. There’s a feeling that your visa could be revoked for even the simplest political speech, and the whole point of an American university is to have debate and nuance about ideas to contest them freely. I think there’s a general fear of doing that now. + On March 7, Fabian Schmidt was detained by immigration officers at Logan Airport in Boston on his way back from Luxembourg. Schmidt holds a green card and has lived and worked in the US since moving to the States with his mother in 2007. He became a permanent resident in 2008 and has worked in the US as an electrical engineer ever since. As ICE officers interrogated him and demanded he surrender his green card, his partner, a cardiologist and US citizen, waited for him for four hours at the airport. During his detention, Schmidt was stripped naked, placed in a cold shower, and deprived of food, water, and medication. He collapsed before being hospitalized at Mass General. After his release from the hospital, Schmidt was taken to an ICE facility in Burlington, Mass., and then transferred to an ICE jail in Rhode Island. Schmidt’s green card had recently been renewed and there were no pending legal cases against him. He wasn’t served with a warrant at the time of his arrest and wasn’t permitted to contact his family for three days. Schmidt has an 8-year-old daughter who is a US citizen. + On March 9, a French space researcher was subjected to a “random” search upon arrival in the US. His phone and computer were confiscated and searched. The DHS agents found a series of text messages describing Trump’s treatment of scientists, which they used to accuse him of harboring a “hatred of toward Trump that could be described as terrorism.” He was held in custody overnight and deported back to Europe the next day. Agence France Press later reported that DHS had accused him of “hateful and conspiratorial messages” and had referred him to the FBI. + On March 12, Dr. Rasha Alawieh was detained by immigration officials at Boston’s Logan Airport. She was told that her visa had been revoked and that she would be deported back to Lebanon, where she’d been visiting her parents. Her phone and computer were confiscated. Dr. Alawieh works at Brown Medicine and Rhode Island Hospital. She had secured an H-1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027. She was trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, the University of Washington, and Yale as a transplant surgeon. She hasn’t been convicted or accused of a crime. In court filings, ICE claimed to have discovered photos on her phone that were “sympathetic” to leaders of Hezbollah. It turns out that the images weren’t Dr. Alaweigh’s but had been posted to a group chat she belonged to. + On March 17, masked ICE agents arrested Badar Khan Suri outside his own in Arlington, Virginia. Bara is an Indian national with a student visa who was doing post-doctoral research at Georgetown University. The agents told Badar his visa had been revoked and he would be deported to India. Badar has no criminal record and is married to a US citizen. Badar’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, told Politicothat he had been targeted because of his wife’s Palestinian heritage. In a sworn statement, Badar’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, said the detention of her husband “has completely upended our lives…Our children are in desperate need of their father and miss him dearly. As a mother of three children, I desperately need his support to take care of them and me.” A federal court blocked Badar’s deportation. +++ + ICE is knowingly renditioning innocent people and sending them to a prison where the night-time sadism of Abu Ghraib is the operational plan 24/7… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358773" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cohnonemansobbing-680x315.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cohnonemansobbing-680x315.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cohnonemansobbing-768x356.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cohnonemansobbing-500x232.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cohnonemansobbing-600x278.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cohnonemansobbing.jpg 1080w" alt="" width="680" height="315" /> + The ACLU filed a sworn declaration from a Venezuela woman asylum seeker whom ICE detained and wanted to deport to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act; she says she overheard ICE officials on the plane to El Salvador conversing about that court ruling ordering them to turn the plane back to the US. ICE defied the court order and renditioned the detainees to El Salvador despite stopping for “hours” to refuel. The Venezuelan asylum seeker was later returned to the Webb Detention Center in Laredo, Texas… On Friday, we were told to gather our belongings and put on the bus at Webb [County detention center in Laredo, Texas] and sat in the bus for about 5 minutes and then were taken back to Webb. Saturday morning, we were again told to gather our belongings and get on the bus. We went to the airport, and eight women were put on the plane with me. When we got on the plane, there were already over 50 men on the plane. I could see other migrants walking to the plane, but we took off before any additional people boarded. Within a couple of minutes, I overheard two US government officials talking, and they said, “There is an order saying we can’t take off, but we already have.” I asked where we were going and we were told that we were going to Venezuela. Several other people on the plane told me they were in immigration proceedings and awaiting court hearings in immigration court. We were not allowed to open our window shades. We landed somewhere for refueling. We were there for many hours. We were arm and leg shackled the whole time. We took off again and landed fairly quickly. I was then told we were in El Salvador. While on the plane the government officials were asking the men to sign a document and they didn’t want to. The government officials were pushing them to sign the document and threatening them. I heard them discussing the documents and they were about the men admitting they were members of TdA. After we landed but were still on the plane, a woman opened the shade. An officer rushed to close the shade and pulled her down by her shoulders to try and stop her from looking out. The person who pushed her down had HOU-O2 written on his sleeve. I saw out the window for a minute and I saw men in military uniforms and another plane. I saw men being led off the plane. Since I’ve been back in the US, I have seen news coverage, and the plane I saw looks like the one I’ve seen on TV with migrants from the US being delivered to El Salvador. + Neri Alvarado was working as a baker in Dallas when ICE showed up asking to see his tattoo. “We’re here because of your tattoos. We are finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos,” an ICE agent told him. Neri explained that the rainbow-colored ribbon on his arm was an Autism Awareness tattoo honoring his 15-year-old brother with autism. The ICE examined Neri’s phone and told him he was clean. But another agent ordered him kept in detention. Then, he was renditioned to El Salvador without any explanation. His only crime was having a tattoo. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-358774 aligncenter" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-27-at-2.26.32%E2%80%AFPM-1.png" sizes="(max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-27-at-2.26.32 PM-1.png 542w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-27-at-2.26.32 PM-1-500x544.png 500w" alt="" width="542" height="590" /> + ICE is trying to deport Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia student who attended pro-Palestine protests. Chung came to the US from South Korea with her family at age SEVEN. She’s been a lawful permanent resident for more than a decade. She was the valedictorian of her high school class. She faced a disciplinary hearing from Columbia, which found she did not violate the university’s policies. Despite being cleared of any crimes or infractions (even that of trespassing on her own campus), ICE agents showed up at her parent’s house and told them her green card had been revoked. Armed ICE agents showed up twice at her campus apartment looking for her. On Wednesday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order stopping the Trump administration from detaining Yunseo. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358770" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n-680x508.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n-680x508.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n-843x630.jpg 843w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n-768x574.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n-500x374.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n-600x448.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/481677797_10163380911211518_4632484495557842061_n.jpg 1024w" alt="" width="680" height="508" /> + A little after five in the evening on Tuesday, Runeysa Ozturk, a Ph D candidate at Tufts University, was accosted on the streets of Somerville, Mass., outside of Boston by hooded and masked agents, who initially refused to identify who they were and then falsely claimed they were “the police.” They were, in fact, ICE. Runeysa’s backpack, purse, and phone were seized. She was placed in cuffs, forced into a black van, and taken away. She was told her student visa had been revoked, and she was going to be deported. Ozturk, a Turkish citizen, was here legally, had committed no crimes, and wasn’t charged with a crime by ICE when they kidnapped her. Her sole offense? Co-writing an op-ed in the Tufts student paper opposing Israel’s mass killings of Palestinians. Even though a federal judge had ordered ICE to keep her in Massachusetts until a hearing on her status could take place, she was transported to an ICE detention jail in Louisiana. + On Thursday, Marco Rubio admitted that he’d personally revoked Runeysa’s visa and smeared her without evidence as being a terrorist sympathizer and a supporter of Hamas. “We do it every day,” Rubio boasted. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.” Rubio said he’s already revoked 300 student visas and intends to revoke many more. Jonathan Karl, ABC’s This Week: Do they have any due process at all? Thomas Homan, Trump’s Border Czar: Due process…what was Laken Riley’s due process? +++ + Kilmar Abrego Garcia came to the US in 2012 to escape being recruited into a Salvadoran gang that had terrorized his family for more than two years. In 2016, he met his future wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, a US citizen living in Maryland. They eventually moved in together and Kilmar helped raise her two children. They later had a child together. Each of the three kids had some form of disability. Kilmar, according to Jennifer, was an attentive and devoted father to all of the children. He held a steady job, he stayed out of trouble, and then he was busted in 2019 while waiting to apply for a job at Home Depot and accused of being a member of the M-13 gang in Long Island, where he’d never been. During his hearing, Abrega adamantly denied any gang ties. The cops said they arrested him because “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique.” Jennifer Vasquez Sura wrote in a deposition that she was so fearful Kilmar would be deported that she arranged for them to get married while he was in jail: “I coordinated with the detention center and a local pastor to officiate our wedding. We were separated by glass and were not allowed physical contact. The officers had to pass our rings to each other. It was heartbreaking not to be able to hug him.” Relying on the bogus testimony from a confidential informant, the immigration judge issued a removal order but barred his deportation to El Salvador, agreeing that there was a serious threat to Abrego Garcia’s life if he was returned home. The judge ordered his release and required him to regularly check-ins with ICE, which Abrego Garcia faithfully did. So things stood until March 12, 2025, when ICE agents stopped Abrego Garcia’s car as he was driving his 5-year-old son home from school. He was cuffed, told his immigration status had been revoked and that he would be deported. The agents took him to a detention center in Baltimore. When Kilmar was finally able to talk with Jennifer on the phone, he told her the ICE agents once again accused him of being a member of M-13, saying bizarrely they’d watched the family frequently visit a certain restaurant and that they had photos of Kilmar playing basketball. On the morning of March 15, Kilmar called Jennifer again to let her know he’d been transferred to Louisiana. “That call was short and Kilmar’s tone was different,” Jennifer wrote in her deposition. “He was scared. He was told he was being deported to El Salvador. He was told he was being deported to El Salvador to a super-max prison called ‘CECOT.’” Jennifer hasn’t heard from him since. Then, on Monday of this week, the Trump administration admitted in a court filing that Abrego Garcia had been deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order. By accident, they claimed, the result of an “administrative error:” (Which sounds like the excuse for everything that happened in the last two months.) “On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error.” Even so, the Trump administration argued the court had no power to order the return of Kilmar from the custody of the nation that he had fled 13 years ago in fear for his life. The entire case against Kilmar, dating back to 2019, has the smell of a frame-up. When Kilmar’s lawyers attempted to contact the detective who filled out a form in 2019 accusing him of links to MS-13, they discovered that the police department had no record of his arrest. Even more damning, the detective who filled out the fatal form had been suspended. Despite the outrageous facts of the case, instead of admitting their grotesque error, the Trump administration went on the offensive, sending JD Vance out to smear Kilmar on FoxNews, where he called him “a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here. He had also committed some traffic violations; he had not shown up for some court dates. This is not exactly ‘father of the year’ here.” Trump’s Jesus-worshipping press spokesperson Kathline Leavitt threw even more toxic slime at Kilmar, calling him a “criminal,” a “foreign terrorist,” and a “heinous individual.” All lies. Abrega Garcia has no criminal record and his wife and kids miss him and worry about his fate in Naghib Bukele’s lethal dungeon. + In 2024, José Gregorio González came to the US from Venezuela to donate a kidney needed to save the life of his brother José Alfred Pacheco, who suffers from late-stage renal failure. But before the operation could take place, González was swept up by an ICE raid in Chicago that a neighbor described as “an ambush.” González’s request for asylum had been denied, but an immigration judge had allowed him to stay in the US for the time being because Venezuela was refusing to accept any deportation flights from the US. González hadn’t any criminal history in the US and wasn’t served with a warrant at the time of his arrest. After public outrage over his detention, Gonzalez was temporarily released until after the operation could take place, at which time he would be deported. + The Washington Post explains that this is far from the only case where noncitizen relatives have been deported while caring for relatives with terminal illnesses, though not as terminal as the sickness of the country that is deporting them: Last month, a child brain cancer patient in Texas and her four siblings — all U.S. citizens — were deported to Mexico along with their undocumented parents who had removal orders as the family was en route to a Houston hospital for her treatment. An undocumented Mexican woman in the Los Angeles area fared better — ICE arrested her in February, but an immigration judge allowed her to post bond as she was the caregiver for an American daughter with bone cancer. + On March 27, a mother and her three children were kidnapped by ICE in Sackets Harbor in northern New York, the hometown of Tom Homan, who’s commanding the immigration raids for Trump. All four of them were handcuffed, including a third grader, and kept in detention for 11 days. They were finally released this week after more than 1,000 people showed up to protest their baseless arrests. + The Los Angeles United School District said plainclothes ICE agents tried to question students at two elementary schools in Los Angeles on Monday but were denied entry by administrators. Superintendent Alberto Carvahlo said the agents falsely claimed they had parental permission to question the kids. + Here’s the declaration of Luis Alberto Castillo Rivera, who entered the United States legally from Venezuela, had committed no crimes while in the US, yet was kidnapped without a warrant by ICE and sent to the notorious Camp 6 at Guantanamo Bay, where he was fed wretched food, kept shackled in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, denied medical care, mocked and humiliated by guards, saw a prisoner beaten by guards for refusing to return a toothbrush, had their Bibles and passports seized and were denied phone calls with family and lawyers for two weeks… +++ + First, you get away with deporting non-criminal non-citizens. Then you try to deport non-criminal citizens whose ethnicity you dislike. Last week, Juan Carlos Gomez-Lopez, a 20-year-old Georgia man of Mayan heritage, was pulled over and arrested by Florida Highway Patrol for “being an undocumented immigrant over the age of 18 who had illegally entered the state of Florida.” There were just two problems. First, the enforcement of DeSantis’s punitive immigration law Gomez-Lopez supposedly violated, has been blocked by a federal court. Second, Gomez-Lopez is a US citizen. When Gomez-Lopez appeared for his arraignment before the local court, his advocates presented the judge with his birth certificate and Social Security card as proof that he is a natural-born US citizen. Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggins said, “In looking at it and feeling it and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark proving this is an authentic document.” Riggins said there was no probable cause for his detention, but that her hands were tied because ICE had asserted jurisdiction and wants him sent to a detention center for deportation. “It’s like this dystopian nightmare of poorly written laws,” said Thomas Kennedyof the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “We’re living in a time when this man could be sent to El Salvador because, what? Is he going to be treated as a stateless person?” + Meanwhile, in Boston: “Immigration attorney Nicole Micheroni says she was born at Newton Wellesley Hospital, grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts, and was educated at Wellesley College. So, anyone can imagine her surprise when she says she received an emailed letter from the Department of Homeland Security, telling her to self-deport within 7 days…” + And in Arizona, CBP targeted another Bostonian: Rioles Saeed, a lawyer now living in Tucson, received a notice from Border Patrol telling her to leave the country or be forcibly deported. Saeed is an American citizen who was born in Boston. Saeed: “I thought this was for one of my clients but then i saw that it was addressed only to me. With the dot gov, it said it was from CBP…There is a true recklessness coming from the government and shows an intimidating attitude towards our immigrant clients.” + Alec MacGillis, Pro Publica: “Kseniia Petrova left Russia in protest of Putin and found work at a Harvard lab, w/ a valid visa. She arrived with only a backpack. CBP stopped her recently at Logan for failing to declare frog embryos she had brought from Paris for her lab. This would normally come with a fine. Instead, she is in prison in Louisiana. “I feel like something is happening generally in America. Something bad is happening. I don’t think everybody understands.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-360979" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-680x781.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="781" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-680x781.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-549x630.jpg 549w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-768x882.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-1338x1536.jpg 1338w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-500x574.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n-600x689.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/491861303_10163477442641518_5889218467303136125_n.jpg 1672w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + We’re watching the Milgram Experiment breakout in real-time, as hundreds of ICE agents commit sadistic acts against innocent people, they’d never imagined themselves ever doing back in Sunday School…(At least I hope they’d never imagined themselves doing it): A Guatemalan immigrant with no Massachusetts criminal record was arrested Monday on Tallman Street in New Bedford after federal agents shattered the glass on his vehicle with axes, as he and his wife waited inside the car for their lawyer to arrive. Like so many others, he was detained without a warrant. + The former cop who sent gay makeup artist, Andry Jose Hernandez, Romero to a hellhole of a prison in El Salvador is a known liar, who was put on a Brady List of cops whose testimony should not be trusted at trial. He also drove drunk into a family’s house and falsified his overtime hours. +++ American citizens are being routinely caught in Trump’s deportation dragnet, detained, jailed, and threatened with deportation, even a four-year-old with cancer and a pregnant mother who would have given birth to an American citizen. When ICE’s “mistakes” are revealed, usually through the presentation of a birth certificate days after the false arrest, the typical response has been to blame the victims. That’s if they haven’t already been deported. Take the case of 19-year-old Jose Hermosillo, who was detained by Border Patrol outside Tucson on April 8 and held for 10 days in the privately run Florence Correctional Center before being released. Hermosilla, who has a learning disability, told his jailers he was an American citizen. They told him to tell his lawyer. At that point, Jose Hermosillo didn’t have a lawyer. Two days later, Jose told an immigration judge the same thing. Federal prosecutors requested a week-long delay in the case. And Jose, who is the father of a six-month-old American citizen, was held for another seven days until his family could finally present the court with his birth certificate. After his release, DHS smeared Hermosillo, blaming him for his own arrest and detention. In a post on Twitter (of all places), DHS said: “Hermosillo’s arrest and detention were a direct result of his own actions and statements.” In trying to cover their own cruel blunders, DHS officials alleged “that Jose Hermosillo approached Border Patrol in Tucson, Arizona, stating he had ILLEGALLY entered the U.S. and identified himself as a Mexican citizen.” This was a convenient concoction, a fiction. Hermosilllo hadn’t been in Mexico and he’s not a Mexican citizen. To support their self-serving claim, DHS said Hermossilo signed a transcript of an alleged interview attesting to this version of events. But Hermosilla can’t read or write. He can only scratch out his name, according to his girlfriend. What really happened is quite different, tragic even. Hermosillo lives in Albuquerque and had traveled to Tucson with his girlfriend to visit her family. While in Tucson, he suffered a seizure and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. He was treated and released, unsure exactly where he was or how to return to his girlfriend. Hermosilla flagged down what he thought was a police car to ask for directions. It turned out to be Border Patrol. He told the officer he was staying in Tucson but was lost. The BP officer responded harshly, “You’re not from here. Where are you from? “New Mexico,” Hermosilla said. “I don’t believe you,” the BP cop said. “Show me your papers?” Hermosilla told him he’d left his New Mexico ID at his girlfriend’s family’s place. “I’m not stupid,” the cop told him. “I know you’re from Mexico.” Then the cop arrested Hermosilla, told him to sign some papers, and then deposited him in a cell with 15 other men, where he was served cold food and denied his medications for the next 10 days. “I told them I was a US citizen,” Hermosillo told Arizona PM. “But they don’t listen to me.” +++ + On Friday, Federal Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, issued an order saying that DHS had apparently deported a 2-year-old American citizen to Honduras with “no meaningful” process, even though the girl’s father, also a US citizen, fought to keep her in the country. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-361926" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa-680x466.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa-680x466.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa-919x630.jpeg 919w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa-768x526.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa-500x343.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa-600x411.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gpa1f1VWQAAauSa.jpeg 1366w" alt="" width="680" height="466" /> + The ACLU reported that on Friday, the New Orleans field office of ICE deported two families with minor children. Three of the children (age 2, 4 and 7) are US citizens. One of the children suffers from a rare form of metastatic cancer. The citizen child was deported without medications or being able to consult with their doctors, even though ICE was fully briefed about the child’s dire medical condition. One of the mothers is pregnant. Both families have lived in the US for many years. According to the ACLU, “ICE held the families incommunicado, refusing or failing to respond to multiple attempts by attorneys and family members to contact them. In one instance, a mother was granted less than one minute on the phone before the call was abruptly terminated when her spouse tried to provide legal counsel’s phone number.” + Aldo Martinez-Gomez, a US citizen living in California, received a DHS notice on April 11, threatening “criminal prosecution” and fines if he does not depart within seven days, even after he showed them his birth certificate. “Do not attempt to remain in the United States,” the letter warned. “The government will find you.’ Martinez-Gomez: “I’m just trying not to be one of the government’s mistakes.” + At 8:30 in the morning on Friday, U.S. Marshals entered a county courthouse in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and arrested trial judge Hannah Dugan on charges that she had obstructed the arrest of a noncitizen. Trump officials, including FBI director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, publicly gloated over her arrest, as did Trump, who posted a photo of the judge wearing a medical mask on his Truth Social feed. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-362094" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge-680x470.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge-680x470.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge-912x630.png 912w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge-768x531.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge-500x345.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge-600x415.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pateljudge.png 1378w" alt="" width="680" height="470" /> Shockingly (right?), the facts are a little different from what the Trumpites have presented. Flores was in Dugan’s courtroom on another matter, when ICE agents entered and attempted to arrest him without a warrant. Dugan ordered the agents out of her court and told them to contact the supervising judge. Then she escorted Flores and his attorney out the back of the courtroom to a public hallway. Flores Ruiz was not, as Patel crudely asserts, a “perp.” He hadn’t been accused of “perpetrating” any crime, except that of being in the US without papers. There was no “increased danger” to the public because there was never any “danger” to begin with, except to Flores Ruiz. He was later detained by ICE and jailed without incident. Surely, judges have sovereignty over their own courtrooms and have the authority to demand to see a warrant before an arrest is made inside their chambers. Of course, this is yet another provocation, pushing the limits of executive power to see how far it reaches. It seems as if Trump is heeding Bukele’s advice at the White House that you need to “get rid of the judges.” In 2021, the Salvadoran despot removed all five judges from the nation’s supreme court and fired its attorney general. +++ + Two weeks after a family from Maryland moved into a new rental house in Oklahoma City, 20 armed ICE agents burst into their home. “I didn’t know who they were,” the mother later said. “It was dark. All the lights were off. I kept asking them, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here? What’s happening? And they said, ‘We have a warrant for the house, a search warrant.’” + “You can’t just walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Show me your papers,” said U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer L. Thurston, before issuing a preliminary injunction forbidding the Border Patrol from conducting warrantless immigration stops throughout a wide swath of California. + Sophie’s Choice, American-style: A Guatemalan woman will be given “the choice” of whether she wants to take her newborn, a US citizen born in Tucson on Wednesday, with her when she is deported, CBP says. CBP placed guards outside her maternity ward room and refused to let her speak to a lawyer… + Two weeks after a family from Maryland moved into a new rental house in Oklahoma City, 20 armed ICE agents burst into their home. “I didn’t know who they were,” the mother later said. “It was dark. All the lights were off. I kept asking them, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here? What’s happening? And they said, ‘We have a warrant for the house, a search warrant.’” Flashing the warrant, ICE raided the house, seizing cellphones, computers, and the family’s life savings. While ICE agents ransacked the house, they forced the mother and three daughters to stand outside in their underwear. “We are citizens!” the mother screamed at the ICE officers. “You have guns pointed in our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women?” When she was allowed to read the warrant, the mother noticed that it referred to the house’s previous tenants. She pointed this out to the agents: “They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless,” she said. “I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything. One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning.’ It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was ‘a little rough?’ You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow. I asked, ‘When are we going to get our stuff back?’ They said it could be days or it could be months.” They didn’t bother to leave a contact card. +++ + ICE is luring noncitizens who are trying to follow the law into traps. Take the case of Rosmery Alvarado, the wife of a naturalized US citizen, and mother of a daughter who is also a US citizen. Alvardo, a native of Guatemala who lives in Pittsburg, Kansas, had applied for a green card as the wife of a US citizen. A couple of weeks ago, Rosmery received a summons from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office to come to Kansas City for her spousal interview. When Rosmery arrived for her interview, she was immediately taken into custody by ICE and told she would be deported to Guatemala. The summons was a ruse. Rosmery had no criminal record. Alvardo’s daughter, Carina Moran: “My father was then approached by an ICE officer, and he was told, ‘We arrested your wife and she’s going to be deported. We didn’t get any kind of warning. They didn’t let us say goodbye.” + Last year, a family of three turned themselves in to immigration after crossing the border in Texas and were separated by ICE. The father, Maiker Espinoza Escalona, was sent to a men’s detention prison, and the mother, Yorely Bernal Inciarte, was detained in a women’s prison, as their asylum claim was being processed. Their two-year-old daughter was sent into government custody. After a few months, the couple rescinded their asylum claim and asked to be deported so that they could be reunited with their daughter. Instead, Maiker was sent first to Guantanamo, then deported to Bukele’s concentration camp in El Salvador. Meanwhile, Yorely was put on a deportation flight to Venezuela without her daughter, who remained in ICE custody: “I started yelling at the officers asking where my baby was, but ICE officers ignored me.” When the Venezuelan government protested the kidnapping of the couple’s daughter, the Trump administration responded by smearing Maiker and Yorely with the dubious charge of being leaders of the Tren De Aragua gang. “The child’s father, Maiker Espinoza-Escalona, is a lieutenant of Tren De Aragua who oversees homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking, and operates a torture house,” DHS said in a statement. ”The child’s mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution.” Neither Maiker nor Yorely has a criminal record in the US or Venezuela. However, they do both have tattoos. Maiker is a barber and tattoo artist who inked the birthdates of Yorely’s mother and father, the name of her son, and some flowers on her chest. Neither has any gang tattoos. Yorely, who has no way of contacting her 2-year-old daughter, told ABCNews: “I wouldn’t wish this on any mother.”, + Cliona Ward, a 54-year-old Irish woman who has been living legally in the United States for decades, was taken into detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after a trip to Ireland to visit her sick father. Ward moved to the US in her early teens and is the sole carer for a son with special needs. She is being held in an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington. + Harvard cancer researcher Kseniia Petrova on being kidnapped and locked up in an ICE prison: “I would call it a grinding machine. We are in this machine, and it doesn’t care if you have a visa, a green card, or any particular story… It just keeps going.” +++ + ICE agents in six cars raided a gas station in Oxnard,a majority Hispanic town on California’s central coast known for its strawberry plantations.. They surrounded an undocumented farmworker father and his two kids as they were filling up their vehicle. The ICE agents seized the dad, took off and just “left the children inside the truck.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-363892" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GqmLFCLWcAA_G9e.png" sizes="(max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GqmLFCLWcAA_G9e.png 599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GqmLFCLWcAA_G9e-500x334.png 500w" alt="" width="599" height="400" /> + AJ English journalist Hebh Jamal, a US citizen, on her interrogation by four DHS agents before her flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to the US: “I wrote about my experience entering the United States last month for AJ English. My phone was taken and looked through. We were threatened not to participate in political activity, and they demanded to know what my latest article was about. So, it was not good.” DHS: Did you have any family members experience violence [in Gaza]? Jamal: Yes. Fifty members of my family were killed? DHS: Were any of them Hamas supporters? + Nineteen-year-old Ximena Arias-Cristobal, who has lived in Dalton, Georgia, since she was four, was pulled over for making a turn without signaling. This would normally result in a ticket. But Ximena, who is a graduate of the local high school, where she ran cross-country, and is now a student at Dalton State College, was handcuffed, taken to the county jail, and turned over to ICE, even though she had no criminal record. ICE put the diminutive young woman in shackles; they took her to an ICE detention facility three hours away. Ximena’s father had been arrested two weeks earlier for speeding. He, too, was turned over to ICE by Georgia police and is detained in the same ICE jail. Her attorney said her mother will likely also soon be detained for deportation. The Arias-Cristobal family has run a construction company in Georgia for more than a decade. All of them were living productive lives and paying taxes. None of them has a criminal record. + Ángel Blanco Marin, a 22-year-old musician from Venezuela, was nabbed by ICE in the Bronx and slated for deportation. When his father learned Ángel would be deported, he said he was so glad he was coming that: “I painted his room. I fixed it up for when he arrives. I bought him balloons.” Then he discovered that Ángel had been sent without a trial to the CECOT prison in El Salvador instead. There’s no evidence Ángel had even the faintest association with the Tren de Aragua gang. + ICE deceived a Florida mom named Heidy Sánchez, falsely telling her she could not keep her baby, then quickly deported her alone to Cuba. Sánchez’s attorney said they tried to stop her deportation by arguing that her removal would hurt her daughter’s health. Her baby still breastfeeds and suffers from seizures. But just two days later—before any legal hearing could be held—she was put on a plane & deported to Cuba. + The Trump administration is set to deport the mother of an 11-year-old girl and American citizen, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, who will almost certainly die if she accompanies her mother to Mexico and has no one to care for her here if her mother is deported: Yoselin Mejía Pérez suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as maple syrup urine disease (MSUD). This condition involves the body’s inability to process certain amino acids, causing a harmful buildup of substances in the blood and urine. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), if left untreated, progressive brain damage is inevitable, and death typically occurs within weeks or months. + Yoselin is one of five million American children whose parents may be deported. +++ + On Saturday, ICE agents detained 13-15 farmworkers on their way to work in upstate New York. The United Farm Workers Union says the agents had a list targeting union organizers. All of those detained were year-round workers who lacked H-2A visa protections granted to seasonal workers + Until Monday, the second person wrongly deported to El Salvador was known only by a pseudonym. Now we know his name, Daniel Lozano-Camargo, and at least part of his story. The Trump regime shipped the 20-year-old Venezuelan, who had been living in Houston and running a car-detailing company, to El Salvador in violation of a court order. Now, a federal judge has ordered his return. + Calling the Trump administration’s views on due process “truly frightening,” Federal Judge Lawrence Vilardo ruled in the case of Sering Ceesey, a 63-year-old Gambian who has lived in the US for more than 30 years, that even noncitizens have the right to a judicial hearing: This case raises the question of whether a noncitizen subject to a final order of removal and released on an order of supervision is entitled to due process when the government decides, in its discretion, to revoke that release. The Court answers that question simply and forcefully: Yes. Noncitizens, even those subject to a final removal order, have constitutional rights just like everyone else in the United States…[H]ow can we pride ourselves on being a nation of laws if we are not at least willing to ask, before we lock you up, do you have anything to say? + Most police in Massachusetts are prohibited from assisting ICE. But last Thursday, local cops in Worcester, Mass. pushed a 16-year-old girl to the ground and pinned her face to the sidewalk, as ICE agents handcuffed her mother and took her away to a detention center. + In a Mother’s Day raid, ICE agents were videotaped breaking an SUV’s window, throwing a man inside to the ground, handcuffing him, and driving him away. The man and his family had just left church in Chelsea, Massachusetts. + The man who recorded the footage, Kennet Santizo, told Telemundo Nueva that he heard the mother of the man ICE was targeting scream: “He has his papers! He has his license!” Santizo said the ICE officer pulled out his gun and pointed it at his face: “Then he broke the window.” + Child abuse as government policy: Another video of an ICE raid in Worcester, Mass., shows ICE agents arresting a man and leaving behind a 12-year-old boy standing on the sidewalk. + Masked ICE agents smashed the car window in Waltham, Mass, zip-tied a man inside, showed no warrant, and refused repeated demands to identify themselves as they dragged the man away. “No reaction,” said the man who filmed the raid. “They just broke the window… You know how they don’t care. Just taking this guy, and they don’t know if he is a legal resident or not.” + Officials in Dalton, Georgia, dismissed the traffic violations that led ICE to arrest 19-year-old Ximena Arias Cristobal, who came to the US when she was 4. (I reported on Ximena’s case in my last Roaming Charges.) Officials discovered the officer stopped the wrong vehicle. Ximena remains in ICE detention, facing deportation to Mexico, where she has never lived as an adult. Kasey Carpenter, Republican lawmaker in Georgia, said: “There’s been an uprising of heartbreak for our community [after Ximena’s arrest.] A lot of people felt like we were going after the hard criminals, and unfortunately, good people are getting caught on the wash on this issue.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-365550" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM-680x556.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM-680x556.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM-771x630.png 771w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM-768x628.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM-500x409.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM-600x490.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-10.40.02-AM.png 1018w" alt="" width="680" height="556" /> + ICE officers wrestled an Alabama construction worker to the ground as he shouted, “I am a U.S. citizen.” They didn’t believe him. He showed them his REAL ID. The ICEtroopers said it was a fake (it wasn’t) and dragged him off to an ICE detention center, where he was held for hours, until they finally accepted proof of his citizenship from his family. How has the burden of proof been allowed to shift from the Feds to prove you’re a noncitizen to US citizens to prove they are? + According to two immigration lawyers, ICE deported at least a dozen Burmese and Vietnamese migrants to South Sudan–a country in the midst of a famine and civil war–in violation of a court order. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-365509" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n-680x640.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n-680x640.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n-669x630.jpg 669w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n-768x723.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n-500x471.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n-600x565.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/499533936_10163629353146518_1427282662131694954_n.jpg 783w" alt="" width="680" height="640" /> + The latest ICE ruse is for people who showed up for their asylum court hearings only to be told that ICE prosecutors had dismissed their cases — and then be arrested moments later by ICE officers and taken to detention centers for unknown reasons. + Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old from Dalton, Georgia, who was “mistakenly” arrested for making a turn without signaling and turned over to ICE by Georgia cops, has now been released from custody and will go through her immigration court proceeding outside of detention. Ximena was granted a minimum $1,500 bond by the immigration judge and the government waived appeal. Ximena has lived in the US since the age of four. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-365554" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-680x437.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-680x437.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-980x630.png 980w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-768x494.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-1536x988.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-2048x1317.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-500x322.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-23-at-11.27.49-AM-600x386.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="437" /> + Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, who was kidnapped by ICE in DC and held in a Texas detention jail for two months before a federal judge ordered his release, told PBS’s News Hour that ICE agents “chained my hands, my wrists, my body was shackled. Treating me like an animal, dehumanizing me in every way. I was feeling humiliated.” Despite not being charged with any crime, he said they denied him contact with his attorney for 7–8 days and wouldn’t let him speak to his wife. Suri said he’s speaking now because: “One should, at this time, show courage, because courage is also contagious. We need to break the cycle of chilling effect.” + LaMonica McIver responding to being charged with “assaulting federal agents” outside the Newark ICE detention center: “I think this is political intimidation from the Trump administration. I mean, me being charged is absurd… especially when I’m there just to do my job.” + Trump on the DOJ’s charges against Rep. McIver: “Oh, give me a break. Did you see her? She was out of control…The days of woke are over…She was shoving federal agents. She was out of control. The days of that crap are over in this country. We are going to have law and order.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-366867" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-680x339.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-680x339.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-1200x598.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-768x383.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-1536x765.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-500x249.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED-600x299.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/studentICED.png 1562w" alt="" width="680" height="339" /> + Congratulations, ICEtroopers, looks like you took down a real menace to society: Martir Garcia Lara, age 10, and his father were detained and separated after they showed up for a hearing on their immigration status. “He’s alone and he’s not able to return home,” said PTA president Jasmin King. “We have not received any information on why they were detained. All we know is that Martir is just a fourth-grader who’s by himself, without his dad, without a parent, and just in a place that he probably doesn’t know, so we can only imagine what he might be feeling.” Martir has attended Torrance Elementary since the first grade. + ICE agents are posing as employees of electric power companies in order to gain access to people’s houses. (This is the crime of perfidy under international law.) Maybe this is the real reason the Trump administration wants more “electricians” instead of “LGBTQ Harvard grads”… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-366871" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower-680x700.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower-680x700.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower-612x630.jpeg 612w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower-768x791.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower-500x515.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower-600x618.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eletricpower.jpeg 1165w" alt="" width="680" height="700" /> + On Friday, ICE injured and detained David Huerta, the president of SEIU California, for peacefully observing and filming an ICE raid in Los Angeles. SEIU: “ICE picked the wrong side. The wrong state. The wrong person. and the wrong union. David Huerta stood up. And 750,000 SEIU workers are standing with him.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367004" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI-680x850.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI-680x850.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI-504x630.jpeg 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI-768x960.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI-500x625.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI-600x750.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Gszv9iBb0AAZvvI.jpeg 1080w" alt="" width="680" height="850" /> + During a raid in Memphis, an ICE agent pulled a gun and pointed it at the daughter of a man they snatched off the street in his neighborhood, as she screamed, “What are you doing? He’s not a criminal!” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-366968" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-06-at-4.10.01%E2%80%AFPM.png" sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-06-at-4.10.01 PM.png 668w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-06-at-4.10.01 PM-486x630.png 486w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-06-at-4.10.01 PM-500x648.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-06-at-4.10.01 PM-600x778.png 600w" alt="" width="668" height="866" /> + ICE arrested an Afghan who provided security for US troops in Afghanistan, who was in the country legally as his asylum claim was being processed, and who had no criminal record. In the charging document, ICE lied to the court about his status. Let this be a lesson to any foreign national that you can’t trust the US to live up to its commitments. We’ll chuck you out when we have no use for you, for any reason at all or no reason at all, back into the hands of people who may want you dead… + If your cause is so righteous, why do you have to resort to such vile forms of trickery and deception? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367673" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery-680x384.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery-680x384.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery-1115x630.png 1115w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery-768x434.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery-500x283.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery-600x339.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ICEtrickery.png 1182w" alt="" width="680" height="384" /> + ICE “mistakenly” arrested a US Marshall in Arizona because he looked the type. We’ve gone from showing probable cause as a basis for arrests to “he fits the general description” (ie, male and Hispanic), let’s haul him in and sort it out later…. + Like many family members of people ICE detained during its raid on Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles last Friday, Yurien Contreras has not heard from her father, Mario Romero, and has no idea how is doing: “I witnessed how they put my father in handcuffs, chained him from the waist and ankles. My family and I haven’t had communication with my dad. We don’t know anything.” + Jose Ortiz, one of the men arrested in the LA worksite raids, has lived in LA for 30 years. After 18 years on the job, he had advanced to the role of floor manager when ICE arrested him without a warrant and with no criminal record. + A few days ago, 75 Democrats voted for a Congressional Resolution praising ICE. Today, ICE manhandled, threw to the ground, cuffed, and detained US Senator Alex Padilla for trying to attend a press briefing by DHS Secretary. Kristi Noem…Whose side are you on? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367622" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-680x1572.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-680x1572.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-273x630.jpeg 273w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-768x1775.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-665x1536.jpeg 665w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-500x1156.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7-600x1387.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/GtQ5tdtWQAAw5U7.jpeg 886w" alt="" width="680" height="1572" /> + Sen. Alex Padilla: “If that’s what they do to a United States Senator with a question, imagine what they do to farm workers, day laborers, cooks, and the other nonviolent immigrants they are targeting in California and across the country. Or any American that dares to speak up.” + ICE released photos of National Guard troops, not “guarding” against “rioters,” but assisting in raids on immigrants… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367638" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n-680x564.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n-680x564.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n-759x630.jpg 759w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n-768x637.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n-500x415.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n-600x498.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/506314048_10163728048646518_2174757969468372912_n.jpg 1222w" alt="" width="680" height="564" /> +75 Democrats joined with House Republicans to vote for a Resolution thanking ICE for its role in implementing Trump’s Mass Deportation operations… + You want to know what kind of people work for ICE, they’re the type that mocks and laughs at a mother, sobbing on the street outside her house while holding her infant son in her arms as masked men haul away her husband for no explicable reason: When Roberto Diego Alvarez left for work in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he was seized by ICE officers, thrown to the ground, then hauled away in handcuffs, while his wife Nicole, a 35-year-old US citizen, watched and cried as she clutched their 8-month-old son. Nicole later told Newsweek: “I learned from Diego that they were laughing at me in the car before leaving, pointing and saying, ‘I bet she is recording.’ I was hysterical. I had our son, Denver, who is 8 months old, in my arms. I couldn’t stop crying.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-368391" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers-680x280.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers-680x280.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers-1200x494.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers-768x316.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers-500x206.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers-600x247.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ladodgers.png 1384w" alt="" width="680" height="280" /> + Last Saturday, the management of the Los Angeles Dodgers told the singer Nezza to “do the national anthem in English tonight.” Instead, Nezza put on a Dominican Republic t-shirt and sang the anthem in Spanish. (Nezza was born in the US and is an American citizen.) Word of the Dodgers’ attempt to suppress Nezza ignited outrage among many in the LA Hispanic community. This is, after all, the team that evicted a predominantly Mexican community of 300 families from their homes in Chavez Ravine (without compensation) to build Dodger Stadium. Nezza’s defiant act and the local response to it almost certainly prompted the Dodgers to take this action on Thursday… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-368392 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-680x417.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-680x417.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-1027x630.png 1027w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-768x471.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-1536x942.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-2048x1256.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-500x307.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LAdodgersstaffblock-600x368.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="417" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-368392" /> Protesters and Dodgers staffers fend off ICE on the road leading up Chavez Ravine to Dodger Stadium. + This was followed by the Dodgers agreeing to donate $1 million to “immigrant families” who have been traumatized by the ICE raids in LA…(Way to go, Nezza!) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-368580" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16%E2%80%AFAM-680x243.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16 AM-680x243.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16 AM-1200x429.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16 AM-768x275.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16 AM-500x179.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16 AM-600x215.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-21-at-7.58.16 AM.png 1376w" alt="" width="680" height="243" /> +++ + Pedro Luis Salazar-Cuervo was detained by Texas cops, who asked if he had tattoos. Salazar-Cuervo told the cops he didn’t, and in fact, he had none. Then the cops searched his phone and found a photo of Salazar-Cuervo standing next to a man who did have a tattoo. That was enough for ICE to label him a Tren de Aragua and have him deported to Bukele’s concentration camp prison in El Salvador without any trial or hearing. This week, a Texas judge agreed that he must be returned to stand trial in August for trespassing on private property, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. The Trump administration has not indicated whether it will act on the court’s order. + Julio Noriega, a U.S. citizen, was walking around a suburb handing out his resume to local businesses when ICE surrounded him, handcuffed him, and detained him for 10 hours before checking his ID and releasing him. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-368384" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/508350502_10163760823581518_27031149074035263_n-680x396.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/508350502_10163760823581518_27031149074035263_n-680x396.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/508350502_10163760823581518_27031149074035263_n-768x448.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/508350502_10163760823581518_27031149074035263_n-500x291.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/508350502_10163760823581518_27031149074035263_n-600x350.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/508350502_10163760823581518_27031149074035263_n.jpg 786w" alt="" width="680" height="396" /> + A couple of notable cases from Immigration Defense, which is representing dozens of people arrested by ICE in LA in the last week: One of their clients is a man named Javier, a cancer patient who has lived in LA for more than 20 years without any criminal record. If he isn’t released soon, he will miss his scheduled chemotherapy treatments. Another case is that of a day laborer who was granted asylum in the US 8 years ago. He was arrested twice by ICE this week. During the first arrest, he was held for eight hours and was on the verge of being transferred out of LA until ImmDef was able to prove his legal status. Then he was detained again. + Brad Lander, the comptroller of NYC (and NYT-endorsed mayoral candidate), was arrested by ICE at Immigration Court this week, after asking to see a warrant for people who were detained after an immigration hearing… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-368370" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-680x571.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-680x571.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-750x630.jpg 750w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-768x645.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-1536x1290.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-500x420.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest-600x504.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/landerarrest.jpg 2048w" alt="" width="680" height="571" /> + Lander after his release from ICE custody: I’m happy to report I’m just fine. I lost a button. But I’m gonna sleep in my bed tonight, safe, with my family… At that elevator, I was separated from someone named Edgardo… Edgardo is in ICE detention and he’s not going to sleep in his bed tonight…There were posters on the wall… it said in English, ‘Are you detained and separated from your children?’ … We are normalizing family separation, we are normalizing due process rights violations, we are normalizing the destruction of constitutional democracy. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-369095" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/beatingbarranco-680x799.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/beatingbarranco-680x799.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/beatingbarranco-536x630.png 536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/beatingbarranco-500x588.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/beatingbarranco-600x705.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/beatingbarranco.png 740w" alt="" width="680" height="799" /> + Narciso Barranco was working as a landscaper at an IHOP in Santa Ana when ICE agents, who refused to identify themselves, grabbed him, threw him to the ground, repeatedly punched him in the face, and pepper-sprayed him. ICE later said he attacked them with a “weed whacker,” but videos of the abduction show no such attack. Barranco is the father of three sons, all of whom are US Marines. + Barranco’s son, Alejandro, on his father, after he’d been pepper-sprayed, body-slammed, punched, and bloodied by ICE: “He has always worked hard to put food on the table for us and my mom. He was always careful and did his taxes on time. He never caused any problems, and he is known as a kind and helpful person by everyone in our community. I believe my father was racially profiled. They didn’t ask him anything. They just started chasing him and he ran because he was scared. He didn’t know who was after him.” + “My mom looked at the rear mirror and she saw how my sister was attacked from the back,” Estrella Rosas told ABC7. “She was like: ‘They’re kidnapping your sister.’” Estrella’s sister, Andrea Velez, had just been dropped off at her workplace in downtown Los Angeles when ICE agents descended upon her. One masked agent grabbed Velez, lifted her off the ground and carried her away to an ICE fan, as her sister and mother shouted: “She’s a US citizen. They’re taking her. Help her, someone!” Velez, a 36-year-old graduate of Cal-Poly Pomona, disappeared into ICE custody. She was arrested without a warrant and wasn’t even asked for her identification. It took her lawyer more than a day to find out where she was being held. Velez is one of at least 674 US citizens who have been wrongly arrested by ICE. More than 120 US citizens have been detained and at least 70 deported. After ICE was forced to admit Velez was a US citizen, they charged her with assaulting an ICE office. Velez is 4’11 and weighs about 85 pounds. + The LAPD officers seen in the videos of Velez’s abduction by ICE were only on the scene because someone had called 9-11 to report a kidnapping. + Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus was five months pregnant when she was arrested and abducted by ICE and sent to the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, even though she’d committed no crime that needed “correction.” The prison guards refused to give her any prenatal care or an ultrasound, even after she pleaded for help and got sicker and sicker.. She told the prison doctor that she’d felt no fetal movement in days and was experiencing severe abdominal pain. After a steady flow of vaginal discharge for three days, she was finally hospitalized and kept in shackles as she experienced a miscarriage: When I was delivering my baby, they didn’t even give me a little privacy. Imagine. A guard was sitting right there, watching me day and night. They even shackled my feet because they thought I might escape. Like I was some criminal. I told them, ‘What you’re doing to me isn’t right.’ + 55-year-old Sae Joon Park, a Green Card holder and Purple Heart recipient, was forced to self-deport to South Korea, after living in the US for almost 50 years, during which time he served in the US Army, got shot in the back in combat, and spent years battling PTSD and addiction. The reason ICE came after him? A drug possession charge from 15 years ago. ” I can’t believe that this is happening in America,” Park told NPR in an interview before his departure. “That blows me away, like a country that I fought for.” + A deaf and mute Mongolian man named Bay, who was seeking asylum in the US, has spent more than 80 days at an ICE facility. During that time, he has not had an opportunity to see a judge or communicate with anyone who understands Mongolian Sign Language, according to his sister. + ICE raided a house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, abducted a family and deported them to Brazil, including a two-year-old girl, who is a US citizen. The girl suffers from chronic health issues and is now considered a “non-citizen” in Brazil, where she has no rights to medical treatments under Brazil’s public health care system, and can’t enroll in daycare or school. She’s living in the country on a temporary visa that will expire in a few weeks, at which point she could be deported back to the US without her parents. + Bob, a 36-year-old from Brazil told Brandon Tauszik of Mother Jones: “What’s been going on in LA is we’ve just been seeing a lot of people come in and just ripping people out in a very intense way…rounding them up, like fucking stray dogs.” + LA City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez said this week that ICE showed up at a domestic violence shelter, looking to snatch the abused, not the abusers… + In 1988, Johnny Noviello was 10 years old when he moved from Canada to Daytona Beach with his family. He grew up in Florida and eventually obtained his green card, becoming a legal permanent resident of the United States. In May, he was detained by ICE after DHS revoked his green card, citing a drug offense from 2017. On Monday, Noviello was found dead in his cell at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, where he’d been incarcerated for the last six weeks, awaiting deportation to Canada. He was 49 years old. Noviello is the tenth person to die in ICE custody since Trump assumed office. + Sixty-seven-year-old Maddona Kashanian came to the US from Iran on a student Visa in 1978. After graduating from college and the Iranian Revolution, she applied for asylum. Her request was denied, but immigration officials granted her the right to remain in the US as long as she obeyed US laws and made regular check-ups with her immigration officers. In nearly 50 years, Kashanian never missed an appointment or was charged with a crime. Then, last week, Kashanian was at her home, working in her garden, when three unmarked vehicles pulled up in front of her house. Masked men got out and arrested Kashanian. She was tossed in the back of a pickup truck and taken to a local jail in Hancock County, Mississippi, where she spent the night. The next day, she was rendered to the South Louisiana ICE facility in Basile. Why was this harmless woman targeted? Because she’s Iranian at a moment when Trump was waging war on Iran. +++ + George Retes was pulled over by ICE as he was driving near the violent raid on farm workers outside of Camarillo last Thursday. The ICE agents broke the windows of his car and pepper sprayed him, before taking him into custody. Retes is an American citizen and disabled US Army Veteran. He was held in federal lockup for four days , during which time his family and lawyer had no way of contacting him to find out where he was or inquire about his physical condition. He was released without charges on Sunday night. Is this what Thomas Homan meant when he told FoxNews that ICE can stop people based on their skin-color and “briefly” detain them without a warrant or probably cause until ICE is satisfied they’re American citizens? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-371714" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier-680x557.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier-680x557.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier-769x630.jpeg 769w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier-768x630.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier-500x410.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier-600x492.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/disabledsoldier.jpeg 976w" alt="" width="680" height="557" /> + George Retes: “Clearly it didn’t matter that I was a citizen, or a veteran, or that I identified who I was. They ignored everything I said, and they just they broke my window and they dragged me out. I let them know that I was a veteran and I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that I’m just trying to get to work.” + Reporter: Congressman, do you care if U.S. citizens accidentally get detained in ICE raids? Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC): “No, I’m not concerned about that.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-371716" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-16-at-1.31.06-PM.png" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-16-at-1.31.06-PM.png 640w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-16-at-1.31.06-PM-417x630.png 417w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-16-at-1.31.06-PM-500x756.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-16-at-1.31.06-PM-600x908.png 600w" alt="" width="640" height="968" /> + A 35-year-old Irish tourist to the US had overstayed his visa by three days, when he was arrested by ICE, in the closing weeks of the Biden administration. Although he’d agreed to immediate deportation, he somehow he got buried in the system or lack thereof and was moved around to three different facilities after Trump took office. Because the detention centers were now overflowing, Trump’s ICE made a deal to lease prison beds from the Bureau of Prisons in Atlanta, where he was sent with dozens of other unfortunate souls abducted by the masked secret police. He languished there for more than three months in conditions he described as inhumane. Bunkbeds lacked ladders, the cells were teeming with mice and cockroaches, the prison clothes he was given were stained with shit and blood. The toilets didn’t flush, he was denied medication and doctor visits and fed “disgusting slop.” When he finally got his medicine, the prison guards threw it on the ground instead of handing it to him. “We were treated less than human.” After finally being released in March, he was deported to Ireland and banned from entering the US (where he’d come to visit his girlfriend) for 10 years. + A man posing as a bondsman rang the doorbell of a house in Arlington, Virginia near midnight. He began asking strange and misleading questions about the residents’ mother before pulling out a gun and forcing his way into the house. The man flashed a letter from ICE, but showed no ID or badge. He rummaged through the house, broke into a bedroom, threw a young woman and her uncle Orlando on the bed and asked for ID. He then handcuffed Orlando, who had been living in the US working construction for 20 years, marched him to his car, sedated him, and drove him around for several hours until the ICE office in Chantilly, Virginia to open. Orlando was deported a couple of days later to Honduras before the family could even contact a lawyer. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-372753" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-680x715.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-680x715.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-599x630.png 599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-768x808.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-1460x1536.png 1460w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-500x526.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM-600x631.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-4.01.29-PM.png 1534w" alt="" width="680" height="715" /> + The ICE agents who abducted her husband, Darwin Contreras, in a courthouse in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, wore “something you can get from Walmart,” said Elizabeth DeJesus. They didn’t say who they were or where they were taking him. Darwin came to the US from El Salvador 20 years ago in search of his mother when he was seven years old. He was detained at the border instead and spent several years in foster care. Eventually, he was reunited with his mother and they moved to Bethlehem. He was a track star in high school and won a presidential fitness award from Barack Obama. Since graduating, he has kept steady work and married an American citizen. He was nabbed by ICE after a routine court appearance. DeJesus says that Darwin is suffering mentally and physically while in ICE custody, awaiting a hearing: “When he got there, he was not adjusting well. He was not ok. His mental health was not good.” + Miguel Angel Ponce, a 33-year-old U.S. citizen born in College Station, Texas, was grabbed by ICE, handcuffed and detained for more than 2 hours. “I felt kidnapped,” he said. “They just put me in handcuffs and took me to another location.” The ICE agents said he “looked like” someone they were looking for—told him to “shave your beard” to avoid future arrest. Will Kim on the right and his family. + Will Kim came to the US from South Korea when he was five years old. He’s had a Green Card as a lawful permanent resident of the US for many years. Currently, Kim is a PhD student at Texas A&M, where he’s researching a vaccine for Lyme disease. Last week, he was detained at San Francisco International Airport. The feds have offered no reason for his arrest and have denied Kim access to his attorney, Eric Lee. Kim was allowed only a single brief call to his mother. The only blemish on his record is a minor marijuana possession charge, which was settled in a diversion program and should have been expunged. “My client Will Kim has a green card, grew up in the US, became a scientist & is researching Lyme disease vaccines,” Eric Lee wrote on Twitter. “He has spent more than 7 days in a CBP airport detention ctr w/ no daylight, sleeping in a chair, no access to a lawyer. Another brutal attack on immigrants & science. Free Will!” + Jon Luke Evans, the only black police officer in the town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was detained by ICE after he attempted to purchase a gun for his job. After Evans’s arrest, Patricia Hyde, a spokesperson for ICE’s Boston office, smugly quipped: “The fact that a police department would hire an illegal alien and unlawfully issue him a firearm while on duty would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.” But Evans isn’t an illegal alien. He has a valid work permit that doesn’t expire until March 2030 and Maine is one of the states that allows immigrants to work as police officers. “We rely on the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program to ensure we are meeting our obligations,” said the town’s Police Chief Elise Chard. “We are distressed and deeply concerned about this apparent error on the part of the federal government.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-372797" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-07-30-at-7.58.02-AM.png" sizes="(max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-07-30-at-7.58.02-AM.png 598w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-07-30-at-7.58.02-AM-500x378.png 500w" alt="" width="598" height="452" /> + Kenny Laynez is an 18-year-old American citizen living in Palm Beach, Florida. On his way to work on a landscaping crew, Kenny’s van was pulled over ICE, because he “looked like an illegal.[sic]” His mother, who is not a US citizen, was driving. Kenny was yanked from the van and held for more than 6 hours by ICE, after providing proof of his citizenship. During the arrest, Kenny’s cellphone recorded the giddy, juvenile banter of the ICE agents: Agent 1: You got hit? Agent 2: Nah, didn’t get hit, bro. Agent 1: Oh, okay. Agent 2: No, once she got the proper spread on, she was gone. Agent: 1: You are funny, bro. Agent 2: It was funny. (Agents laughing.) Agent 1: They’re starting to resist more now. Agent 2: We’re going to end up shooting someone. If it keeps going like this because they’re going to end up fighting. Agent 1: This kid goes like, this guy here: “You can’t do this. I’m not doing shit.” Agent 2: We told you already to get out. You either get out or I am going to pull you out. Agent 1: Right. Yeah. Agent 2: God damn! Wow! Agent 1: Nice! Agent 2: Just remember, you can smell that with a $30,000 bonus. Agent 1: Yeah! (agents laugh) + Jose Osman Gutierrez has been working for more than 7 years to support his family in Houston, Texas. He had no criminal criminal record when ICE raided his home at 7:13 in morning, with four young children inside. He was grabbed, roughed up and hauled off by the neck, eventually losing consciousness. All of this happening in front of his wife, Jennifer Garcia, who is 9 months pregnant. Jennifer, distraught at the prospect of giving birth alone to her fifth child, was pushed and shoved by ICE officers as she pleaded for her husband. As Jennifer crumpled to the street, her children and neighbors screamed: “She’s nine months pregnant! Call a doctor!!” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-373096" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n-680x608.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n-680x608.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n-704x630.jpg 704w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n-768x687.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n-500x447.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n-600x537.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/520244928_10164026648276518_3642346497814013783_n.jpg 796w" alt="" width="680" height="608" /> +++ + ICE “targeted” a female priest for expedited removal. Yeonsoo Go is a South Korean national with a valid visa that does not expire until December 2025. She spent most of her life working to protect the rights of Korean immigrants—and was the first woman ordained by the Anglican Church of Korea. “I never imagined my own family would end up being a target of Trump,” Yeonsoo said. “She’s staying at 26 Federal Plaza, which, as we know, is not actually a facility that has showers or beds or hot food. And so the detentions here are not only illegal, but they’re immoral,” said Rev. Matthew Heyd. + According to a new suit filed in the federal court for the Middle District of Louisiana, ICE illegally deported three children who are US citizens along with their noncitizen family members, including a two-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy with Stage Four kidney cancer. The children and their families were abducted by ICE in April when they showed up for scheduled hearings with immigration officials. The children were immediately separated from their families and denied contact with their parents or lawyers before they were deported to Honduras. The four-year-old cancer patient’s mother was not even allowed the opportunity to tell ICE officials about his perilous condition or arrange for his ongoing chemotherapy treatments. + Just days after a federal appeals court upheld a ban on ICE using roving patrols and racial profiling to target immigrants, Trump’s secret police launched Operation Trojan Horse, a shock raid outside of a Home Dept in the Westlake area of Los Angeles. Posing as building contractors, ICE agents drove a yellow Penske van in front of a group of day laborers at 6:44 in the morning, asking in Spanish if any of them were looking for work. Then masked ICE agents, one of them wearing a cowboy hat, jumped out of the van and began grabbing people. In all, 16 men were arrested and taken into ICE custody in defiance of a federal appeals court. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-373782" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ICEabducts.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ICEabducts.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ICEabducts-500x357.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ICEabducts-600x429.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="486" /> + Guess which person was charged with felony assault in this photo of an ICE agent hauling away a 4’10” woman, an American citizen abducted on her way to work in LA’s garment district…? + ICE is arresting white people for filming them arresting non-white people. Dan Mathers, a US citizen in Florida, had been filming an ICE raid from a safe distance with a large row of hedges between them. He was not in any position to interfere with the raid. Mathers said he told one of the ICE agents that he “was short and it hurt his feelings.” Offended by the tweak about his height, the pumped-up ICE agent yelled, “You threatening me?” And then threw Mathers to the ground, arrested him and kept him in ICE custody for more than 10 hours, where he was prevented from contacting his family until 2:00 am the following morning. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-373759" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n-680x769.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n-680x769.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n-557x630.jpg 557w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n-768x869.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n-500x565.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n-600x679.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/523324743_10164026234246518_4175519632275577793_n.jpg 810w" alt="" width="680" height="769" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-374436 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-680x379.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-680x379.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-1131x630.png 1131w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-768x428.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-1536x856.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-500x278.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM-600x334.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-1.07.55-PM.png 1702w" alt="" width="680" height="379" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-374436" /> Washington mother Sarah Shaw and her three children. + We’ve gone beyond the “Show us your papers!” phase of intimidation, because your even your legal papers won’t save you and your children from being arrested, thrown in a sordid jail and deported for no logical reason at all…Consider the case of Sarah Shaw, a Washington mother from New Zealand who has legal residency in the US and works for the state, who was detained along with her 6-year-old son by ICE when she tried to re-enter the US from Vancouver, BC, after a trip to New Zealand to escort her two older children with their parents. Despite showing immigration officials her valid work visa, ICE claimed Shaw had overstayed her travel visa and shipped her and her child to the Dilley Detention Center in Texas. DHS officials ignored Shaw’s repeated pleas to allow her son, who has a valid travel visa, to enter the US. For the past three years, Shaw has worked as a youth counselor in a juvenile detention facility run by the Washington State Department of Children. She has no criminal record. Shaw’s attorney Minda Thorward: “Sarah is a survivor. She’s a fighter. She’s really strong. But she’s also very stressed out about all of this. She’s repeatedly requested that her son be released, even at the border DHS refused to permit that. So his detention is unlawful. He should not be there. He should not be in removal proceedings. None of that should be happening…There’s no reason to detain her. She has no criminal history. She simply made a paperwork mistake.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-374452 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-680x378.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-680x378.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-1132x630.png 1132w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-768x427.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-1536x855.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-500x278.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM-600x334.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-14-at-3.03.19-PM.png 1556w" alt="" width="680" height="378" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-374452" /> Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz and one of his brothers. + Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, a student at Reseda High School in LA, was walking his dog in his Van Nuys neighborhood when he was grabbed by ICE, thrown to the ground and abducted. ICE officers first tied his dog to a tree. Then they cut the leash and let it run loose along one of the LA’s most heavily trafficked roads, Sepulva Boulevard. Cellphone videos of Benjamin’s arrest record the agents joking about the $2,500 bonuses they’ll receive for nabbing a teenager without any criminal record: “Thanks to him, we get to drink this weekend!” Benjamin has lived in LA for more than three years with his single-parent mother and is a caretaker for both his six-year-old brother and his twin five-month-old brothers. According to his legal representative, Benjamin is currently “cramped in a holding cell with about 50 others… He is cold, scared, and one of the youngest there.” Meanwhile, his mother is distraught and too afraid to leave her apartment. + Masked ICE agents hit a landscaper in Beverly Hills with a taser and pepper spray. Cell phone video shows the man screaming in agony as agents roughly arrest him. “I couldn’t see what was happening – I just could hear a man screaming ‘my eyes, my eyes!’” a witness said. Another bystander can be heard asking, “What did you taze him for? Why are you doing that?” The man’s family members say ICE abducted and abused the wrong man, since the lawn maintenance worker has no criminal history. They showed no warrants. They just descended on the neighborhood, assaulted him, abducted him and left. + ICE has arrested and is trying to quickly depart Arman Momand, a Virginia High School student, who has a special visa reserved for Afghan families that aided the US military during the occupation of Afghanistan. According to Momand’s lawyer, “It’s a very, very difficult visa to get. It’s reserved for people who—at their own peril—assisted the American military in our operations.” Momand was seized by ICE agents at a court hearing on a December 2024 driving incident that was resolved by the court as a misdemeanor, a mere infraction that should not have affected his visa status and eligibility to stay in the US with his family. Instead, ICE plans to deport him just weeks before classes start at J.R. Tucker High School in Henrico, Virginia. Deportation back to Afghanistan will almost certainly put the young man’s life in jeopardy. + Lopez Benitez, a native of Paraguay, is a construction worker in Queens who has lived in the US for two years with his sister, both of whom are US citizens. He applied for asylum and has regularly attended his required immigration meetings. He has no criminal record. Yet when he showed up for a scheduled immigration hearing, he was grabbed by masked federal agents and pulled away from his family.ICE agents violently knocked to the ground one of Benitez’s sisters during his abduction. He was taken to the ICE processing center at Federal Plaza in Manhattan and held in a room without a bed, access to a shower, or a change of clothes for three days. Then he was shipped halfway across the country to the ICE detention center in Conroe, Texas. Benitez and his family weren’t told why he was detained for more than a week. This week, federal Judge Dale Ho ordered ICE to return Benitez to New York and then release him from custody. In his ruling, Ho castigated the government for arresting lawful immigrants during or after court hearings. Ho writes that the Trump administration has turned attendance at immigration court proceedings into a game of “detention roulette” that violates due process. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-374438" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling-680x486.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling-680x486.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling-882x630.jpeg 882w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling-768x548.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling-500x357.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling-600x429.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/horuling.jpeg 1200w" alt="" width="680" height="486" /> +++ + Back in April, Jesús Escalona Mújicas was on his way to his job at a construction site when he was pulled over by federal immigration officers and Texas police in a joint raid near Bryant, Texas. Escalona Mújicas, a 48-year-old native of Venezuela, was pressed against his car as his hands were bent behind his back and cuffed. He was taken to a neaby gas station where he was interrogated. He was then arrested and thrown in the immigration detention jail (aka, “Processing Center”) in Conroe, Texas. The officers who arrested him claimed to have a deportation order for Escalona Mújicas based on the Alien Enemies Act, which Trump had recently invoked to speed up deportations of alleged gang members from central and south America. An agent told him: “the President does not want to see Haitians, Nicaraguans, Cubans, or Venezuelans here.” Escalona Mújicas protested that he wasn’t a gang member and had a temporary work visa. But his denials were smugly dismissed by the arresting agents. Soon after his arrest, ICE sent out a press release including a photo of Escalona Mújicas in handcuffs, wearing a John Deere sweatshirt with the caption: “documented Tren de Aragua gang member.” But the arrest report didn’t even get Escalona Mújicas’s nationality right, claiming that he was “an alien of El Salvadorian origin without legal status in the United States.” So it’s no surprise that they falsely arrested and then publicly smeared him as a “Tren de Aragua gang member,” even though his name was not listed in the admittedly problematic (for false positives) TxGANG database. What was the evidence the Trump administration used to as proof of Escalona Mújicas’s gang affliation? His Air Jordans. In fact, Escalona Mújicas had no criminal history and had never heard of the Tren de Aragua gang until he got to the United States. When he lived in Venezuela, he worked as a forklift operator at Empresas Polar, the Venezuealan subsidary of Pepsi. Escalona Mújicas was deported back to Venezuela in May, but the Trump administration hasn’t rescinded its false accusation that he is a gang member, a slander that may well keep him from immigrating to any other country. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-375513" class="wp-image-375513 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs-680x897.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs-680x897.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs-477x630.jpeg 477w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs-768x1014.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs-500x660.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs-600x792.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/muijacs.jpeg 988w" alt="" width="680" height="897" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-375513" /> ICE photo of Jesús Escalona Mújicas, which falsely referred to him as a “documented member of Tren de Aragua gang. + Last week, Angel Minguela Palacios, a strawberry delivery driver with no criminal record, was on his last stop of the day when he pulled up at the Japanese-American Museum where Gavin Newsom was speaking to drop off fruit to a tea room, when he was arrested by Border Patrol agents, who had surrounded the building as a show of force against the governor. Palacios knew nothing about Newsom’s event, but was soon accosted by an ICE agent. Instead of responding to the agent’s questions, Palacios handed them his red “know your rights” cards. The agents insisted he submit to their interrogation. He refused and handed the agent his ID. Then he was arrested and handcuffed. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino was videotaped patting the officer who arrested Angel on the back, saying: “Well done.” Palacios was the only person arrested in this “show of force” raid and in the DHS press release they implied that he was a Tren Aragua gang member and drug trafficker. Bovino brayed: “We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place, since we don’t have politicians who will do that, we do that ourselves.” But Palacios wasn’t charged with drug trafficking or gang affliation. All they ended up saying was that he had overstayed his visa, which is a civil not a criminal offense. Angel has lived with his partner, a US citizen, in LA for 8 years and helped raise her daughters and son. Together they have a six-year-old son who is autistic. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-375569" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-680x406.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-680x406.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-1056x630.jpg 1056w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-768x458.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-1536x917.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-500x298.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n-600x358.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/537728478_10164152509406518_6106575051127892093_n.jpg 2048w" alt="" width="680" height="406" /> + Javier Ramirez was at a tow yard in Montebello, California, when ICE agent raided the place. Ramirez says one of the masked men pointed at him and yelled, “Arrest him, he’s Mexican!” The agents tackled Ramirez to the ground, injuring his arm and took him to jail, where he was held for nearly a week. Ramirez is a US citizen and father of four. After he provided proof of his citizenship, ICE charged him with assaulting their agents. However security cameras showed he didn’t resist his wrongful arrest and he was eventually released. Ramirez says he now constantly looks over his shoulder, fearing another raid: “They are literally racial profiling us. If you even look Latino, they will come and get you.” + A 6-year-old girl living in Queens, along with her mother and teenage brother, are hundreds of miles away from each other after federal agents grabbed the family members following a routine check-in at immigration court in New York City last week. “School is supposed to start in three weeks. Dayra and her mother should be buying school supplies,” Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, a Democrat representing Jackson Heights, told News 4. Instead, Dayra, a student at PS 89, the Jose Peralta School of Dreamers in Queens, and her mother are in a detention facility nearly 2,000 miles away in Texas. + George Retes, an Iraq war vet and US citizen, is a security guard who was driving home in Los Angeles and happened to encounter an immigration raid. When he asked ICE agents to let him pass, the masked men smashed his windows, dragged him out of his car, and held him for 3 days and nights without charge in an isolation cell, where he was prohibited from making a phone call, contacting a lawyer or seeing a judge. He was finally released without charges. While he was in detention, his daughter turned three. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-375589" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-680x429.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-680x429.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-999x630.jpeg 999w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-768x485.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-1536x969.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-500x315.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest-600x379.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/socalschoolarest.jpeg 2048w" alt="" width="680" height="429" /> + A dad was waiting in his car to pick up his kid outside the Linda Vista Elementary School in San Diego, when masked ICE agents pulled him and took him away. School staff had to sort out arrangements for child left behind by ICE. Principal: They’re very little—to not get picked up by your parent is very traumatizing.” This was the second arrest outside an elementary school in Southern California this week. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-375599" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM-680x456.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM-680x456.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM-939x630.png 939w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM-768x515.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM-500x336.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM-600x403.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-24-at-4.31.57-PM.png 1064w" alt="" width="680" height="456" /> + ICE abducted and plans to deport Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, the husband of Melissa Chaudhry a US citizen and former Democratic congressional candidate in Washington State. Chaudhry is a disabled U.S. Army veteran, who is confined to a wheelchair—after suffering debilitating injuries during training for his deployment in Iraq. Chaudhry, a native of Pakistan, is a green card holder who has been living legally in U.S. for over 25 years. Despite this, ICE arrested him at his naturalization hearing at at the United States Citizen and Immigration Services office in Tukwila, Washington Chaudhry has been awarded multiple medals for his service: + Army Service Ribbon + Global War on Terrorism Service Medal + Armed Forces Reserve Medal + Reserve Achievement Medal + National Defense Service Medal + Recruitment Achievement Medal + Army Strength Management Award After his discharge from the Army, Chaudhry has worked with the local chapter of Veterans for Peace in Olympia, Washington. +++ + According to the government of South Korea, more than 300 of the workers arrested and put in chains during the military-commando style ICE raid on the Hyundai plant in Georgia were South Korean citizens, all of whom had valid work visas. They were mainly engineers sent to Georgia to set up the plant, which is still under construction. Hyundai-LG has halted all operations in the US as a result. One lawmaker in Seoul urged the government to look into U.S. nationals teaching English on a tourist visa in South Korea. Well done, Stephen Miller. + Donna Hughes-Brown is an Irish citizen who has been a lawful resident of the US for 37 years. She’s married to James Brown, a U.S Navy veteran, who voted for Trump. Now she’s in ICE custody in Kentucky, separated from her husband, four children and five grandchildren, despite regularly renewing her Green Card on schedule.. Why? ICE says she’s being deported for reasons of “moral turpitude.” And what depraved crime did Donna commit? Twenty years ago, she wrote a check for $25 that bounced. She quickly repaid the money and got probation from the court. Her husband James, now regrets his vote for Trump. “Trump advertised that he was getting criminal illegal immigrants and deporting them—which I agree with,” James Brown said. “But they’re not telling the truth about what’s actually happening to a lot of legal immigrants.” +++ + Edward Hip came to the US from Guatemala 22 years ago and has lived here ever since. Hip is married to an American citizen and is the father of two children, including a 5-year-old girl, who is autistic. Last week, Hip called his wife from his car and told her he thought he was being followed by ICE. His daughter was in the car with him. Hip drove home, parked the car in the lot and managed to get into his house in Leominster, Massachusetts. But the ICE agents grabbed his daughter and held her hostage, using the frightened young girl as bait to pressure Hip to surrender. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-379015" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-680x459.png" alt="" width="680" height="459" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-680x459.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-934x630.png 934w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-768x518.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-1536x1036.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-500x337.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl-600x405.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fiveyearoldgirl.png 1922w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> A video of the incident shows the young girl sitting on the curb next to a black ICE van, surrounded by armed immigration agents. She’s holding a bottle. Her mother can be heard saying, “They took my daughter, she’s 5 years old! She has autism spectrum. Give me my daughter back!” Meanwhile, an ICE agent tells Hip, “Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs.” Hip replies: “Hey, I can give it through the door.” The agent shakes his head and tells Hip, while pointing at the ground in front of him, “You can give it right here.” Hip’s wife said that “the agents threatened us, that if we did not open the door in 15 minutes, they would enter the house.” Eventually, the local Leominster police showed up, took Hip’s daughter from the ICE agents and returned her to her mother. Then ICE left the scene. Two days later, ICE returned to the Hip house. A neighbor, Liz Roman, described the raid: “They used bounty hunters and agents without a court order. They had them cornered. They went out behind the house and they tried to get there through our window.” They eventually abducted Hip and took him to the ICE detention center in Plymouth, where he remains. Hip’s wife told Telemundo: “Officers came out behind my house, arrested him, took him away. We are not criminals.” + On August 21, Escobar Molina was walking from his apartment in Northwest DC to his truck, preparing to go to work, when two federal vehicles pulled up near him. Armed and masked agents got out of the cars and grabbed Molina by the arms and legs. The agents didn’t identify themselves. Molina was immediately handcuffed and repeatedly called an “illegal.” The agents didn’t ask Molina for identification, where he lived or even what his name was before they detained him. As they dragged him to one of the ICE vehicles, Molina said, “I have papers.” One of the agents snapped, “No, you don’t. You’re an illegal.” After he was stuffed into the van, Molina said again he “had papers,” proving he was a legal resident. The driver of the van turned toward him and yelled, “Shut up, bitch! You’re an illegal.” Molina was taken to the ICE processing center across the Potomac in Chantilly, Virginia, where he was kept overnight. A native of El Salvador, Escobar Molina is 47 years old and has lived in DC since 2000. He has an 18-year-old son who is an American citizen. Molina has no criminal record and was awarded Temporary Protective Status in 2001, which gave him the right to live and work legally in the US. The morning after his illegal arrest, the supervisor of the ICE facility in Chantilly realized the arresting agents’ “mistake” and released Molina from custody. Molina was clearly a victim of racial profiling by lawless federal agents who made no attempt to determine his identity, legal status or ties to the community where he’d lived productively for a quarter of a century. He was just another body to meet Stephen Miller and Tom Homan’s daily quotas. As such, Molina has joined a class action lawsuit challenging ICE’s policy of warrantless arrests in the DC area, many of which take place without probable cause and are based almost exclusively on the target’s presumed race or ethnicity. + An ICE agent in Maryland, who’d just tackled to the pavement a man who yelled, “I’m an American!”, aims his gun at people who are filming him violate someone’s constitutional rights… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-379454" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-680x1200.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="1200" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-680x1200.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-357x630.jpeg 357w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-768x1355.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-871x1536.jpeg 871w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-500x882.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M-600x1058.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/G1xmAWPXUAA8u0M.jpeg 1161w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + On September 12, an ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez during an immigration in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago. The original story told by ICE was that when federal agents tried to detain Villegas-Gonzalez, he rammed them with his car, hitting one of the agents and dragging him down the street. The agent feared for his life and shot and killed Villegas-Gonzalez, as his car crashed into a cargo truck. ICE officials claimed that the agent who killed Villegas-Gonzales “suffered multiple” and “serious injuries.” Kristi Noem posted on X that”His life was put at risk and he sustained serious injuries.” But video released by the Franklin Park Police Department from the camera of a local officer who arrived at the scene records the injured officer saying his injury was “nothing major.” His partner is heard saying, the injured officer was “dragged a little bit” and had “a left knee injury and some lacerations to his hands.” Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was 38 years old when he was killed. He was born in Michoacán, Mexico and worked as a cook in Franklin Park. He was dropping his kids, who are American citizens, off at day care at the time of the raid. He had lived in the US for more than 20 years and was highly regarded as a good, family-oriented man by his neighbors. Witnesses say he was driving away from, not at, the ICE officers when he was shot. + At the Broadview, Illinois, protests against ICE this weekend, this woman was shot in the chest with a “non-lethal” bullet, slammed to the pavement and put in an illegal chokehold by ICE agents in full-body armor, who she posed no threat to… +++ + ICE raided a group of workers replacing a roof in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The masked agents knocked down the workers’ ladders, leaving at least four men trapped on the roof. One of the men was seriously injured when he jumped down. “Two agents chased one guy down our neighborhood street with guns drawn,” the homeowner said. “This is a home, they surrounded with guns. I have children!” All five of the men have documents to legally live and work in the U.S. “All workers were rounded up and just taken away indiscriminately,” said the homeowner. “There was no checking.” + You may remember the story of Leo Garcia Venegas, whom I wrote about back in the spring. Leo was a construction worker in Alabama who was chased down by ICE while on a job laying concrete. He was tackled, handcuffed and arrested, even though he had an ID in his pocket proving he was a US citizen. On May 21, Garcia Venegas was part of a large crew of workers when ICE agents descended on a private construction site. The masked men jumped over a fence, ran past black and white workers and began snatching Latinos, including Leo’s brother. Leo took out his cell phone and began filming the raid. He was quickly accosted by an ICE agent, who told him: “You’re making this more complicated than you want it to be.” The officer then grabbed Leo, who yelled over and over, “I’m a US citizen.” The officer responded by saying,” Get on the fucking ground.” The ICE officer finally pulled Leo’s wallet out of his pocket, examined his Real ID and told him it was a fake. They held him for more than an hour in the blistering Alabama heat before finally checking his Social Security number and releasing him. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-381320 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-680x383.webp" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-680x383.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-1120x630.webp 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-768x432.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-1536x864.webp 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-2048x1152.webp 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-500x281.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AL_Raids_Leo_Venegas_3597-2400x1350.jpg-600x338.webp 600w" alt="" width="680" height="383" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-381320" /> Leo Garcia Venegas shows his REAL ID card. Three weeks later, Leo was working on another house when ICE officers again raided the neighborhood. Two ICE agents detained him in the bedroom, cuffed him and marched him outside. He again told his captors he was an American citizen born in the United States. Again, he showed them his REAL ID. Again, the ICE officers told him it was probably a fake. He was held handcuffed for half an hour before being released. Two other US citizens were arrested by ICE in the same raid. Garcia Venegas is now suing the Trump administration to stop its warrantless raids on construction sites targeting Latinos without any probable cause and ignoring their claims of citizenship. “I got arrested twice for being a Latino working in construction,” Leo said. “It feels like there is nothing I can do to stop immigration agents from arresting me whenever they want. I just want to work in peace.” +++ + The initial story from ICE was that 30-year-old Marimar Martinez was part of a “convoy” of cars in the Brighton Park neighborhood of southwest Chicago, which was trailing ICE vehicles for half an hour, ramming them with their cars and trying to force them off the road. At one point, a DHS official later claimed, Martinez aimed an automatic weapon at the ICE agents, who, fearing for their lives, responded by shooting Martinez repeatedly. But once again, the government’s story unraveled once the body cam footage was released. Videos from ICE cameras, as well as Martinez’s own Facebook livestream, show Martinez following the ICE vehicles, while frequently honking her horn. Contrary to the allegations made by DHS, at no point does the video show Martinez, a US citizen with no criminal record, turn her car toward the ICE vehicles. Instead, the footage captures the ICE agent swerving his white Chevy Tahoe into Martinez’s Nissan SUV, forcing her to a stop. There’s no evidence that Martinez pointed a weapon at the ICE agent. Rather, the ICE agent can be heard on the recording almost begging Martinez to give him a reason to shoot her: “Do something, bitch!” he says as he exits his car and seconds later unloads a volley of shots at Martinez, hitting her seven times. This is the latest episode of ultra-violence in Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz, where ICE agents have killed and brutalized Chicago residents for reasons that later turned out to be bogus. Three weeks ago, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was shot by an ICE agent after dropping his daughter off at pre-school in Franklin Park, a suburb west of Chicago. ICE originally said that Villegas-Gonzalez was shot after he tried to run over an ICE agent, who DHS claimed had been severely wounded. But the video of the incident recorded the voice of the officer grazed by Villegas-Gonzalez’s car saying his injury was “nothing major.” Another video showed that Villegas-Gonzalez was driving away from the ICE officers, not toward them. DHS tried to smear Villegas-Gonzalez as a dangerous criminal with a “history of reckless driving.” But a new report by NBC News Chicago shows that he had never been convicted or even charged with a crime. Marimar Martinez works at a local school. She has no criminal record and is highly regarded by her colleagues, employers and neighbors. After being shot, she managed to drive her SUV to a nearby oil service station. She parked the Nissan, now perforated with bullet holes, in the lot and staggered into the office, where the manager of the shop tried to stanch the flow of blood with those ubiquitous blue towels common at gas stations. On a recording of his call to 911, the manager can be heard saying, “Send somebody quick because this lady is bleeding profusely. I mean, it was instant puddles.” When the paramedics arrived and began to treat her wounds, a bullet fell out of her arm and onto the floor of the office. The FBI and ICE trailed the ambulance to the hospital, where Martinez was arrested before she’d even been fully treated by ER doctors. A few days later, Martinez was charged with felony assault on a federal law enforcement official. But at her arraignment, Federal Judge Heather McShain denied the government’s demand that Martinez be held without bail, ruling that her lack of criminal history and ties to the community persuaded her to release Martinez pending trial, a pretty stern rebuke to the government’s inflated theory of the case. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-383005" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-680x1084.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-680x1084.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-395x630.jpg 395w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-768x1224.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-964x1536.jpg 964w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-500x797.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest-600x956.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jessiefuentesarrest.jpg 1220w" alt="" width="680" height="1084" /> + ICE agents handcuffed and detained Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes inside a hospital emergency room this week, after she had demanded they share a warrant for a man they detained inside the hospital, who was reportedly injured during a chase. She was later released. Fuentes: “I went over to the hospital and I simply asked the ICE agents if they had a signed judicial warrant for the individual that they were trying to detain inside of the emergency room. No one was harassing the ICE agents. In fact, the only person harassed in that situation was me. I was handcuffed and shoved twice up against the wall for simply exercising my right to advocate for my constituents.” + Shooting unarmed priests in the head at close range with pepper bullets is now as America First as apple pie… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-383100 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM-680x562.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM-680x562.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM-763x630.png 763w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM-768x634.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM-500x413.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM-600x496.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-09-at-3.56.08-PM.png 896w" alt="" width="680" height="562" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-383100" /> Still from a video of an ICE agent shooting Chicago Pastor David Black, a Presbyterian minister, in the head. + Talk about anti-Christian violence… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-383102" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian-680x972.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian-680x972.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian-441x630.jpg 441w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian-768x1097.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian-500x714.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian-600x857.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/talkaboutanti-christian.jpg 998w" alt="" width="680" height="972" /><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-383194" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-680x864.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-680x864.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-496x630.jpg 496w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-768x976.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-1209x1536.jpg 1209w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-500x635.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n-600x762.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/558863828_10164371016701518_3922467630516335055_n.jpg 1284w" alt="" width="680" height="864" /> + In response to these incidents, Federal Judge Sara Ellis has issued a restraining order barring DHS from using riot control weapons “on members of the press, protestors, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-383118" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg-680x489.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg-680x489.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg-876x630.jpeg 876w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg-768x552.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg-500x360.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg-600x431.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G21mPMhXAAAzxhg.jpeg 968w" alt="" width="680" height="489" /> +++ + Maria Greeley was on her way to work at the Beach Bar in Chicago when she was accosted by three ICE agents. Fearing she might be targeted by ICE, Greeley, who is Latina, had her passport with her, proving she was an American citizen, born 44 years ago at the Masonic Hospital in Chicago. The Feds looked at Greeley’s passport and said it was fake because she didn’t “look like” her last name. Greeley explained that she was adopted by the Greeley family shortly after birth. “They said this [her passport] isn’t real, they kept telling me I’m lying, I’m a liar,” Maria Greeley told the Chicago Tribune. “I told them to look in the rest of my wallet, I have my credit cards, my insurance.” The agents still didn’t believe her and forced her hands behind her back and cuffed them together with zip ties. Then they interrogated her for more than an hour before releasing her, another American citizen subjected to federal cop abuse based solely on the color of her skin. “I am Latina and I am a service worker,” Greeley said. “I fit the description of what they’re looking for now.” + Maria Greeley is just one of more than 170 American citizens–many of them beaten, tackled, tasered, pepper-sprayed, and forcibly dragged–who have been arrested and detained by ICE and Border Patrol, caught up in Trump’s mass purge of immigrants, according to a report by Pro Publica. Many of the falsely detained have been held in miserable conditions for days. At least 20 of them were children, most of whom were kept from contacting their families or lawyers. Pro Publica: “At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.” + ICE set up a raid outside St. Jerome Catholic Church in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, forcing the priest to issue a special warning to the congregation during mass. Right now, nobody wants to come out, because they don’t want to be deported,” a parishioner said. After the warning, several people living nearby showed up to form a human chain outside the church to escort people home. ICE still managed to arrest one person. “I think they’ve been casing the church,” a neighbor said. “The Mass times are down.” + On Tuesday, Border Patrol chased a car at high speed through the east side of Chicago into a neighborhood before crashing into the fleeing vehicle. Angry residents streamed out of their houses and began yelling at the federal agents who’d brought potentially lethal pursuit to their street, where kids were playing and people were walking down the sidewalks. A teenager threw an egg at the immigration cops, prompting an eruption of government-sponsored violence with clubs, plastic bullets, and tear gas. Chicago police quickly arrived on the scene in an attempt to calm things down, but 13 of the cops were soon overwhelmed by the chemical gas that Border Patrol had saturated the neighborhood with. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-384388" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx-680x757.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx-680x757.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx-566x630.jpeg 566w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx-768x855.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx-500x557.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx-600x668.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3TzmQebgAE3BPx.jpeg 1319w" alt="" width="680" height="757" /> + ICE raided a Walmart on E. 106th Street in Chicago this week. One of the agents chased down a young black man in the store for “running” during the raid and tackled him to the sidewalk outside the building, as a woman yelled, “He’s a U.S. citizen! He’s American! He’s my brother-in-law!” While he knelt on the man’s back, the ICE agent barked at people filming the brutal takedown: “Get the fuck away! Get the fuck away!!” The store was shut down for several hours. A customer told a reporter for a local TV station: “This is crazy, he [the manager] said they’re closed for some ICE stuff going on. I’m just trying to get some dishwasher liquid.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-383932" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM-680x945.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM-680x945.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM-453x630.png 453w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM-768x1067.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM-500x695.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM-600x834.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-4.03.22-PM.png 1072w" alt="" width="680" height="945" /> + ICE is becoming more like the IDF every day: An ambulance was summoned to the ICE office in Portland to treat an injured protester. But when the patient was loaded inside, ICE officers became aggressive, refused to let the ambulance leave, and threatened to shoot the ambulance driver. Dispatch: “Copy, your attempt to transport impeded by… protesters?” Medic: “No, not protesters, just the ICE officers.” Driver: “Threatening to shoot and arrest me and not allowing the ambulance to leave the scene—this is no longer a safe scene.” + The moment ICE arrested Robbie Roadsteamer for singing his version of Rod Stewart’s “Do You Think I’m Sexy” with the Antifa Frog at the ICE jail in South Portland… If you hate brown people And you are a Nazi C’mon, ICE, leave Portland… + On Sunday, ICE arrested a woman who was playing her clarinet on the sidewalk outside the ICE detention facility in Portland. The agents slammed the musician, who is the mother of a three-year-old, into the mud, stepped on her clarinet and strong-armed her into the gated facility. Nine hours later, at 2 am, her partner received a call from ICE telling him that she had been transferred across the Columbia River into a federal prison in Washington state. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-384120" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-680x358.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-680x358.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-1198x630.png 1198w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-768x404.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-1536x808.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-2048x1077.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-500x263.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/clarinet-600x316.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="358" /> + Quinn Haberl teaches Orientation and Mobility at the Department for the Blind in Portland, where he instructs the visually impaired on how to navigate around town using a white cane. Like the people he teaches, Quinn is legally blind. This week, he was among the protesters outside the ICE facility in south Portland when ICE agents tossed a woman next to him from her wheelchair to the sidewalk and then turned on him: “Agents picked me up and threw me to the ground. One of the medics did a full workup on me to make sure I didn’t injure my head on the concrete wall.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-384353" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM-680x868.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM-680x868.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM-494x630.png 494w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM-768x980.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM-500x638.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM-600x766.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-16-at-1.27.15-PM.png 1022w" alt="" width="680" height="868" /> + Last Thursday, Josiele Berto got a call from the Everett, Massachusetts, police station to pick up her 13-year-old son. But when she arrived, she was told to sit down in the waiting area. After half an hour, the police told her that her son, a seventh-grader at the local school in the suburban neighborhood north of Boston, had been turned over to ICE. Berto later learned that he had been transferred to an ICE detention center in Virginia, more than 500 miles away. “My world collapsed”, the distraught mother told the Boston Globe. Later, the boy called his mother in tears, saying that he’d been sleeping on a concrete floor with an aluminum blanket. He is being housed with adults. Berto has a pending asylum application. She and her son are legally authorized to live in the US. + On October 3, Subu Vedam was released from the Huntingdon State Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania, where he’d served 44 years for a crime he didn’t commit. His murder conviction had been overturned a couple of weeks earlier, when a court ruled that prosecutors had concealed evidence that would have proved his innocence. The DA for the county that convicted formally withdrew all charges last week. But before Vedam could taste freedom, he was picked up by ICE and is now slated for deportation to India, where he has lived since he was less than a year old. + The mother of Nathan Griffin, the manager of the Laugh Factory in Chicago, on watching her son being arrested by federal immigration agents for “interfering” with a raid: “My son was kidnapped by Border Patrol in front of my eyes. For those of you who don’t know, I was in Chicago visiting my son and he was kidnapped by Border Patrol in front of my eyes. When I think of going out the door in the morning, I don’t want to…Because I do not want to encounter the SUV, the screams, the crying and the horrific things that I saw before I was pulled into the fray when somebody tried to kidnap my son.” +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-389267" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-680x1056.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-680x1056.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-406x630.jpg 406w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-768x1193.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-989x1536.jpg 989w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-500x777.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl-600x932.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pepperspraygirl.jpg 1218w" alt="" width="680" height="1056" /> + Federal agents doing a “drive by pepper spraying” in the Little Village area of Chicago hit a father and his one-year-old on Saturday, as they were in their car going to a Sam’s Club…I don’t know how any parent or grandparent could look at this and not be filled with rage about what our government is doing every day in cities across the country. + A US citizen who goes by the name La Vakerita was filming a raid by US immigration agents in Salem, Oregon, when an ICE agent pointed a rifle at her, then took her car keys and wallet. “Call the cops! He took my wallet,” La Vakerita can be heard yelling on a video of the incident. “Why are you taking my keys?” The agents drove away in an unmarked car with California plates, leaving La Vakerita’s car in the middle of the road with no way to move it. “Nobody stopped to help, nobody even came close,” she said later. “But if I die, at least it’s for defending my people.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-389261" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-680x440.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-680x440.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-973x630.jpg 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-768x497.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-1536x995.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-500x324.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice-600x389.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/avilaice.jpg 1868w" alt="" width="680" height="440" /> + ICE agents pretending to be Oregon police pulled over Juanita Avila in the Willamette Valley farming town of Cottage Grove. They dragged her out of her car, forced her to the pavement, cuffed her and then told her they were hauling her off to an ICE facility. Avila, who is a green card holder, screamed, “You lied to me when you said you were police! Who are you? Why pull me over?” She was released from ICE custody only after her daughter proved her legal status. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-390642" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-680x501.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-680x501.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-855x630.png 855w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-768x566.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-1536x1132.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-500x368.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest-600x442.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hodgsonarrest.png 1840w" alt="" width="680" height="501" /> + A drunken Border Patrol agent named Isaiah Hodgson stalked a woman into a restroom at a Long Beach restaurant called the Yard House. Holding a loaded gun and an ammunition clip, Hodgson demanded a date. She refused and told security at the eatery. After police were called, the federal immigration agent fled the building and stashed his gun behind a palm tree. Then he punched the arresting officers. Hodgson later whined that he was going to be “doxxed” if his arrest became public. “I’ve already dealt with so much fucking stress and all this bullshit, man,” he screamed while sitting on a bench in jail. A few weeks later, he died of a drug overdose in his parents’ house in Riverside. + One of ICE’s first operations in Charlotte was a raid on a church that sent many parishioners running into a nearby woods for safety and left children crying and their mother sobbing… + A 911 call and video prove that federal immigration agents with their guns drawn surrounded high school kids at a Dutch Brothers Coffee shop in Hillsboro, Oregon, west of Portland. “They just came out of nowhere and started, like, swarming.” +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-392367" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool-680x496.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool-680x496.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool-864x630.png 864w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool-768x560.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool-500x365.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool-600x438.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/oregonICEhigshool.png 1220w" alt="" width="680" height="496" /> + Last Friday, Christian Jimenez was driving his dad’s Ford F-150 truck with a friend while on lunch break from McMinnville High School in Oregon, when they noticed four unmarked cars following them. Unnerved, Jimenez pulled onto 99W, the Pacific Coast Highway, to try to lose his pursuers. But this maneuver apparently prompted the cars that had been tailing Jimenez to surround the F-150 and pull him over. The cars were filled with ICE agents. As one of them smashed the driver’s side window and forced his way into Jimenez’s car, the teen yelled, “I’m a US citizen! I’m a US citizen!” The ICE agent snapped, “I don’t care.” Jimenez was pulled out of the truck, cuffed and taken to jail. Christian Jimenez is 17 years old and a US citizen. On the Monday following his arrest, 300 of his fellow students walked out of their high school classes in protest. When Oregon Senator Jeff Berkeley inquired about Jimenez’s arrest, DHS officials claimed that the teen had used his father’s car to “violently attack” ICE agents, a common excuse for ICE arrests of US citizens that has often been disproved by cell-phone video and body cam footage. No ICE agents were injured during the operation. In the last week alone, ICE has detained at least four US citizens in Oregon, including two women for filming ICE operations. + Bruna Caroline Ferreira, the mother of White House press flackette Karoline Leavitt’s 11-year-old nephew, was arrested and is facing deportation. A native of Brazil, Ferreira has been living here for 27 years, is the mother of a US citizen and has no criminal record. She was brought to the US a the age of 6. And went to elementary, middle, and high school here. Did Karoline snitch her out? If she didn’t snitch her out, did she conceal the fact that she had a relative living in the US who, by her own administration’s brutal and unforgiving standards, was here illegally? In other words, was Leavitt helping to provide “sanctuary” for Bruna? If so, I’m all for it and would contribute to her bail if ICE comes after her for aiding and abetting a “criminal alien”… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-392368" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/adelitacuffed-680x885.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/adelitacuffed-680x885.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/adelitacuffed-484x630.png 484w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/adelitacuffed-500x651.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/adelitacuffed-600x781.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/adelitacuffed.png 682w" alt="" width="680" height="885" /> + Fátima Issela Velasquez-Antonio came to the Triangle area of North Carolina in 2016 when she was 14 to live with her extended family after her father was murdered by a gang in Honduras. Her mother had died a few years earlier of cancer. She graduated from Corinth Holders High School and had been working for an HVAC company when she was detained by Border Patrol during a raid on a construction site in the Charlotte area. In her nine years living in the US, Velasquez-Antonio’s “criminal” record consists entirely of two traffic citations. She is now being held at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, awaiting deportation to the country where gangs killed her father. + A court security guard at the Licht Judicial Complex in Providence, Rhode Island, noticed a masked man taking photographs inside the courtroom. The guard approached the man and asked him to identify himself. He said he was an agent at ICE. The guard told him to stop taking photographs inside the courthouse. A few minutes later, ICE agents arrested a high school-age boy outside the courthouse and placed him in handcuffs. Security recognized the teenager and reported the arrest to Superior Court Judge Joseph McBurney, who came outside and told the ICE agents they’d made a mistake and had arrested his high school intern. A heated argument ensued between the judge and men from ICE. After reviewing the boy’s identification, ICE admitted they’d arrested the wrong person and released the student. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-392369" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/iCEcourtintern.png" sizes="(max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/iCEcourtintern.png 530w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/iCEcourtintern-470x630.png 470w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/iCEcourtintern-500x670.png 500w" alt="" width="530" height="710" /> Disturbed by the arrest, the boy asked the Judge if he could go home for the day. The judge agreed and offered to drive him. At that point, the ICE agents returned, surrounded the judge’s car, told them to get out and threatened to smash the car windows if they didn’t comply. At that point, the Head of Security Operations for the R.I. Superior Court, Dana Smith, approached the car and told the Judge and the boy to remain in the vehicle. Then Smith confronted the ICE agents, who eventually left the scene without making an arrest. “This egregious incident underscores both the community’s and the Judiciary’s concerns about how ICE is conducting its operations in Rhode Island,” said Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell. + On November 22, as Dr. Vahid Abedini was boarding a flight from Oklahoma City to attend the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, DC, he was pulled over by immigration officials, detained and placed in jail. Dr. Abedini is the Farzaneh Family Assistant Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Oklahoma’s Boren College of International Studies. He has a valid H-1B visa, a non-immigrant work visa granted to individuals in “specialty occupations,” including higher education faculty. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-394017" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png-680x510.webp" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png-680x510.webp 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png-840x630.webp 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png-768x576.webp 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png-500x375.webp 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png-600x450.webp 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/97306575_1764561006549175_r.png.webp 1200w" alt="" width="680" height="510" /> + Any Lucia Lopez Balloza is a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College outside Boston, where she is majoring in business. Lopez Balloza came to the US in 2013 with her parents, who were fleeing persecution from gangs and death squads in Honduras. She spent most of her youth in Texas, where she worked as a teenager, learned fluent English, never got into trouble with the law and became an excellent student. She was such a good student that she earned a scholarship to Babson, where she hoped to learn the business and marketing skills that would help her start and manage a tailor shop with her father. Then, on November 20th, while Any was waiting at Logan Airport to board a flight home to Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday, she was told that there was an issue with her boarding pass. As she returned toward the ticketing booth, she was surrounded by immigration agents, who placed her in handcuffs like a violent criminal and hauled her out of the airport. Less than 48 hours later, Lopez Balloza was in Honduras, a country she hadn’t been in since she was seven years old. This student with no criminal record was deported despite a federal judge’s order blocking the government from evicting her from the US or even transferring her out of the state of Massachusetts. In those two days between her arrest at Logan and landing in Tegucigalpa, Trump’s immigration agents kept Lopez Belloza on the move so that her lawyers couldn’t locate her. They first took her to ICE headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. After a few hours in custody there, she was driven to a nearby military base. From there, she was placed on a transport flight to the big ICE prison at Fort Bliss, Texas, where she was locked in a cell overnight. The next morning, she was rousted from her cell, her wrists placed in handcuffs, her ankles shackled and chained. Then she was placed on a plane and deported to Honduras. Lopez Balloza has no criminal record. She was never shown an order of removal or a warrant for her arrest. ICE agents never even told her why she was being deported. But her case exposed a chilling new tactic by the Trump administration to hide detainees from their lawyers and the courts and use “lightning deportations” to deny detained immigrants due process and evade judicial review of their legally specious actions. + Viktoriia Bulavina was at the last stage of her final green card interview when ICE agents entered the room and arrested her. After fleeing the war in Ukraine, Bulavina entered the U.S. legally under a humanitarian program. She is married to a US citizen. She has no criminal record. ICE took her to a federal detention center, where she is scheduled for deportation back to Ukraine. + George Retes, a US veteran, testifying before Congress on being detained by ICE: I identified myself as a US citizen and a veteran, but that didn’t matter. Agents smashed my window, sprayed tear gas and pepper spray into my car, and dragged me out. Even after I complied, I was taken to a detention center and held for 3 days without charges. No phone call, no lawyer, no medical care, even though my skin burned from the chemicals. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-394060" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-680x389.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-680x389.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-1100x630.jpg 1100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-768x440.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-1536x880.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-500x286.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n-600x344.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/597079929_10164687318801518_5516953335918820511_n.jpg 2048w" alt="" width="680" height="389" /> The post American Pogrom: the Year in ICE Abductions appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.
Portraits by the Mysterious “Master I.S.”: An Art History Detective Story
It’s often difficult to tell if a Dutch work of art from the 17th century is a portrait (conterfeytsels) or a tronie. Many pictures lack documentation, so we don’t know who, if anybody, was the subject of a given canvas or who may have commissioned it. As a rule, paintings of prosperous-looking people in contemporary costume are presumed portraits, and poor people tronies. After all, it’s generally only the rich that can afford commissioned portraits, though in the Dutch Republic, even some shopkeepers could. Wealthy people also enjoyed owning pictures of poor people -- so long as the latter are shown as weak, subordinate, ugly, drunk, or just different from themselves. More The post Portraits by the Mysterious “Master I.S.”: An Art History Detective Story appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-200x200.jpg" class="alignright wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/asmasterONE-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> Master I.S., Portrait of a Woman, Facing Left, ca. 1650. Private collection, courtesy of Nicholas Hall. A long absence from Leiden Before last week, I hadn’t been to the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden since January 1978. Back then, I was 22 y.o., and one of ten graduate students on a tour of Netherlands art museums. Our guide was Franklin Robinson, an expert in early modern Dutch Art and a man of limitless enthusiasm. “Uitstekend!” he’d exclaim, before picture after picture. He expounded upon everything on view, I’m sure, plus artworks in storage – and I tried to absorb it all. But the only thing in the collection I clearly remembered when I returned 47 years later, was David Bailly’s Vanitas Still Life with Portrait of a Young Painter (1651). Seeing it again, it prepared me for a remarkable exhibition at the Lakenhal called Masterful Mystery – On Rembrandt’s Enigmatic Contemporary (until March 8) about an artist known to us only as Master [or Monogrammist] I.S. His art – which mostly consists of hyper-realist tronies, or character studies such as Portrait of a Woman, Facing Left, ca. 1650 – marks the boundary between non-portrait and portrait, as does Bailly’s. But I.S.’s works have a greater verism and poignancy than Bailly’s, Jan Lievens’ or almost any other Dutch artist of the time, save perhaps Johannes Vermeer. To me, his art anticipates nothing so much as photographs by 20th-century documentarians like the Americans Dorothea Lange, or better, Diane Arbus. But how did this strange and affecting body of work come to exist? Whodunit and why? David Bailly, Vanitas Still life with Portrait of a Young Painter, 1651. Leiden, Lekenhal Museum. Bailly’s Vanitas Still life with Portrait of a Young Painter The subject matter of Bailly’s Vanitas Still Life is literally written on the picture, on a cartellino at the bottom right: “Vanitas vani(ta)tum et omnia vanitas.” The line comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes 1:2-4: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. /What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? /One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.” Dutch Calvinists of the 17th century adapted as creed this dour corner of the Hebrew bible, preaching that Christ provided an alternative to the depraved pursuit of worldly goods. Drawing upon Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians, they argued that salvation comes through faith alone, and that all work is a calling from God: “Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:58). It’s a suitable belief for a nation of traders, manufacturers, investors and savers. Max Weber saw it as a “Protestant ethic” underlying an emerging “spirit of capitalism.” Yet few nations have ever been more focused on material life and the accumulation of wealth than the Dutch Republic in its Golden Age. The contradiction between Calvinist frugality and capitalist accumulation was resolved by a veritable army of talented ideologists, including artists of genius like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals and many others. They managed at once to affirm and deny the moral validity of wealth and splendor, celebrating abundance while also preaching the virtue of its absence. Bailly’s painting is filled with luxurious tokens of worldly knowledge and aesthetic refinement – pearls, a flute, sculptures, coins, fine glassware, silver, prints, papers and an inkwell; but it also contains apprehensions of transience and death – soap bubbles, an hourglass, wilting flowers, a half-burned candle and a skull. Freud might have learned about dream interpretation (“turning [one thing] into the opposite”) from Dutch still-life paintings such as Bailly’s: luxury signifies paucity; dearth suggests lavishness, vanity stands for modesty. The figures in Vanitas Still Life are as paradoxical as the props. The seated young man at left with ample chin and pursed lips is clearly an artist — he holds in his right hand a maulstick, used for steadying a paintbrush, and is accompanied by objects typically found in an atelier – paintings, a drawing and print tacked to the back wall, a Roman-style bust and Baroque sculpture of St. Sebastian. But is this a portrait – perhaps of the young Bailly himself – or a tronie? And what about the paintings on display? The old man within an oval (in an oblong canvas) could be a self-portrait. The artist was 67 when he painted the work. The young woman could be Mrs. Bailly, decades earlier, and the ghostly figure on the wall behind the flute glass the artist’s wife in her maturity. Nobody knows for certain, and it’s not even clear whether the artist did. Bailly was working with a set of conventions in flux. Portraiture was in crisis even as it reached its creative apotheosis. By the mid-1650s, Frans Hals’s career was in shambles. Rembrandt’s too: his dark, thickly impastoed surfaces and figures with soft but still penetrating gazes – eyes that follow you around the room – were disfavored by a gentry that increasingly preferred the elegance and insouciance associated with the French court of Louis XIV. He would die penniless in 1669. Until Van Gogh, more than two centuries later – another Dutchman who died broke –there was no greater portrait painter. Portrait theory Portraiture is a type or “genre” of art. Its purpose is to represent individuals or groups so they can be recognized by viewers. A portrait doesn’t have to closely resemble its subject, however, to be successful, as long as it is accepted as a likeness. Shakespeare may have looked like the figure in the famous Chandos canvas, but that’s irrelevant to its status as a portrait. Anytime we view a bust-length figure – high forehead, long, thin moustache, short beard, shiny loop-earing and lace collar – we know we’re looking at a portrait of the greatest of all English writers. Even highly abstracted treatments of a face and body may be portraits. Picasso’s Cubist Portrait of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler (1910) doesn’t look much like photos of the famous art dealer, but the title of the work assures us it’s him. The same is true of Matisse’s Portrait of Madame Matisse (1905), also known as The Green Stripe. Conversely, just because a figure in a painting – a Dutch painting, say –looks like it was painted from life (“naer het leven”), doesn’t mean it was, or that it’s a portrait. That’s because artists are good at painting from memory (“van onthout”) and from imagination (“uit den gheest); and because live models are often used as bases for fictional or historical figures. For all these reasons, it’s often difficult to tell if a Dutch work of art from the 17th century is a portrait (conterfeytsels) or a tronie. Many pictures lack documentation, so we don’t know who, if anybody, was the subject of a given canvas or who may have commissioned it. As a rule, paintings of prosperous-looking people in contemporary costume are presumed portraits, and poor people tronies. After all, it’s generally only the rich who can afford commissioned portraits, though in the Dutch Republic, even some shopkeepers could. Wealthy people also enjoyed owning pictures of poor people — so long as the latter are shown as weak, subordinate, ugly, drunk, or just different from themselves. Finally, and to reiterate, even in 17th-century Holland, with its great portrait painters like Hals and Rembrandt, there’s no reason to believe a commissioned portrait looks very much like the person it’s supposed to portray. If we saw Jan Six, a prominent Dutch magistrate and later Amsterdam mayor, walking down the Kloveniersburgwal in 1654, it’s unlikely we would recognize him from the famous painting by his friend Rembrandt from the same year. As the great Dutch collector Hofstede de Groot observed in 1915: [Because] people had to stoop to entreaty if they would be painted by [Rembrandt], he could impose his own terms instead of having them dictated by others. He could light his models in the way that seemed to him most beautiful; he could adorn them in the manner that he thought appropriate to their character, indicate to them the best pose to take, and determine the degree of finish in the execution. Free from all external hindrances, he could then create; he no longer aimed at securing so exact a likeness of his sitter. The main reason Rembrandt and other artists of the time were unconcerned if painted portraits looked much like the sitter, was not however pride or artistic independence. For the Dutch, corporate identity – familial, dynastic, commercial – was far more important than individual identity. Jan Six was recognized first of all as the son of his wealthy, cloth merchant father Jean, son-in-law of the famous physician and Amsterdam mayor Nicolaes Tulp (the subject of Rembrandt’s painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp) and as a humanist, magistrate and art collector. The achievement of physiognomic resemblance in portraits only became significant much later. With the rise of individualism, the empowerment of workers and the lower middle class, and the emergence of the disciplines of psychology and sociology in the 19th century, the idea grew that all people possessed a unique and authentic self that accompanied them their whole lives and that could be captured by an artist or photographer. That’s when portraiture in the modern sense was born. There were, of course, exceptional artists in the 17th Century (and before) who anticipated this modern view about identity. Rembrandt, in fact, may be included among them, though the identity he exhibited in his best paintings was his own, not his subjects. We’d search in vain for the psychological core of Jan Six in Rembrandt’s portrait, or that of members of the Amsterdam militia company in Rembrandt’s group portrait, The Night Watch. That’s why paintings by the mysterious Master I.S. – to whom we now return – are remarkable. His faces are so individualized and lifelike, that we take them to be portraits of specific, historical people with unique identities. They are not tronies like those of Gerrit Dou (see below); and they reveal neither corporate identities nor the personhood of the artist, like Rembrandt’s do. The best of them possesses what the literary critic Roland Barthes described as “puncta,” unusual details that reduce the distance of space and time between subject and viewer. If we saw the model in Portrait of a Woman, facing Left (illustrated at the top of this column) walking on the street, we would recognize her in an instant. The puncta are many: the facial asymmetry, full lips, blemish on her lower left cheek, and especially, the tumor on her left, upper eyelid. Sadly, it’s a subaceous carcinoma, a particularly aggressive skin cancer. Without surgery to remove it, she’ll certainly die. The Mysterious Master I.S The installation of works by the Master I.S. at the Lakenhal was unlike any I have ever seen. The first gallery was an empty white cube, with indiscernible effigies projected on the walls. The second was almost pitch dark, leading through black beaded curtains into a blacklit (UV-A) gallery. I half expected to see velvet paintings and smell marijuana and patchouli. What I experienced instead was more than two dozen pictures spot illuminated. The idea, I guess, was to convey mystery, but there’s mystery and grandeur enough in the 16 paintings by Master I.S. and comparative works by Dou, Lievens, Bailly and Rembrandt. The collection would have looked great in a parking garage. Yet I must admit the works stood out brilliantly amid the gloom, allowing spectators to take in the works both individually and in their totality. It’s a terrific exhibition, and the mystery concerns Master I.S.’s sitters’ identities, as well as his own. Gerrit Dou, Old Woman Reading, c. 1631-31, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Given that nothing is known about I.S., the proposition that he was based in Leiden was over-emphasized by the installation and didactics. The curatorial argument is that the subjects and style of I.S.’s paintings (there are no known drawings or prints by him), associate him with local artists – Lievens, Rembrandt, Dou, Bailly and Jan Davidsz. de Heem. Like them, he painted scholars in their studies surrounded by books, artworks and curiosities of nature. In addition, and also like them, he deployed a “fijnschilders” (“fine painter”) style that entailed a highly detailed finish. This approach is apparent in Dou’s tronie, Old Woman Reading (1631-32), which reveals every line and wrinkle in her face and hand, the texture of the fur collar and hat she wears, and even details of the pages of the book she is reading. It’s a bible, Chapter 19 of the Gospel of Luke: “And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.” The passage might have been heard in a Dutch Reform sermon; we’re being told the old woman is devout. Master I.S. Portrait of an Old Woman (1651). Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. There are at least three problems with the argument of a Leiden origin for Master I.S. First, the dating is off. The unknown painter’s greatest works in fijnschlders style, like his Portrait of an Old Woman (1651), date from the mid 1640s and after, not the 1630s when Dou, Lievens and the others developed and popularized the approach. If I.S. was in Leiden then, why don’t his early pictures reveal the influence of those artists? Instead, they are rather freely – or at least imprecisely — painted. 2) The verisimilitude of his best pictures, like the Woman Facing Left, Portrait of an Old Woman, and Man with a Blind Eye (c. 1645-50) is so remarkable that it’s hard to believe I.S.’s talent was not recognized and name recorded in a city that revered its painters but by the 1640s, had few great ones. With the departure of Rembrandt, Lievens and de Heem for Amsterdam in 1631 — and Dou (and later his pupil Frans van Meiris) dominating the scene — an artist of I.S.’s unique abilities would have stood out among the 30 or so local painters listed in 17th century Leiden inventories. And finally, 3) The costumes and settings of some of I. S.’s figure paintings suggest a Baltic or Scandinavian origin. This possibility is recognized by Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel in their fine essay for the exhibition catalogue but didn’t affect the exhibition’s basic Leiden story-line. There are many clues to I.S.’s possible Baltic or Scandinavian ties. Two paintings in the exhibition, Old Woman, (1645) and Man with a Growth on his Nose (1645), come from Stockholm’s National Museum via the Swedish Count Johan Gabriel Stenbock (1640-1705). He was an eager importer of Dutch paintings as were many other Scandinavian and Baltic nobles and merchants of the time. There was a peak in the export of artworks, as Angela Jager has recently shown, from the Netherlands to Danish and Swedish ports in the 1630s, according to trade and customs records, though the trade continued later, mediated by a network of Scandinavian art dealers. Denmark and Sweden also hosted large numbers of wealthy immigrants from the Low Counties – including artists — who would have brought with them Dutch pictures and painting skills. Could I.S. have been a self-taught Danish or Swedish artist, who saw or even collected works by Leiden and other Dutch masters in the 1630s, but subsequently established his own artistic identity? German speaking Estonia, including Livonia to the south, was at the time part of the Swedish Empire, so the geographical reach of Dutch art and culture was wide. The labor intensity of I.S.’s craft, suggests he was an artist of financial as well as artistic independence. The fine linen, or possibly silk head scarf worn by the Old Woman was the result of repeatedly dragging an almost dry brush across the surface, creating innumerable waves and folds. The headdress covers another, brocaded cloth just visible at the back of her head. Her eyes too are the patient product of careful layering and tonal shading, with paint applied in radiating lines and hatches. Notice too, the lateral hooding or sagging at the corner of her left eye, a product of aging. Such effects take considerable observation, time and patience to achieve. I.S.’s output must have been small. Was he a nobleman with copious time to observe, understand and cultivate his talents? Art and the monstrous Man with a Growth on his Nose, 1645. National Museum, Stockholm. The idea that I.S. was a wealthy amateur, perhaps a noble, is supported by his learned fascination with medical or other deformity. These preoccupations are apparent in four of the most extraordinary works in the Leiden exhibition – the Portrait of a Woman Facing Left, Man with a Blind Eye, Portrait of an Old Woman, Man with a Growth on his Nose (1645) — and possibly a fifth, the early, Young Man, Half-Naked at a Desk (1638) who appears to be Master I.S., hermaphroditic. Since at least Ambroise Paré’s Des Monstres et Prodiges (1573), doctors, philosophers and others had explored the origin and meaning of human and other differences and deformations. Paré argued that natural wonders, even if ugly, were expressions of God’s power as well as manifestations of his wrath, that is, punishments for sin. A life of virtue, he argued, could prevent the occurrence of monsters. This so-called “prodigy literature” grew in scope and ambition in the early 17th century with the publication of Fortunio Liceti’s De Monstruorum Causis, Natura et Differentiis (On the Reasons, Nature, and Differences of Monsters, 1616). There, the author explored, categorized and illustrated different types of deformity – for example bodily deficiencies, excesses, and hybrids — and theorized about the causes for each. These might be inheritance, faulty semen or eggs, illness, or a mistake of Nature. Yet even in its failure, Nature was like an artist who created unique forms out of crude or base materials. A few decades later, Ulisse Aldrovandi, in his Monstrorum Historia (1642), catalogued and classified various bodily deformities (of the head, limbs, etc), describing them all as part of the “theatre” of natural history. Though he claimed his illustrations were based upon individuals or specimens he had seen with his own eyes – including from his own, vast collection — they are often phantasmagorical, including men with necks like herons or legs like mermaids, and children with elephant trunks. (The latter are derived from Liceti’s illustrations.) His copious writings and Wunderkammer (still preserved in Bologna) comprised an encyclopedia of nature that became a basis for the binomial classifications of the Swedish physician and botanist, Carl Linnaeus (Systema Naturæ, 1758). Given his paintings of scholars in their studies and natural prodigies, M.S. may have been a physician or natural scientist and his portraits a form of medical investigation or classification. Though he worked 100 years before Linnaeus, he could have read Aldrovandi and his Swedish follower, the Uppsala physician Johannes Chesnecopherus (1581–1635). Master I.S.’s anatomical observations, we have already seen, were remarkably acute. In addition to the cancerous tumor on the eyelid of the figure in Portrait of a Woman facing Left, and the folds of skin around the eyes of the Old Woman, there’s the Man with the Growth on his Nose who clearly suffers from Rhinophyma. (The condition is highly disfiguring, and can cause nasal obstruction, but is unlikely to be fatal.) The man appears to be of high status, wearing a fur cape and gold chain with escutcheon-shaped medallion around his neck. The latter has not been identified, but it could be a gold medal issued by Swedish King Gustavus Adolfus (reigned 1611-32) or another contemporary Swedish or German ruler. These Gnadenpfennige were given as gifts to followers, courtiers, or high-ranking military officers. The medallion isn’t Dutch. Governing Stadtholders never wore crowns, which were symbols of the reviled Spanish Habsburgs. Other details of costume, as Manuth and de Winkel argue, also suggest a Scandinavian or Estonian context for these works. I’d add to that the interior furnishings in Master I.S.’s, Two Scholars in a High Room, 1640. The three-legged chair could be German, Dutch or Scandinavian. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395534" class="wp-image-395534 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/twoscholar.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="883" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/twoscholar.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/twoscholar-485x630.jpg 485w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/twoscholar-500x649.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/twoscholar-600x779.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Master I.S., Two Scholars in a High Room, 1640, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston. The chandelier is a Geweihleuchter made of antlers, popular in the Baltic region and German-speaking lands of Central Europe from the late 14th to 17th centuries and revived in the 19th. It isn’t Dutch; nor are the costumes, which are again Baltic, possibly Estonian or Livonian, as Manuth and de Winkel suggest. Who was I.S. and what was his achievement? My art history whodunit ends on a hesitant note. No one can definitively say whether Master I.S. is Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Estonian, or even Polish. We assume it’s a man because of the paucity of great women artists at the time – they were only rarely given the opportunity to work, or the time to fully develop their skills. But there are some, like the Haarlem portrait painter Judith Leyster, and the German painter and entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian. I.S. may have seen the work of Leiden fijnschilders like Lieven or Dou, but that’s not certain; his portraits are more detailed and less sentimental than theirs. He may have been a professional artist or an amateur, though the former seems unlikely given his small oeuvre and labor-intensive methods. He was probably a learned artist and possible a nobleman, given his independence of eye and mind. And finally, I.S. seems to have been a portrait painter in the modern sense, not a maker of tronies. There is nothing stereotypical about the faces he painted. In fact, just the opposite. The features and expressions – not to mention the realistic disfigurements – are highly particular, indeed, without precedent in art history. The sagging brow, tumor, missing eye, growth on an old man’s nose, and a young man’s breasts — invite observation and inquiry rather than condescension. More than anything else, his sitters are intensely human — individual in a way that feels almost contemporary. A week or two before travelling to the Netherlands, I happened to see Sanctum Sanctorum, an exhibition of Diane Arbus’s works at David Zwirner in London (until Jan. 17). The show consists of 45 photos of people in private interiors. They were made in New York, New Jersey, California and London between 1961 and 1971. They include some of the photographer’s best-known works and some little known ones too. What strikes me now, in retrospect, having since seen the exhibition in Leiden, is that Arbus’s best photos – her best portraits – are not of well-known or celebrity sitters (of which there are several in the Zwirner exhibition), but people whose names we generally don’t know. Arbus met Lauro Morales at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus in NYC in 1957, and photographed him many times thereafter. But he is known to us mostly as Mexican dwarf in his New York City hotel room, 1970. The same can be said about Eddie Carmel whom Arbus first met and photographed in 1960, but then photographed again as “A Jewish giant at home with his parents, in the Bronx, N.Y., 1970.” There is nothing caricatural or condescending about either picture. In the first, there is kindliness and a disarming absence of self-consciousness – generosity is mixed with pride. In the second, there’s careful observation of scale and the quiet concern of parents for a disabled child. Arbus’s actual portraits of celebrities like Mae West, Norman Mailer, James Brown and others, lack the same interrogatory element, or the same warmth. The former two works are modern portraits, the latter four are not. I’d say the something similar thing about Master I.S. and Dutch portraits. His unidentified sitters are intimate, modern portraits of people we don’t know, while many of the portraits by esteemed Dutch artists of the Golden Age are more like types or even tronies. (Rembrandt’s are expressions of his own imagination, even his soul.) We may one day learn the identity of I.S. – a painting signed with a name not a monogram, an inventory, a letter, or even a will – but that will neither add nor take away from the vividness of the women and men he painted. The post Portraits by the Mysterious “Master I.S.”: An Art History Detective Story appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Stephen F. Eisenman.
Oligarchy XIV: Thoughts on the Anarchism of Dorothy Day
Remarking on the 1927 murder of Italian immigrants and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Day noted that anarchism “is the word, or label, which confuses many of our readers (especially the bishops?)” Day saw anarchism, as a philosophy of mutual respect and voluntary cooperation, as a natural extension of Christian spiritual practice and fellowship. She argued that there is no human law applicable to those who love and follow Jesus, and that “anarchism means ‘Love God, and do as you will.’” From the moment it became aware of the Catholic Worker movement, the U.S. government has treated it with suspicion, targeting and spying on Day and the movement as supposedly subversive elements. Day’s activism drew the attention of the FBI, and she is said to have enjoyed reading her FBI files. More The post Oligarchy XIV: Thoughts on the Anarchism of Dorothy Day appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-200x200.jpg" class="alignright wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Dorothy_Day_1934-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> Dorothy Day in 1934. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. Public Domain. I have a few thoughts in response to what seems like an uptick in interest in Dorothy Day (1897-1980) in recent years. When I first read Dorothy Day, the first thing that stood out to me was her continuity with a long tradition of Christian anarchism in America. Yet as a Catholic, she seemed to represent a split from the main line of Christian anarchism in America, which is distinctly Protestant (though not exclusively so, and who knows how to classify Tolstoy’s religion). In any case, I kept running into her name after years of studying and steeping in the Christian anarchism and non-resistance of folks like Adin Ballou, William Lloyd Garrison, and Henry Clarke Wright, among others. Many of the individualist anarchists received theological instruction and were ordained ministers (for example, Joshua K. Ingalls, William B. Greene). Day resembled these Protestants of the American libertarian tradition in her deep personal commitment and her total rejection of political action, which, as we will discuss, entails explicit renunciation of core features of our political life, for example, voting, paying taxes, and obeying unjust laws. The historian Anne Klejment helps us understand Day’s ideas within this context: The seedbed of her pacifism extended back into her Protestant young adulthood. Her familiarity with the Bible remained a significant part of her spirituality and informed her pacifism. Back then, the Catholic laity was discouraged from Bible reading. It would take a convert like Dorothy to advance biblical nonviolence as an essential Catholic teaching. She placed enormous emphasis on the commandment to love God and love neighbor. She understood it as the core teaching of Jesus and pondered over it from adolescence until her death. Many of the American Christian anarchists/non-resistants follow in a long tradition of antinomians, arguably going back to the Antinomian Controversy in New England and before. These episodes left an established tradition of challenging authority and hierarchical power. Day’s Christian anarchism stands out in its delicate location within the Catholic tradition. Indeed, hers was a stance that angered many in both the Church hierarchy and in her old left-wing circles. She recalled at the end of her life that many of her radical friends had felt betrayed by her conversion: One who had yearned to walk in the footsteps of a Mother Jones and an Emma Goldman seemingly had turned her back on the entire radical movement and sought shelter in that great, corrupt Holy Roman Catholic Church, right hand of the Oppressor, the State, rich and heartless, a traitor to her beginnings, her Founder, etc. Just as she was a poor fit with the narrow-minded college socialists (more on that below), she was also an awkward fit in a movement defined by people like Proudhon, whom she frequently discussed, and Bakunin. Day’s personalism is another distinctive feature of her approach to anarchism. This is the idea, grounded in a basic belief in the dignity of every human being, that each person must take personal responsibility on every level: that there is a duty to one’s neighbors and coworkers, and we cannot look to others, including large institutions, which are themselves the key offenders and impediments to change. Day often talked about how she was changed after the experience of seeing neighbors come to each other’s aid in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In an article in 1936, Day explained: We are Personalists because we believe that man, a person, a creature of body and soul, is greater than the State, of which as an individual he is a part. We are Personalists because we oppose the vesting of all authority in the hands of the state instead of in the hands of Christ the King. We are Personalists because we believe in free will, and not in the economic determinism of the Communist philosophy. Remarking on the 1927 murder of Italian immigrants and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Day noted that anarchism “is the word, or label, which confuses many of our readers (especially the bishops?)” Day saw anarchism, as a philosophy of mutual respect and voluntary cooperation, as a natural extension of Christian spiritual practice and fellowship. She argued that there is no human law applicable to those who love and follow Jesus, and that “anarchism means ‘Love God, and do as you will.’” From the moment it became aware of the Catholic Worker movement, the U.S. government has treated it with suspicion, targeting and spying on Day and the movement as supposedly subversive elements. Day’s activism drew the attention of the FBI, and she is said to have enjoyed reading her FBI files. Day had joined the Socialist Party in Urbana, Illinois, as a teenage college student, but its “petty bourgeois” attitudes and lack of “the religious enthusiasm for the poor” left her cold. She was not one for posturing; her Christian anarchism was based on the idea that every person is “known and named,” and that the real movement for human freedom takes place where there is a human need to be satisfied. Day roundly rejected the value system and approach of rigid bureaucracies and hierarchies, either corporate or governmental, which treat people as case numbers within cold, detached systems of power. As Michael Kazin put it: “Like any good anarchist, Christian or not, Day had no faith whatsoever in the desire or ability of governing authorities to create a moral, egalitarian society.” Her political outlook was grounded in and expressed through the sharing of everyday acts of kindness, through up-close relationships rather than philosophical abstractions. Yet she was extremely well-read and capable of the most insightful and skillfully articulated engagements with advanced ideas. Day has a very particular way with words. There is a rare candor, which reflects her lack of pretenses and her vulnerability in sharing her full life in the most open and sincere way. Her columns go back and forth between the tragedy and the comedy of being human with real thought and skill. Some of the vignettes in her autobiography are as powerful and moving as anything written by any American, for my money. “In 2012, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops unanimously voiced its support for her sainthood,” and this cause is, as I understand it, pending. An anarchist Catholic saint would be something to see. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395247" class="wp-image-395247 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-680x548.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="548" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-680x548.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-782x630.jpg 782w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-768x619.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-1536x1238.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-2048x1650.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-500x403.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WEST_FRONT_LOOKING_SOUTHEAST_-_Rose_Hill_Woods_Road_Tivoli_Dutchess_County_NY_HABS_NY14-TIV.V1-6.tif-600x484.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Rose Hill Catholic Worker farm, Tivoli, New York. Photo: National Park Service. Day believed that we have the social and political question backwards, starting with abstractions, ideological camps, and grand plans, when what we should focus on what is personal and tangible, what can be done directly, immediately, and without “professional” intermediaries. I was drawn to Day’s writings first because her way of thinking about political and social questions is so categorically different from the one we get from both halves of the poisonous main currents of our discourse today. She rejected both versions of bloodthirsty twentieth century authoritarianism, capitalism and socialism, instead articulating a radical politics of the corporeal and close by. Nothing more complicated in policy terms than housing and feeding our neighbors, the most important work (we prefer conceptual complexity and institutional paralysis while oligarchs bleed the country). Her belief in the transformative power of community and hospitality at the most basic but most intimate scale led her to reject the way almost everyone of our age thinks about politics. Day’s politics were about love for and service to other people; her way of looking at the world, according to her granddaughter, focused on the idea that “what we can do is so little, but that is what we are given to do. That’s only what we can do, so let’s move forward and do what we each think that we can do.” She emphasized “the necessity of smallness,” encouraging a direct and hands-on approach to serving those in need. She could not accept any approach to activism or ministry that separated the theorizing from the doing. Contrast our culture of aloof contempt for the poor, workers, prisoners, migrants and refugees, etc. There is nothing lower than not having money in our anti-human culture and political system. It is thoroughly bipartisan and it will outlast every politician and political party. Rest assured that the state’s indifference toward the suffering of the poor will be there still when there is no more U.S. government. In Day’s view, we are depriving ourselves of another political dimension in the notion that love is the only response to political moments like this one. Regardless of anyone’s opinions, if love and community are not reliable for us in the social and community context, then what are we talking about? If they aren’t starting with the people at the bottom, what are they building? Everyone seems to feel that the country is lost today. My suggestion is: do not try to find it. Dorothy Day’s example suggests that we find each other, face-to-face, and begin to relearn the lessons of solidarity and mutual aid. We do that and we don’t have to fuss with any of today’s counterfeit B.S. In the social reality that capital and the state are hawking, there is nothing for workers or the poor, nothing but getting shorted. Day saw the crises unfolding around her in terms of human suffering. She did not put herself in the position of judging or condemning; she did not hold out false solutions or panaceas. She asked people to follow her lead in taking personal responsibility and initiative. Among the goals of the House of Hospitality, she stated, was to “emphasize personal action, personal responsibility as opposed to political action and state responsibility.” As a social model, the House of Hospitality explicitly resists impersonal, bureaucratized forms of charity and deliberately puts givers and recipients on the same footing, creating genuine relationships and community life. Day lived a life of voluntary poverty and thought that one should try to “be close enough to people so that you are indifferent to the material.” Central to her thought was leading by example and in accordance with love for all people. Her life, her work, her politics, all inseparable, were based on the radical notion that Jesus meant what he said about loving each other, turning the other cheek, etc. Day offers another way of thinking about what it means to be politically active within a broader network of movements for freedom, equality, and justice. We don’t need to play to the strengths of the ruling class by focusing our energies and resources back into the sources of hierarchy and domination. Day thought that we had things backwards when it came to political and social change: that is, she believed we are already where the action is, in that everything grows from the bottom up. The movement is where you are, and it exists within your power to take care of people in need. So this is obviously a way of thinking poles apart from the performative nonsense that is encouraged today. Her worldview was a wholesale rejection of today’s faux meritocracy and its ugly pretense that some people are worth more than others. She believed that there is a “a spirit of non-violence and brotherhood” in the Gospels that counsels anarchism in practice. She favored radical decentralization and recognized the principle of subsidiarity, or the idea that decision-making should take place at the most local possible level. In the United States, we have departed from this principle to our own peril, yet neither of our teams seem to understand the problem. Day did not mince words in providing a classically anarchist condemnation of government: Eventually, there will be this withering away of the State. Why put it off in some far distant utopia? Why not begin right now and say that the state is the enemy. The state is the armed forces. The state is bound to be a tyrant, a dictatorship. A Dictatorship of the Proletariat becomes yet another dictatorship. (emphasis in original) Day did not believe that we can effectively resist this system of poverty and social alienation by supporting politicians or by mimicking the coercive, bureaucratic style of elites. For her, it could not be a matter of voting, giving alms, or being a good member of some party. Day’s approach represents the opposite of the institutional distance and stuck-up elitism that characterize most of our systems. Day insisted on being there on the ground, sharing daily life in real human connections, resisting the state and consumerism through friendship and love rather than through government. This mode of politics can only be understood and practiced by one who is not interested in being there for others, not in her own opinions or in electing certain politicians, etc. This is the real revolution everyone has been talking about and waiting for, but Day’s isn’t a path most people are capable of walking. One of the mottos of the Catholic Worker movement is, “Conscience is supreme.” Day could not reconcile any politics of division or violence with her own conscience. Institutions that rely on violence – the state, for instance – could not help except by receding into the background; they are not there to help, but rather to create the conditions for widespread deprivation and poverty. There may be no starker contrast to the hollow identitarian blather of our moment than the life and work of Dorothy Day. Today’s hideous and embarrassing elite-worship, its obsessions with maximums of speed and scale regardless of the social dangers or consequences, its institutional detachment and opacity, and its counterproductive GDPism all represent pervasive social decay and alienation within Day’s philosophy. They are not the visible signs of “progress.” By comparison, today’s PMC liberals appear to be deliberately authoritarian and parochial defenders of plutocracy. And our conservatives, particularly the churchgoing ones, seem to genuinely hate the people Day said we’re commanded to love. I think Professor Larry Chapp put it well, discussing the importance of Day’s politics of resistance to our current moment (now retired, Professor Chapp runs the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Pennsylvania): This is all modern Liberalism has to offer: blunt force and wealth. And what moral and spiritual weapons do we have that are not undermined by our own supreme hypocrisy? We all, rightly, recoil in horror at the sufferings inflicted by Putin’s insane military gambit to restore empire. But empire building is what Liberals do, and have done now for centuries, and so the moral condemnations of our political class rings hollow. Day didn’t think it was all that difficult to see why our political culture and discourse continue to fail us, particularly those at the margins of our society. Political ideology totally abstracted from the real relations of ministering to the needs of the poor, from the real struggles of workers striving around the clock yet no further from the edges of social and economic oblivion. That is American liberalism today. The American right meanwhile offers an incoherent, unwholesome slop of racial and ethnic scapegoating, open thuggery and corruption, and in MAGA the treatment of the country as a cheap and trashy brand name for enriching the political mercenaries and shady billionaires around Donald Trump. But, fundamentally, the teams share a value system, and the poor are despised by that system. If they’re not blaming them for crime and social discord, politicians are trying desperately to ignore the poor and pretend they don’t exist. This is one of the bedrock values of our system, at least as it exists materially rather than in the purely imaginary fantasies of a PMC that proudly embeds itself in the military-industrial complex even as it scolds everyone. Statists and imperialists of all kinds, including liberals, who try to appropriate Day should understand that she was not joking about anarchism and would not willingly cooperate with the government; her identity as an anarchist was inseparable from the rest of her life and work, which meant ignoring the law and living according to the law of conscience. Like many anarchists before and since, Day had run-ins with the law throughout her life. She was jailed several times, beginning in 1917, when she was arrested while picketing as part of the Silent Sentinels campaign. She was a fixture of the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements and was jailed several times in the 1950s for her refusal to take shelter during civil defense drills during that period (this protest seems to have been the brainchild of Ammon Hennacy, whom I discussed for the Cato Institute’s Libertarianism.org several years back). Responding to the nuclear mass murders in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Day wrote with rare moral clarity against the death cult that still has our ruling class in its grip: Jubilate Deo. We have killed 318,000 Japanese. That is, we hope we have killed them, the Associated Press, on page one, column one of the Herald Tribune, says. The effect is hoped for, not known. It is to be hoped they are vaporized, our Japanese brothers – scattered, men, women and babies, to the four winds, over the seven seas. Perhaps we will breathe their dust into our nostrils, feel them in the fog of New York on our faces, feel them in the rain on the hills of Easton. Jubilate Deo. President Truman was jubilant. Day felt the truth in her bones. She understood that those dead families in Japan were our family – they were not evil foreigners. She protested through two world wars and saw firsthand every trick used by the state to stir up hatred and enthusiasm for war. Consider the attitudes of our putatively liberal elite on questions of war and empire today, and contrast them to those of Dorothy Day. Our corporate uniparty has two openly war-mongering and imperialistic wings, with differences only in emphases and vibes, and even there the degree of difference is smaller than is generally thought (respectable opinion in the District wants war, but with Russia and China, not Venezuela). Today, people who have made their entire careers pitching and overseeing disastrous wars of choice get in line for fancy fellowships and interviews on the supposedly progressive shows. Because the U.S. government manages a powerful empire, our political class is compelled by the agglomeration of interests around them to chaperone a politics of imperialism, with disagreement confined to the margins. Higher defense spending is popular with politicians of both parties, because war is the business the state is in. Violence is its key offering in economic terms, much as any lesser mafia. Virtually all members of Congress make their peace with it in one way or another, because this is what the overall system requires of them, and the system is very good at getting what it needs; whatever their reasons, both parties want and actively search for and recruit candidates that they know will be reliably pro-war, often those with connections to the Pentagon or the intelligence community, the major “defense” contractors of the federal government, or financial interests aligned with warfare and empire. Recall that the deepest and strongest connections between the two ways our ruling class shows itself, the state and capital, take place within the world of war. In our system, both always want war because they see it as a source of growth, but they were fused together even before the growth logic took over completely. That is the perversity of our system, which Day saw. She didn’t think one could escape complicity merely because they were positioned within bourgeois polite society; she called the scientists who worked on the bomb murderers, and she demanded accountability from the places of higher learning that allied themselves with “this colossal slaughter of the innocents.” To understand the perversity and degeneration of our politics and discourse, we just have to look at how quickly our simulacra of political participation set up a new enemy of the week, reincorporating the old enemies (e.g., the rehabilitation of George W. Bush) and using the energy and appearance of conflict to reaffirm the imperial system itself. Day understood that the state was a den of thieves and criminals regardless of who is in charge, and the source of positive social change has to be us, working together. Dorothy Day was an amazing person and a true rarity. She relentlessly downplayed her own importance and contributions to the Catholic Worker movement. During an interview in 1971, a week before her 74th birthday, Day discussed the movement’s humble beginnings and reiterated the centrality of small, personal scale and the face-to-face community to the mission: You start in with a table full of people and pretty soon you have a line and pretty soon you’re living with some of them in a house. You do what you can. God forbid we should have great institutions. The thing is to have many small centers. The ideal is community. Not long after, reminiscing at the age of 75, she referred to herself as “the housekeeper of the Catholic Worker movement.” It wasn’t the fake humility of today’s political tabloid show. To her, that work is as worthwhile and honorable as any honest service to other people. She passed away in 1980 at the Catholic Worker’s Maryhouse on the Lower East Side. She was 83. If radicals today are looking for a normative model or a plan of action, the life of Dorothy Day, the first hippie, in Abbie Hoffman’s words, will at least provide inspiration. Growing interest in Dorothy Day must not obscure the central facts of her anarchist politics, that the work to which she dedicated her life can’t ever be carried out by the authoritarian, bureaucratic state or by the professional-managerial class administering it. Her commitments were not those of our political class, and she was explicit about that. They point to forms of personal responsibility and solidarity that are structurally incompatible with the state and capitalism. To take her political ethic seriously is to move in a direction directly opposed to the logic and practices of both mainstream and elite politics today. The post Oligarchy XIV: Thoughts on the Anarchism of Dorothy Day appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David S. D’Amato.
The ‘minutely privileged’, the people lucky enough not to be in the direct line of fire as of right now, are paralyzed in outrage and bewilderment, paralyzed in their attempts to simply function and survive their daily life in our capitalist hellscape. A new scandal each week keeps our minds attuned to the fact that the bar is just being set lower. Presidential and Homeland Security accounts parading AI videos of defecation on protesters and ‘hip memes’ of utterly dehumanized shackled individuals being led onto planes, Kanye West selling swastika t-shirts without consequence and still losing the finalist title of ‘antisemite of the year’ to a children’s influencer who dared show Gazan children compassion, billionaires working on startups to block out the sun, and it all just keeps getting more and more insane and degenerate. Yet they can’t look away, because they know their constant duty to be informed, lest mass ignorance make things even worse. More The post Meditations on the Loss of a Voice appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4032" height="3024" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-scaled.jpeg 4032w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-369533" class="size-medium wp-image-369533" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7858-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair As 2025 draws to a close, many will agree that it has been another harsh year for anyone with ideals rooted in morality, sustainability and general inclusiveness. And over these last few months, as I’ve shrunken away from ‘fighting the good fight’ and watched myself lose all grasp of the point of speeches and protests and articles in the grand scheme of things, something has grown more clear to me, the more muddled my ambitions have become. A sort of revelation rooted in the lowering of standards, that the American people are facing a plague. Not a viral illness, though we can probably guess just how competently we would respond to another COVID-19 situation. This affliction is a mental and ideological one that appears under crushing environmental pressure throughout a specific population of society, a population that diminishes in numbers the more this pressure encompasses every aspect of daily and political existence. It is a plague of exhaustion and hopelessness that perpetuates its own guilt for existence, the worse things become for everyone else, and pulls the person into numbness against danger that is currently growing closer to knocking at their door. Put more simply, a plague of a loss of voice in the minutely privileged. When one speaks of privilege in America, the contextual definition of the word can change when moving across socioeconomic spheres. A white or white-passing individual of any variety can be considered privileged in that they will likely never have dealt with fearing the worst of a traffic stop. A neurotypical person may be considered privileged to be able to interact with society without being scorned for barriers that they themselves can’t control. Simply having enough money to be able to get through a medical or financial emergency without losing everything can be called privilege. This mindset greatly broadens the sheer number of people that would be considered privileged, the emotional bias behind that word aside. However, for the purposes of this thought exercise, the ‘minutely privileged’ speaks not of the millionaires and CEO families riddled with nepotism, but of the people who have managed to make it this far without total financial ruin, social oppression, illegal deportation, politically endorsed violence or degradation of quality of life so severe that staying in this country is no longer a viable option. In contemporary America, the broadening of such a label is counteracted by the sheer scale of hardship befalling the population of the country. As the price of living and the state of wealth inequality increase, the sphere of the middle class shrinks. As the political control and aggression of the current administrations grow more intense and targeted against marginalized communities, the more people they come for directly or through their adamant hate-raised followers. Fewer and fewer people are ‘safe’. In this group of the ‘safe’ individuals which I personally reside, particularly the ones that have enough empathy and common sense to regard the actions of those in power over the last decade to be appalling, just as everyone else, we are overloaded when we open our condensed information machines and witness another heinous lapse in objective morality, another video of rubble buried carnage, another legal line being crossed and another report on how everything is getting worse every single day. This is the environmental pressure that pushes the first signs of the illness into existence. The generations that grew up being told that they should change the system while abiding by it, unlike their revolutionary ancestors, that they could improve the world as long as they did it the state-approved way, that they could stop climate change if they just recycled their plastics and shut off their water often enough, have grown to know better. They witness police approved peaceful protests fail to enact any real change in these dire circumstances, the conglomerates that predicted and caused the climate crisis by a large majority skirt any responsibility, legally or otherwise, and militaristic empires continue their genocides and atrocities in Palestine, Sudan and the Congo. Our own government blows ‘suspected drug smugglers’ to oblivion without reproach or restraint in the seas and marches towards meaningless war against Venezuela while laying siege against its own people in all manner of ways. The ‘minutely privileged’, the people lucky enough not to be in the direct line of fire as of right now, are paralyzed in outrage and bewilderment, paralyzed in their attempts to simply function and survive their daily life in our capitalist hellscape. A new scandal each week keeps our minds attuned to the fact that the bar is just being set lower. Presidential and Homeland Security accounts parading AI videos of defecation on protesters and ‘hip memes’ of utterly dehumanized shackled individuals being led onto planes, Kanye West selling swastika t-shirts without consequence and still losing the finalist title of ‘antisemite of the year’ to a children’s influencer who dared show Gazan children compassion, billionaires working on startups to block out the sun, and it all just keeps getting more and more insane and degenerate. Yet they can’t look away, because they know their constant duty to be informed, lest mass ignorance make things even worse. We understand what the environment hosting the plague constitutes, an increasingly authoritarian and unsafe living space with threats to financial and physical safety to everyone who is not of the ‘standard’ gender, ethnicity or financial position, but how do the symptoms manifest? And what causes them to fester more in some generations than others? Whether or not the person has attempted to resist this illness through political and community engagement throughout their life offers little difference. The individual eventually begins to regard the ineffectiveness of protests in disgust and shame as they reflect on the worsening state of things overall, so they stop going. Those who are socially isolated and have little interpersonal connections within community action groups may withdraw altogether, becoming disillusioned with the methods of effort to enact change favored by the Democratic party, minor controversial but ineffective symbols of indignation. Tiny red pins on Oscars suits and pink signs while children are blown to pieces. But of course, protest or action beyond the lines of legality or convenience is scrutinized and shut down so heavily, so what chance of enacting meaningful change is there to appeal to anymore, while the individual struggles to survive their own troubled life? While this internal disillusionment occurs, the environmental pressure continues, or rises, and it becomes almost impossible to balance with personal problems. The worse things get, the fewer consequences the bigots, rich, and powerful face. The fewer consequences these elite face, the less change seems possible. The less change seems possible, the worse the symptoms become. ‘No one is going to do anything about it.’ ‘This is just how the world works now.’ Sentences the person refused to accept months ago, ideologies they stood in the streets and shouted against in articles, win the battle of endurance. Exhaustion is inescapable in the individual, not one of apathy, but a weakness to effort born from learned hopelessness and overstimulation. They never stop caring about what’s happening, but they stop offering energy to the idea that what’s happening can be fought. Effectively, that person’s voice is lost. Though it can affect any age of person, acting almost as an inevitability, it would be foolish to disregard the generational differences in the severity and manifestation of this condition. Generation Z was always known to be more absurdist than the millennials that came before them, absorbing themselves in online culture and humor to cope with the severity of the historical events happening around them. And while many activists use this to their advantage for outreach and communications, it is undoubtedly so that the generation that grew up watching recessions both in the financial and political state of the country from their screens while being told of the progressive accomplishments of those who came before are especially hardened by this affliction. Even scandals with horrific implications of power, wealth and immunity to justice, such as the contents of the Epstein files, are known and regarded mostly through online humor. This generation serves as the first prime example of the overstimulation of the minds of even the most dedicated activists through the double-edged sword of exposure through the World Wide Web. Though, the unique position of Generation Z in politics and their relationship through previously unseen levels of exposure could be a piece all on its own. The affliction serves to defensively numb people to levels of despair and outrage from outside stimuli that could break their perception of the world even further. The individual pays less active attention or regards everything with the same unenthusiastic shrug of the shoulders, as eventually, there is no news that can shock or disturb them anymore. Although it may be a defense mechanism, it’s not the way to cope with life, let alone what is happening in and around this country. As stated before, the number of ‘safe’ people is becoming fewer with each passing day, a fact we are continually being reminded of by the rulers of the empire. Fewer people can afford to live, and even those who do can be snatched off the streets and deported at any time. It doesn’t matter if you are in court going through the legal process being held in godly standards, if you just happen to not have your papers on you, or, most horrifyingly, if you have everything they ask for. As proven by the case of Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, the powers that be can simply deny your papers existence on a whim. That is the true danger of this plague. Not just that those who are privileged become too numb to use their safety to help others, but that they become too numb to even regard the danger coming directly towards them. And as things remain unchanging, it will only spread further if not recognized for what it is. The post Meditations on the Loss of a Voice appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julia Abusharr.
Bari Weiss Pulls 60 Minutes’ Report on Trump Outsourcing Torture to El Salvador’s CECOT Prison
According to the concept of “manufactured consent,” elaborated by Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman in the 1980s, the media carries out a propaganda function in support of the dominant political system. In the United States, this consent has favored particular governments beyond the U.S. government itself—for instance, Israel in its conflict with Palestinians. A recent More The post Bari Weiss Pulls 60 Minutes’ Report on Trump Outsourcing Torture to El Salvador’s CECOT Prison appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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decoding="async" width="960" height="640" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2.jpg 960w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="960" height="640" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395574" class="size-medium wp-image-395574" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Aerial_view_of_CECOT_2.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Casa Presidencial , El Salvador – CC0 According to the concept of “manufactured consent,” elaborated by Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman in the 1980s, the media carries out a propaganda function in support of the dominant political system. In the United States, this consent has favored particular governments beyond the U.S. government itself—for instance, Israel in its conflict with Palestinians. A recent example has been CBS, owned by David Ellison’s Paramount and under Bari Weiss’s editorial leadership, which has systematically suppressed Palestinian voices in favor of Israel and Trump. In another example of manufactured consent, Weiss’s CBS rejected a 60 Minutes story that made the Trump administration look bad on El Salvador. Incidentally, since the end of last summer, the U.S. State Department has dropped criticism of both Israel and El Salvador in its human rights reporting, merging the interests of CBS with the politics of the current administration. When journalist Sharyn Alfonsi wrote the segment about the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador and what life there is like, the content was pulled at the last minute because Weiss said it needed more reporting and balance, even when journalists at CBS invited all sides for a comment. They insisted that the decision was political and not editorial. Jeffrey St. Clair for CounterPunch recently stated that “CBS under [Bari] Weiss may be worse than Fox News, because nobody takes Fox seriously as a news source and many do CBS, though not for much longer, one suspects.” Andy Borowitz pointed out that, “When Bari Weiss and CBS decided to censor the report on El Salvador’s brutal prison, they didn’t realize that bootlegged copieswould surface.” Indeed, according to Variety, the “report yanked by Weiss about the horrific treatment of detainees deported from the U.S. to a prison in El Salvador has leaked online after appearing on a Canadian-TV app.” Sharyn Alfonsi did not hold back in her criticism of CBS: Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a veto. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. Alfonsi further explained: If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. Back in 2020, Weiss, in her resignation letter to The New York Times, stated that “self-censorship” and “fitting a predetermined narrative” to satisfy “a narrow audience rather than allowing a curious public read,” led her to quit. Just before that in 2018, she authored in the Times, “We’re All Fascists Now,” a right-wing lament that basically talks of a center-left discourse threatening free speech by its mere interrogation of the hard right. In essence, Weiss complains of the left trivializing fascism only to cover up the fact that she accepts hard power and state authority and structural violence as forms of conventional wisdom beyond criticism. Cultural norms are not really “left leaning” but it is certainly useful for her to present them this way. Weiss is in the business of providing security to dominant groups in advancing and advocating the consensus required by the state-corporate news nexus. Weiss might discount how popular fascism was and is in the context of U.S. history in the first place. When you factor in the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, which peaked at 6 million-plus members in the early twentieth century, American admiration for Mussolini, and the regional popularity of the German Bund, the United States has a horrific past with extreme right affiliation. Just over one in three Americans listened in the 1930s to Charles Coughlin, an outspoken supporter of Nazism. But you don’t even need to go far back in history to see the U.S. role in El Salvador’s deterioration or Trump’s subversion of U.S. asylum law, all to promote fascism and militarism. Currently, the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelans in violation of international humanitarian law is well known as an emerging crime against humanity. A federal judge has just issued a rulingthat requires the United States to grant due process to deported Venezuelans. Additionally, the entire matter has the potential to be examined by the International Criminal Court. CBS certainly knows that CECOT is a large, high-security prison in El Salvador that has been cited by Human Rights Watch, the UN General Assembly, and the Yale Global Health Review for its harsh conditions and human-rights related concerns. HRW’s report in November 2025 was entitled “You Have Arrived in Hell,” a concept reiterated by Spiegel International. Amnesty International and Relief Web covered the expulsions, which entail people deported from the United States and sent to CECOT. It is illegal under international humanitarian law to send refugees to known places of human rights abuse. Weiss seems to believe that the flagrant nature of Trump’s actions requires the press to yield and to ignore facts that “seem radical.” Additionally, Weiss encourages apolitical journalists to engage in self-censorship and to dismiss the buried segment as a “workplace dispute.” All the while, 60 Minutes remains entirely mainstream and conventional. As reporter Dave Zirin points out, “60 Minutes was never perfect, it’s been a mouthpiece for war and empire many times over the decades.” He aptly explains how Weiss canceled “the brave testimonials of Venezuelans, tortured in Trump’s El Salvadoran slave labor prison.” To Zirin’s point, Weiss, a loyal commissar to corporate statism, has internalized the belief that her job is to reinforce the corporate rather than the contrarian brand of 60 Minutes and avoid coverage of geopolitical issues that might make her job more difficult. When she undermines actual reporting and denies the labor, dignity and courage found in solid reporting, she is trafficking in the politics of organized forgetting and silence. What Weiss does worst of all, of course, is to provide cover for Trumpian structural viciousness, what policy analyst Khury Petersen-Smith has called the “era for spectacular violence.” This all comes as International relations expert Stephen Zunesrecently pointed out how “the United States is now ranked fifty-seventh in political freedom,” behind dozens of nations and territories according to Freedom House. Weiss is only helping to contribute to the trend, and this backlash is likely to continue. This first appeared on FPIF. The post Bari Weiss Pulls 60 Minutes’ Report on Trump Outsourcing Torture to El Salvador’s CECOT Prison appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Falcone.
Looking Beyond the 2026 Midterms: Slogans Are Not a Strategy
The current buzzword is affordability. “‘Affordability’ mantra helps Democrats turn tide” the New York Times headlined. “Democrats used ‘affordability’ to harness worries about the cost of living and sweep to victory in this November’s [2025] election. And once that happened, references to ‘affordability’ as a stand-alone term skyrocketed,” Lisa Lerer and Jonah Smith wrote on More The post Looking Beyond the 2026 Midterms: Slogans Are Not a Strategy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2624" height="1924" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-scaled.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-scaled.png 2624w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-859x630.png 859w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-768x563.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-1536x1126.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-2048x1502.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-500x367.png 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-2048x1502.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2624px) 100vw, 2624px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2624" height="1924" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-scaled.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-scaled.png 2624w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-859x630.png 859w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-768x563.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-1536x1126.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-2048x1502.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2624px) 100vw, 2624px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="859" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-859x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-859x630.png 859w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-768x563.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-1536x1126.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-2048x1502.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 859px) 100vw, 859px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395577" class="size-medium wp-image-395577" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-680x499.png" alt="" width="680" height="499" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-680x499.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-859x630.png 859w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-768x563.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-1536x1126.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-2048x1502.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-500x367.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-5.43.39-PM-600x440.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante The current buzzword is affordability. “‘Affordability’ mantra helps Democrats turn tide” the New York Times headlined. “Democrats used ‘affordability’ to harness worries about the cost of living and sweep to victory in this November’s [2025] election. And once that happened, references to ‘affordability’ as a stand-alone term skyrocketed,” Lisa Lerer and Jonah Smith wrote on December 20, 2025. Beyond the 2026 midterms, what about long-term planning? If Democrats dominate the 2026 midterms, are they ready to present a sustainable alternative to MAGA besides the slogan affordability? After all, long-term planning is exactly what the Right constructed, and that’s exactly why we are where we are today. The Right succeeded in building a durable political project over decades. It built an entire ecosystem through courts, think tanks, media, state legislatures, and donor networks. MAGA has deep roots from the John Birch Society (1958) to the Tea Party (2009), from the Heritage Foundation (1973) to the Federalist Society (1982). There was an agenda, there was a strategy, there were institutions deliberately created to advance a coherent ideology. By contrast, the Left’s major programs have emerged as reactions to crises rather than building enduring strategies. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was a response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Port Huron Statement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) emerged in 1962 amid the turmoil of the Vietnam War and civil rights movement. (SDS’s last national convention was in 1969.) Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society (1964) followed in the wake of the civil rights protests. What significant progressive agenda has come forth since? What institutions have been created to sustain it? The Institute for Policy Studies (1973)? The Center for American Progress (2003)? In the last decades, Republicans and conservatives have created a coherent, political machine with a unified agenda, while Democrats and progressives have struggled to find any coherence in ideas and institutions. This asymmetry raises questions about political capacity and intent. Why is the Left – and the Democratic Party – incapable of developing a long-term strategy similar to the Right? Where is a progressive answer to the Heritage’s “Project 2025” agenda? Several possibilities exist. One obvious answer is that the Democratic Party is a party of coalition. The big tent is inclusive from progressives – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani – to moderate descendants of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Coalition politics does not fully explain the contrast. Doesn’t the Republican Party also have a big tent? From Rockefeller Republicans such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, the George Bushes and the Romneys all the way to the extreme right of the party that Trump is leading and dominating, the spectrum exists. Yet, while the coalition Democrats continue to be divided with no clear agenda or strategy, the Republicans have coalesced around Trump. Murkowski and Collins are outliers. For the moment, the Republican big tent has effectively folded, with very few exceptions. (Is the MAGA “traitor” Marjorie Taylor Greene’s defection from MAGA a sign of the tent unfolding?) Is discipline the key difference between the two parties? Are the Republicans more disciplined than Democrats? The consequence of discipline – or lack of it – are most visible in moments that shape politics for generations such as with Supreme Court appointments. The case of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an outstanding example. The beloved Supreme Court Justice was 75 to 83 years old during Barack Obama’s presidency. She could have resigned to allow Obama to appoint a younger liberal Justice. She didn’t, allowing Trump to appoint conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the bench. Individual progressives can have discipline. The great Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said he would not resign as long as Richard Nixon was president. Despite declining health issues, including multiple heart attacks, cancer and hypertension, he held on. Keeping his promise, Douglas retired from the Supreme Court in 1975 exactly one year, three months and three days after Nixon resigned. Douglas had influence through liberal jurisprudence, defense of civil liberties and environmental advocacy over his 36 years on the Court. But little remains of his advocacy. In contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia and today’s Originalists have exerted larger influence through a coherent, structured, disciplined judicial philosophy creating a long-term impact on the Supreme Court and American law. Douglas was an outstanding, disciplined individual; Scalia combined discipline and ideology with an institutional strategy. Is democracy another reason for the Democrats failure? The Democrats emphasis on inclusiveness is truly democratic, but it also makes it harder for them to act with strategic, institutional discipline. Historically, FDR was certainly able to promote a clear agenda; he had a program, although the Supreme Court did not always follow. Lyndon Johnson also had a program. He was able to get his Great Society legislation passed because of his political savvy, personal persuasion, and a Democratic majority in Congress. But where is the New Deal today? Where is the Great Society? With some exceptions, neither Roosevelt nor Johnson, with all their political skills and anti-democratic maneuvering, were able to create sustainable projects able to withstand Trump’s/MAGA’s assaults. And whatever exceptions remain are being attacked and eroded. “Our message has to be focused on the questions that are closest to the hearts of the voters,” Pete Buttigieg said in the Times article. “What you’re seeing with successful candidates on the Democratic side in these races is whatever their exact prescription is, they have been very, very focused on costs of living.” Too focused? Too narrow? Progressives and the Democratic Party face a clear challenge beyond the 2026 midterms: how to match the Right’s long-term discipline without losing the inclusiveness that defines a coalition. Progressives have plenty of ideas and initiatives, but without a coherent strategy of ideas and enduring institutions they risk reacting instead of leading. The Democratic Party may have a landslide victory in 2026, but affordability as a slogan and anti-Trump denunciations will not be enough in the long-term. The post Looking Beyond the 2026 Midterms: Slogans Are Not a Strategy appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Warner.
‘Russia’s defensive war against NATO expansion’ — a concept that has become almost axiomatic for many Western leftists. This concept conveniently serves both to rationalize Russia’s actions and to radicalize criticism of their own governments. But what role does Putin himself assign to the supposed NATO threat? A close reading of his key speeches reveals More The post The Russian Idée Fixe appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png 2526w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-768x497.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-1536x995.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-2048x1326.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-500x324.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-600x389.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2526px) 100vw, 2526px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2526" height="1636" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png 2526w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-768x497.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-1536x995.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-2048x1326.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-500x324.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-600x389.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2526px) 100vw, 2526px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2526" height="1636" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png 2526w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-768x497.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-1536x995.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-2048x1326.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-500x324.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-600x389.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2526px) 100vw, 2526px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2526" height="1636" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM.png 2526w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-768x497.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-1536x995.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-2048x1326.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-500x324.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-600x389.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2526px) 100vw, 2526px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="973" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-768x497.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-1536x995.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-2048x1326.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-500x324.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-600x389.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 973px) 100vw, 973px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395478" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png" alt="" width="680" height="440" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-680x440.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-973x630.png 973w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-768x497.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-1536x995.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-2048x1326.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-500x324.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-11.12.51-AM-600x389.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> ‘Russia’s defensive war against NATO expansion’ — a concept that has become almost axiomatic for many Western leftists. This concept conveniently serves both to rationalize Russia’s actions and to radicalize criticism of their own governments. But what role does Putin himself assign to the supposed NATO threat? A close reading of his key speeches reveals that Putin explicitly denies any danger of a NATO attack on Russia. Instead, all the ruler’s attention and passion are focused elsewhere — on the question of primordial ‘historical justice.’ Putin dusts off millennia-old chronicles, finding in them proof of his reactionary utopia, his imagined historical right to possess Ukraine. Let’s talk about the most underestimated cause of this war — ideological obsession. The Russian idée fixe. 1,300 kilometers. That’s how much longer Russia’s border with the NATO military bloc became in 2022 after two previously neutral countries — Sweden and Finland — joined the alliance. The Baltic Sea effectively turned into an internal sea of NATO. St. Petersburg, Russia’s northern capital, now lies just 148 kilometers from the border of a hostile bloc. What was Russia’s reaction? Did Putin issue a military ultimatum? Threaten a preemptive operation? Concentrate troops on the border? No. None of that happened. Meanwhile, in the context of Ukraine, the NATO question keeps surfacing in Russian discourse. An even greater role is assigned to NATO in the discourse of the Western left. And this despite the fact that Ukraine was denied membership back in 2008. Germany, France, and many other states openly opposed Ukraine’s accession — when the veto of even one member is enough to block it. The very presence of Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol already made Ukraine’s accession to the alliance barely possible. After the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in Donbas, Ukraine’s NATO membership became even more unthinkable — the existence of territorial disputes and ongoing conflicts automatically closes the alliance’s doors to any applicant. It turns out that Russia’s northern neighbor joining NATO poses no threat to it — while Ukraine, which had no chance of membership, became the target of a full-scale invasion. How can this be explained? Let’s give the floor to Vladimir Putin himself. Who is Mr. Ruric? Let’s go back to February 2024. Moscow. After two years of boycotts by Western media, an American journalist arrives in Russia’s snow-covered capital to interview Vladimir Putin. That journalist is Tucker Carlson — a conservative blogger and supporter of Donald Trump. Skeptical of liberal media explanations for the reasons behind Russia’s invasion, he wants to hear firsthand what drove Putin to launch the largest land war in Europe since World War II. After all, the leader of the world’s biggest nuclear power couldn’t have sent tank columns toward a neighboring capital without serious reasons. Perhaps there was something that pushed Putin to make this difficult decision — something the Western audience doesn’t know? Moreover, Carlson already has his own guesses on the matter: most likely, it all comes down to the Democrats’ administration and their eastern NATO policy, which, he suspects, provoked Russia into this desperate move, leaving it no choice. – On February 24, 2022, you addressed your country in your nationwide address when the conflict in Ukraine started and you said that you were acting because you had come to the conclusion that the United States through NATO might initiate a quote, “surprise attack on our country.” And to American ears that sounds paranoid. Tell us why you believe the United States might strike Russia out of the blue. How did you conclude that? — Tucker Carlson asks his first question. The question is as precise as it is fair. After all, in the twenty-first century, no state can openly wage a war of conquest without framing it as defense against an external threat. Every aggressor — from Hitler to Netanyahu — has called their war forced, defensive, provoked from the outside, a response to danger facing the state and its citizens. And if Russia sees itself as defending, then surely it must have the strongest possible arguments for doing so. What was threatening Russia? What danger was Putin trying to prevent? – It’s not that the United States was preparing to launch a surprise attack on Russia, I never said so. — Putin deflects. — Are we having a talk show here, or a serious conversation? I will take only 30 seconds or one minute of your time to give you a brief historical background. Don’t you mind?” In an attempt to explain to the Western audience his true motives for attacking Ukraine, Putin delivers a 25-minute pseudo-historical lecture. From it, astonished Americans hear for the first time names like the ancient Rus’ prince Rurik, princes Oleg and Yaroslav the Wise, Mongol leaders Genghis Khan and Batu Khan, cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and Empress Catherine II. Putin speaks of the blood and spiritual unity of Ukrainians and Russians, calling them “one people.” He even tries to hand Carlson a stack of seventeenth-century archival letters supposedly proving that Ukrainians are inseparable from Russians. Any efforts by Carlson to interrupt and return to the main question — what exactly threatened Russia in 2022? — fail. Putin keeps dragging the American back through the centuries, trying to explain how Russia’s enemies “artificially separated” Ukrainians from the one Russian people. All of this, Putin insists, must be understood in order to grasp the deeper causes of the invasion. For half an hour, the Russian leader, referring to ancient chronicles and medieval charters, tries to convince the American that Ukrainian lands have belonged to Russia from time immemorial. The Ukrainian nation and its statehood, he argues, are artificial — a historical accident, an awkward mistake that it is now time to correct. ‘They want to attack Russia,’ ‘They want to destroy Russia,’ ‘The country faces a military invasion,’ ‘Our citizens could become victims of aggression,’ ‘Our internationally recognized territory is being seized’ — not a single one of these phrases was said, nor could it have been. Putin himself admits: the Russian Federation as a state faced no threat. The danger loomed over another Russia — the mythological, thousand-year-old Russia encompassing broader “historical” lands. The Russian Federation within the borders of the former RSFSR, once outlined by the Bolsheviks, is merely a fragment of the former great Rus’ territory, including Belarus and Ukraine. The separation and ultimate departure of Ukraine from the imagined spiritual and political space of the “Russian World” — that is the threat Putin seeks to prevent. And at the end of the conversation, he states this to Carlson directly: “The reunification [of one people] will happen. It never went anywhere,” Putin concludes confidently. Right to Ukraine Let’s ask ourselves: if the leader of a warring country delivers a lengthy lecture about the depths of history to explain his motives — does it matter to him? Yes, it does. Nothing matters more. “A serious conversation.” Putin was given two hours of airtime to explain to the world that he isn’t a villain and is merely defending Russia from the NATO threat. Yet instead, he devotes the bulk of his airtime to what he sees as the most important thing — a primordialist justification of his supposed “right” to possess Ukraine. What should we call this? An ideological obsession — an idée fixe. Unlike the thousands of Western Marxists who insist that Russia faces a NATO threat, Putin himself claims nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he denies it outright. No one was planning — or is planning — to attack the Russian Federation. The reason for the war, Putin says, is the “unlawful,” “blasphemous,” and “historically criminal” removal of Russia’s mythical cradle — Kyiv and the surrounding southern Rus’ lands — from its sphere of influence. Little wonder that Putin shows complete indifference toward Sweden and Finland joining NATO. The reason is simple: they do not belong to the imagined primordial space known as the “Russian World.” People there do not speak Russian; there are no ancient Rus’ churches, no sites of great battles, no sacred artifacts of nationalist mythology. The Finns can hardly be called “one people” with the Russians. But Ukraine is a different story — the possession of which is the idée fixe of Russian imperial nationalism, and of Vladimir Putin personally. Indeed, the ruler of Russia does see the war as defensive. But in what sense? Simply put, he is not “defending” the Russian Federation within its 1991 borders, but rather the frontiers of an ancient Empire that, in his deepest conviction, were unlawfully and artificially torn away by enemies from the bosom of Russia’s thousand-year-year-old statehood. Just as Zionist leaders firmly believe that their “right to Judea and Samaria is written in the Bible,” the Russian leadership has come to believe that its right to possess Ukraine is confirmed by the chronicles of Kyivan Rus’ and the letters of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. For both Israel and Russia, the concept of international law is far too young and has not yet stood the test of time. The UN-based system of international law is only eighty years old; the European treaty on the inviolability of borders — barely fifty. What is this nonsense compared to millennia-old chronicles and sacred texts? If international law humiliates Russia by denying its “legitimate claims” to the cradle of Russian civilization, then it must be bad international law! If it does not allow the return of historical lands, it serves Russia’s enemies. If it perpetuates the dismemberment of the once-unified Russian Empire, if it allows Ukrainians to leave the bosom of the “Russian World,” then following such law is not only harmful but criminal. This is roughly the logic of the Kremlin elders. Few would doubt the deep ideological motives driving Israel’s leaders in their permanent war for territorial expansion. Why, then, do the international left refuse to see the similar ideological impulses behind Russia’s leadership? To ignore how obsessed Putin is with the conquest of Ukraine requires an exceptional kind of blindness. The concept of a divided people Perhaps one interview isn’t enough to draw conclusions? Let us turn to Putin’s other key speeches and statements. Six months before the invasion, in July 2021 — as the world was only beginning to recover from the pandemic and no one could imagine a coming full-scale war — Vladimir Putin published his infamous article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In it, he for the first time laid out a comprehensive declaration of his commitment to the primordialist myth, preparing the ideological ground for his future invasion. In this completely pseudo-scientific article, full of manipulations and false claims, Putin declares that Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are not distinct nations but branches of one Russian people. The main idea running through the entire article is clear: Ukrainian identity was artificially constructed and nurtured by Russia’s enemies to split one people apart and pit its parts against each other. Ukrainians are denied a separate national identity, their own statehood, and the ability to exercise sovereignty as they see fit. For the first time, Vladimir Putin systematically lays out his views on the proper world order: Ukraine must exist exclusively within the Russian “spiritual and political space.” Any attempt by Ukrainians to leave this sphere will be regarded as an infringement on the integrity of primordialist harmony. What is this, if not a direct declaration of the ideological motives behind the war? Some might say: “Perhaps this is just one of many statements. Surely there are others in which Putin pragmatically describes threats to Russia from Western imperialism.” No — Putin has written no other programmatic article. His piece “On the Historical Unity…” remains the sole and defining manifesto of the invasion. Vladimir Putin repeated the same theses in his keynote speech on 21 February 2022, three days before the invasion began. “Since ancient times, the inhabitants of the southwestern historical lands of Kyivan Rus’ called themselves Russians and Orthodox,” this is how he begins his yet another pseudo-historical excursus. Exactly half of his speech is devoted to the ideological argument that Ukraine is an artificial state, created by the Bolsheviks. That Lenin’s criminal mistake in national policy resulted in the excision from the unified Russian Empire of an “ugly creature” — an independent Ukraine. And, apparently, it now falls to Vladimir Putin to correct this fateful mistake. Yes, this speech also touches on the expansion of NATO’s military influence across Ukraine. But what matters is the context in which it is mentioned. The problem, from Putin’s perspective, is this: Ukraine’s coastal cities were conquered in the eighteenth century by Russian tsarist warlords at the cost of Russian soldiers’ blood, and therefore the presence of NATO bases there would be a mockery of the memory of heroic Russian colonisers. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that in two brief paragraphs, Vladimir Putin does mention a possible NATO threat to Russia’s internationally recognized territory. He warns that if the Americans deploy their missiles and strategic bombers in Ukraine, it would be a “knife to the throat.” But… First, these brief passages are completely lost against the backdrop of his extensive primordialist justification for the war. If defending against a hypothetical NATO military aggression were truly the primary motive, it would clearly have been a higher priority. Second, the scenario of nuclear weapons being deployed in Ukraine and the Americans attacking the world’s largest nuclear power is utterly far-fetched — something Putin himself would acknowledge two years later in the Carlson interview cited above. Third, as already mentioned, when the “knife to the throat” came from Finland, Putin did… nothing! What are we left with? Putin’s two main encyclicals on the invasion stand as pure distillations of ideology. Core argument Perhaps, after four years of war — after the enormous sacrifices made by the Ukrainian people in resisting the invasion, after Ukrainians have demonstrated through every action that they refuse to live under Russian rule — perhaps, after all this, Vladimir Putin has come down to a more pragmatic stance and abandoned his idée fixe of “reuniting the divided people”? No, he remains faithful to his reactionary utopia. “I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to be one people, in fact. In that sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” Putin declared in the summer of 2025. That same summer, Donald Trump decided to lift Russia out of international isolation and invited Putin to a summit in Alaska. Offering fairly generous concessions, he hoped that the Russian leader, as a pragmatic politician, would strike a deal and make peace. But Trump was wrong. No deal took place. The FT describes the details of the closed-door meeting as follows: “Putin rejected the US offer of sanctions relief for a ceasefire, insisting the war would end only if Ukraine capitulated […]. The Russian president then delivered a rambling historical discursion spanning medieval princes such as Rurik of Novgorod and Yaroslav the Wise, along with the 17th century Cossack chieftain Bohdan Khmelnytsky — figures he often cites to support his claim Ukraine and Russia are one nation. Taken aback, Trump raised his voice several times and at one point threatened to walk out. He ultimately cut the meeting short and cancelled a planned lunch…” Let us just reiterate this point. At the very first talks since 2022 between the leaders of the world’s two largest nuclear powers, Vladimir Putin discusses with his counterpart not the ‘encirclement of Russia by NATO bases,’ not American nuclear weapons in Europe, not ‘Russia’s security concerns,’ not intermediate-range missiles or anti-missile defence — in short, none of the issues constantly cited by Western leftists when discussing Russia’s supposedly defensive war against NATO expansion. No, Putin is preoccupied with entirely different matters. At a high-level meeting with the U.S. president, he invokes medieval legends as the most important argument for recognizing his “right to Ukraine.” Time and again, he launches into long lectures, hoping that Western leaders will finally understand the concept of “one people” rooted in deep antiquity and acknowledge his correctness. If this isn’t ideological obsession, then what is? Praxis One could, of course, assume that this primordialist idée fixe of “reuniting a divided people” goes no further than Vladimir Putin’s quasi-historical lectures at public events — that in practice, Russia is merely acting pragmatically to eliminate external threats. But that is not the case. The ideological tenets of Russia’s reactionary utopia are being fully realized in the course of this war. Within the past four years, Russia has been swept by a massive ideological campaign aimed at denying Ukraine’s very existence. Pupils in all Russian schools from first grade onwards now attend “Сonversations about important things” — weekly lessons in state chauvinist propaganda. In 2023, school textbooks were rewritten personally by Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky — one of those exerting strong ideological influence on Putin — to describe Ukraine as an artificial formation created by the Bolsheviks. Dmitry Medvedev, a top official, publicly calls for Ukrainian independence to ‘disappear forever’ against the backdrop of a giant map showing two-thirds of Ukrainian lands annexed by Russia. Television propagandists like Vladimir Solovyov go far beyond simple denial of Ukraine, even calling for the destruction of Ukrainian megacities if their residents do not surrender to the Russian army and accept a Russian identity. Kremlin-linked ultraright philosopher Aleksandr Dugin calls Ukraine “a toxic stain on our territory,” arguing that after full occupation Ukrainian identity will have to be eradicated for decades to prevent its resurgence. But the most telling embodiment of Vladimir Putin’s primordialist ideas is the policy pursued in the occupied territories. A 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights report recognized a systematic campaign to wipe off Ukrainian cultural identity in the areas annexed by Russia: […] people in areas under the effective control of Russia continue to face severe restrictions in the realization of their right to take part in cultural life, including the right to use and teach minority languages, history and culture. [There’s] a large-scale campaign to systematically erase Ukrainian history, culture, cultural identity and language, rewriting historical curricula, and repressing local cultural symbols, as well as the general undermining of the linguistic identity of ethnic minorities in areas under the effective control of Russia. But the core ideological work of eradicating Ukrainian identity is carried out among children from the occupied territories. The Ukrainian language has been removed from school curricula. Children who keep speaking Ukrainian are bullied and their parents pressured. Ukrainian teenagers are recruited into paramilitary groups that indoctrinate them with Russian chauvinism and hostility to Ukrainian identity. Moreover, an entire network of “military-patriotic” camps trains adolescents from the occupied areas in weapons handling, small-unit tactics, drone operation and battlefield medicine — preparing them to fight against Ukraine. The systematic practices of abduction, forced adoption and re-education of children from occupied zones led to the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in 2023. Are all of the above also supposed to be “provoked defensive measures against NATO’s external threat”? Of course not! What we are witnessing is a consistent policy of territorial expansion and ethnic assimilation of Ukrainians — the literal implementation of Putin’s “one people” doctrine. Carthago delenda est Marxists typically view ideological motives for war with suspicion, often resorting to economic determinism or pragmatic explanations, such as the currently popular theory of “offensive realism.” Nevertheless, when we are dealing with a system in which the supreme ruler concentrates virtually unlimited power and possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, his ideological obsessions become a crucial factor shaping reality. A close example can be found in the aforementioned reactionary utopia of the Israeli far-right, which has undoubtedly served as the basis for the genocide in Gaza and permanent ethnic cleansing іn the West Bank. Few left-leaning observers would deny the significance of Zionist doctrines in shaping Middle Eastern politics. So why is the primordialist ideology of Russian expansionism almost entirely ignored by leftist commentators? We can debate at length how Vladimir Putin came to his ideas, at what stage, and for what reasons they radicalized, turning into a driving force behind the war. But to deny their influence on material reality is to sin against the truth. The left criticizes Eurocentrism. Yet they often fall into its trap themselves, preferring to believe that the elites of Western countries are solely to blame for every single problem in the world. This very assumption underlies the concept of “Russia’s defensive war against NATO expansion.” Such a Eurocentric view entirely strips Russia of agency, ignoring its own internal motives and aspirations. Putin’s Russia is unquestionably an actor on the world stage. It does not merely respond to external challenges, but imposes its will. It has its own vision of the proper world order — its reactionary utopia. A central element of this utopia, the “one people,” is the subjugation of Ukraine and the radical reshaping of its citizens’ identities, a laboratory of which can be observed in the annexed territories. The existence of a separate and unsubmissive Ukrainian nation became, for Vladimir Putin, a kind of “Carthage that must be destroyed” — the Russian idée fixe. Without grasping this fact, February 24, 2022 remains incomprehensible—as does the recurring enigmatic phrase about “eliminating the root causes of the conflict.” The post The Russian Idée Fixe appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Andriy Movchan.
I’ve been thinking about moments. Under the heavy onslaught of the last year, the moments of relief I’ve felt in these last twelve months have felt slight. Resistance — I’ve seen lots of it — but it has felt flimsy against the heft of aircraft carriers in the Caribbean and heavy-tread bulldozers in Gaza. The More The post A Moment for Desire appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/84320dda-e04d-486d-9692-4aa1e93d8209_1004x753-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/84320dda-e04d-486d-9692-4aa1e93d8209_1004x753-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/84320dda-e04d-486d-9692-4aa1e93d8209_1004x753-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/84320dda-e04d-486d-9692-4aa1e93d8209_1004x753-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/84320dda-e04d-486d-9692-4aa1e93d8209_1004x753-600x450.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/84320dda-e04d-486d-9692-4aa1e93d8209_1004x753.jpg 1004w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo: Laura Flanders. I’ve been thinking about moments. Under the heavy onslaught of the last year, the moments of relief I’ve felt in these last twelve months have felt slight. Resistance — I’ve seen lots of it — but it has felt flimsy against the heft of aircraft carriers in the Caribbean and heavy-tread bulldozers in Gaza. The heartfelt words on a million protest signs seem no match for the cruel men’s Projects and choice-crushing cuts. What’s a raucous moment of resistance against official silence and the solidity of a prison wall? What’s the wash of a sense of solidarity against the prospect of crushed tundra or more concrete on a cajun marsh? John Berger reminded me. Writing in 2006, the British art critic, writer, artist, and poet wrote that even as a powerful new economic and military global tyranny was being established, civil society was discovering new ways to rebel. As power consolidated, solidified, sedimented heavily into place, resistance was de-centralizing, reinventing, becoming less “authorized”, more self-reliant, and more cooperative. In such times, he wrote, “moments” matter: “Today the desire for justice is multitudinous. This is to say that struggles against injustice, struggles for survival, for self-respect, for human rights, should never be considered merely in terms of their immediate demands, their organizations, or their historical consequences. They cannot be reduced to “movements.”” A movement, he continued, is judged by its failure or success in achieving a certain goal. This ignores “the countless personal choices, encounters, illuminations, sacrifices, new desires, griefs and finally memories which the movement brought about.” Are we changed by every protest, by every time we’ve taken a stand in public, risking the wrath of masked men, or reporters, or shopkeepers, or friends? “The promise of a movement is its future victory,” wrote Berger. “The promises of the incidental moments are instantaneous.” When we experience what he called “freedom in action” we experience our own setting-of-priorities: “Not all desires lead to freedom, but freedom is the experience of a desire being acknowledged, chosen and pursued.” What were we acknowledging in 2025 when we stood up for one another, for strangers against body-snatchers? For women and girls against rapists and traders? For trans kids and parents against those who’d sentence them to despair? What were we choosing when we bought the banned books at the resolute bookstores and returned them to the censorious libraries; when we thanked doctors for their vaccines, and indigenous healers for what they’ve shared? What did we learn when we defended the teachers who taught what anti-Arab and anti-Black racism is and does? We pursued safe migrations and happy love-making, a free Palestine, affordable housing, truth-telling, climate caring, and candidates with consciences. We didn’t get them but we felt our desire for them. We won some. Berger wrote repeatedly that the dead help the living. He died in 2017. The essay I’m quoting here was written almost twenty years ago. It’s helping me to pause amidst the onslaught and wonder. If it gave us nothing else, 2025 gave us moments in which we acknowledged and pursued our desires for a world fit to live in. What comes of that? What could? Happy New Year. *John Berger’s essay collection, “Hold Everything Dear; Dispatches on Survival and Resistance”, first published in 2007, was republished in 2025 by Verso. The post A Moment for Desire appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Laura Flanders.
It’s true — 2025 has been a hard year. It’s easy to focus on the disasters, and there have been many. But we also had real victories that moved us closer to a better world. Here are some of my highlights from 2025: 1. Israel was forced to negotiate a ceasefire In October, a ceasefire More The post 10 Good Things That Happened in 2025 appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-500x272.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-600x327.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-200x200.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-200x200.png 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-100x100.png 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="610" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-768x418.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-500x272.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-600x327.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="610" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-680x370.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-768x418.png 768w, 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loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="610" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-680x370.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-768x418.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-500x272.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-600x327.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="610" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-680x370.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-768x418.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-500x272.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-600x327.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="610" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-680x370.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-768x418.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-500x272.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-600x327.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395446" class="wp-image-395446 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-680x370.png" alt="" width="680" height="370" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-680x370.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-768x418.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-500x272.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM-600x327.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.14.57-AM.png 1120w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Mahmoud Khalil, 2025. Photo Credit: © European Union, 2025 via Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 4.0 It’s true — 2025 has been a hard year. It’s easy to focus on the disasters, and there have been many. But we also had real victories that moved us closer to a better world. Here are some of my highlights from 2025: 1. Israel was forced to negotiate a ceasefire In October, a ceasefire agreement was reached in Gaza, though it would be a lie to call it an end to the genocide we’ve all been witnessing for over two years. Still, the pause matters because it reveals what Israel could not achieve. Israel failed to break the Palestinian people or erase them from their land. It was forced to negotiate. It also gave us one of the rare moments where we saw videos coming out of Gaza with Palestinians celebrating in the streets, and feeling a little bit of relief for the first time in a long time. Yes, the Israelis are violating the ceasefire every day, Palestinians continue to suffer, and the “Peace Plan” passed by the United Nations is a sham. But the fact that Israel was unable to accomplish its goal of defeating and expelling the Palestinians–and instead had to negotiate–is in itself a testament to the power of both the Palestinians and their supporters throughout the world. 2. Mahmoud Khalil is free In June, after months in ICE detention, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was freed! We got to see him at the People’s Conference for Palestine and he’s been in action ever since. From the moment he was first detained, the Palestine solidarity movement never stopped demanding his freedom. We knew that if we allowed this to happen to Mahmoud, it could happen to any one of us. His freedom is a testament to the power we all have when we stand together and have a clear demand. The same goes for Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk, Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi and British Journalist Sami Hamdi – all were freed from ICE’s grip due to mounting public pressure. 3. Majority of Americans are against war Polls came out all year in the U.S. that proved that people inside the belly of the beast are becoming more and more anti-war! Whether the conflicts are in Ukraine, Gaza, or Venezuela, the people of the U.S. are sick and tired of their country going to war. This, if people take action on their beliefs, this will have huge implications for the U.S. war machine! The anti-war movement is growing, and we have the power of the people behind us! 4. People came together to protest ICE raids and support immigrants From Washington, D.C. to Chicago to Los Angeles, people across the country have been rising up to reject the unjust and illegal ICE raids ripping through our communities. As ICE agents terrorized grocery stores, elementary schools, and neighborhoods, communities responded by forming rapid-response networks to document abuses, provide legal support, and protect those being targeted. This collective resistance has been an inspiring expression of humanity in action — proof that when Trump’s administration pushes fear, racism, and a fascist agenda, people come together in solidarity to defend one another and fight back. 5. Zohran Mamdani will be the mayor of the largest US city Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC mayoral race was fueled by the Palestine movement and the collective mobilization of hundreds of thousands who are unwilling to be swayed by centrist, big-money interests and are ready for a new system. His win has already inspired others to run for office on a similar platform, showing how campaigns that speak to people’s needs can break through. Mamdani now inherits a seat at the heart of the war economy — presiding over the largest police department in the country and a city with deep political and financial ties to Israel. That reality makes his victory not an endpoint, but an opening: a chance to push demands for divestment and a peace economy to the center of city politics, and to turn the energy of his campaign into sustained, collective action — in the streets, in organizing spaces, and at the ballot box. 6. Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza makes history For the first time in recent history, the Global Sumud Flotilla sailed into Gaza’s waters and came close to breaking the blockade! I was so inspired by the selfless activists, including my friend Adnaan Stumo and his brother Tor, who set sail to Gaza despite great personal risk. The Global Sumud Flotilla was the largest flotilla in history, and even though Israel arrested and detained dozens of brave humanitarians, their souls weren’t shaken. Another Gaza flotilla will soon set sail again, unintimidated by Israel’s threats! 7. AIPAC is losing power AIPAC’s grip is starting to crack, with a growing number of candidates openly rejecting its money. Even more striking, some AIPAC-backed members of Congress defied the lobby this year—voting against its positions and infuriating a group long used to unquestioned loyalty. More and more people are waking up to AIPAC’s influence over our government, and are calling for a widespread rejection of it! 8. Mexico’s woman president shows what principled leadership looks like Overseas, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman president, has delivered bold progress at home — expanding public education, investing in clean energy, and strengthening labor rights and social programs that put working families first. When Trump tried to bully Mexico with tariff threats and demanded that Mexico play border cop, Sheinbaum defended Mexico’s sovereignty with competence, dignity, and a refreshing refusal to be intimidated. And when Trump blocked Venezuelan tankers from delivering oil to Cuba, Mexico stepped in to supply its own oil — a clear act of solidarity that showed what principled leadership looks like on the world stage. 9. Ecuador rejects U.S. military base At a moment when the U.S. is openly reviving the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America, Ecuador held a national referendum — and nearly 60% of voters said no to reopening a U.S. military base on Ecuadorian soil. By rejecting a foreign base, Ecuadorians asserted their sovereignty and made clear they refuse to be a launchpad for U.S. wars. Even amid a rightward political swing across the region, this vote shows that organized people can still block militarization and defend their self-determination. 10. U.S. and Chinese citizens chose connection over fear This year offered a rare and hopeful reminder of how quickly walls can fall when people are allowed to meet one another as human beings. From the warmth and curiosity circulating on RedNote to iShowSpeed’s unfiltered encounters, a wave of everyday, people-to-people exchanges cut through political fear-mongering and brought Americans and Chinese together around shared humanity. In these small but powerful connections, the image of China as an “enemy” began to fade, replaced by curiosity and connection — and for the first time in five years, the number of Americans who consider China an enemy has dropped by nearly 10%. I hope you can look back on 2025 as the year movements for peace and justice freed political prisoners, slowed the war machine, and helped turn the public against endless wars. Even in the hardest moments, that’s how I’ll choose to remember it. And I hope 2026 brings us closer to the world we all want to see. The post 10 Good Things That Happened in 2025 appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Medea Benjamin.
The Rat Cage is NSPM-7: On Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5
I. 2+2=5: The Father’s Warning The film opens with a scene inside an automobile: a father is talking to his young son about deep and troubling issues that the child cannot hope to understand yet. The father is saying to the boy, “How much is two and two?” The boy replies, “Four.” “There are people More The post The Rat Cage is NSPM-7: On Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg 680w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="680" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="630" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg 680w" sizes="(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-395400" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="680" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Owell-225-square-400px-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> I. 2+2=5: The Father’s Warning The film opens with a scene inside an automobile: a father is talking to his young son about deep and troubling issues that the child cannot hope to understand yet. The father is saying to the boy, “How much is two and two?” The boy replies, “Four.” “There are people who will tell you the answer is five. Usually they’re called governments. Great leaders. It becomes very important to them that the people should believe that the answer is five. They’ll tell you lies. They’ll torture you. They’ll kill you. At the moment of death, you must still insist that the answer is four.” Then we hear ominous tones from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, and the movie begins in earnest. We look closer, and we see the father is Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell, and he is talking to his son, Richard, and it’s a scene from the film The Crystal Spirit: Orwell on Jura (dir. John Glennister, 1983). Jura is an island of the Inner Hebrides where Orwell and his family have gone so that the author can pen his novel, 1984. Orwell might as well have been speaking in the car to his younger self, a sage conversing with a naif. Orwell: 2+2=5, directed and written by Raoul Peck (nominated for an Academy Award for his James Baldwin biopic I Am Not Your Negro), assembles Orwell’s letters and essays—voiced by Damian Lewis, who starred in Homeland, the series that normalized post-9/11 surveillance culture—alongside film adaptations, contemporary footage, and commentary from figures like Edward Snowden to argue that we’ve not only arrived at Orwell’s dystopia, we’ve exceeded it. Peck understands that Orwell has been weaponized by didactic forces across the political spectrum, his work reduced to Cold War propaganda or vague warnings about “Big Government.” But Peck refuses that comfortable distance. His thesis is stark: the rat cage strapped to Winston Smith’s face has gone from metaphor to operational protocol. It’s NSPM-7. It’s the drone strike. It’s the secret list with your name on it, and you’ll never know until the algorithm decides you’re a target. II. Orwell’s Method, Peck’s Vision Peck employs only Orwell’s own words—letters, diary entries, and essays—to construct his narrative. “I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development,” Orwell writes in voiceover. “His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in.” There are no contemporary historians explaining Orwell to us, no academic voiceover imposing retrospective coherence. Lewis reads Orwell tracing his own roots from Eton snob child to the faux class advancement of his father’s military posting in Burma marks the beginning of his emergence as an individual after experiencing the traumas of the Spanish Civil War, during which he witnessed the equal brutality of both left and right totalitarianism, embodied by fascists and communists alike. The film becomes a visual memoir, a process of figuring it all out through recall. We hear Orwell wrestling with what he saw, not what he concluded. This formal choice matters: Peck refuses to deliver Orwell as settled wisdom. Instead, we get Orwell as a man radicalizing in real time, his political consciousness formed not by theory but by watching the boot come down on human faces—and recognizing, eventually, that he’d worn the boot himself in Burma. Peck structures the film around the Ministry of Truth’s four tenets—”War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength,” and ultimately “2+2=5″—interspersing them throughout alongside scenes from the animated Animal Farm, where the proletariat beasts strain to comprehend the high-minded rhetoric of their elite leadership, the pigs Napoleon and Snowball. These are complemented by contemporary post-Orwellian euphemisms: “pacification,” “collateral damage,” and “kinetic military action.” Images of fire-bombed Tokyo and devastated Berlin dissolve into equally obliterated Gaza and Mariupol; Myanmar’s burning villages echo across decades. Peck’s montage doesn’t argue for equivalence so much as continuity—the machinery of doublespeak and state violence operates across eras with remarkable consistency. The language changes just enough to maintain plausible deniability. The math remains constant: 2+2=5, if the Party says so. III. The Shittification of Language At the heart of all this imagery and Orwell’s voiceover analysis is the struggle over language itself—its power, its meaning, and its capacity to construct shared reality. Ideally, we communicate with the Other and together negotiate the parameters of what’s real and what’s true. But slogans, memes, jingles, and tweets—these push communication into cliché at lightning speed, stripping words of meaning until they become weapons. “Freedom” means surveillance. “Peace” means perpetual war. “Security” means execution without trial. This is the thematic core of 1984 and Animal Farm: keep the proles from education, especially critical thinking, and they’ll believe anything. Marx taught us that whoever controls the machinery controls the narrative. Peck brings in Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for defending press freedom, to describe what’s happening to language now: a “shittification” that strips words of referential meaning entirely. When language means nothing, everything becomes permissible—the same moral vertigo Dostoevsky warned of when he wrote that if God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted. Peck shows us the elites who’ve spent lifetimes and fortunes forcing 2+2=5 down the throats of the underclass—not through overt violence (though that too), but through the patient degradation of language until objective truth becomes a category error. You can’t resist what you can’t name. You can’t organize against what you can’t articulate. The Ministry of Truth doesn’t burn books anymore—it just makes them impossible to read clearly. Peck extends this analysis by bringing in another Nobel laureate: British playwright Harold Pinter, whose 2005 acceptance speech delivered an excoriating indictment of the American empire and its linguistic camouflage. Pinter understood that words become weapons when unmoored from meaning. In his play The Birthday Party, two thugs arrive at a boarding house to “collect” the protagonist Stanley for “adjustment.” They toy with him linguistically, one promising “we’ll make a new man of you,” the other countering “a new woman.” The interrogation scene is pure linguistic terrorism—rapid-fire questions that demand answers to unanswerable contradictions, breaking Stanley’s mind before they ever lay hands on him. It’s Room 101 without the rats, just the psychopathology of psychobabble ruling absolutely. Pinter showed us that you don’t need electroshock or waterboarding when you can simply drain language of stable reference until the subject can no longer anchor reality. The eschatological dimension of this scenario can’t be ignored: when words mean nothing and everything simultaneously, we’re approaching some endpoint of the symbolic order itself. Stanley’s breakdown prefigures Winston’s—the self dissolved not by pain but by the impossibility of coherent speech. In America, where the great experiment in representative democracy once held high hopes—especially after George Mason forced the Bill of Rights into the original Constitution—one of democracy’s necessary sentinels is the mainstream media. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Without First Amendment guarantees, the Constitution would be nothing more than a guarantor of private property owners. But as Orwell well knew, this freedom can be turned against the people. Peck shows us how: we start by warring on an abstract noun (terrorism), then gradually expand the definition of what constitutes terrorism until it includes dissent itself. The prole animals watch, uncomprehending, as the pigs rewrite the barn wall overnight. Yesterday, “terrorism” meant hijacking planes. Today it means protesting, organizing, questioning—or simply being designated as such on a list you’ll never see. IV. The Voluntary Cage: Surveillance as Service Peck includes footage of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez systematically trapping Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg in contradictions about content moderation—what gets censored, what gets amplified, and who decides. But what the film doesn’t show—and should haunt every viewer—is Meta’s development of chatbots that absorb unlimited data about users, learning patterns, preferences, and vulnerabilities until the algorithm knows you better than you know yourself. This is Room 101 as a service you voluntarily subscribe to. The cage comes to you wearing a friendly interface, promising connection and convenience. Senator Frank Church warned in 1975, after investigating NSA surveillance capabilities: “That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left… There would be no place to hide.” Church understood that the technology itself was agnostic—what mattered was who controlled it and for what ends. Fifty years later, we’ve achieved something Church couldn’t imagine: we’ve willingly submitted to a fusion database controlled by mysterious others of a technical bent, feeding them our intimacies, our anxieties, and our breaking points. We’ve built the Thought Police’s dream infrastructure and called it social media. Zuckerberg’s stammering evasions before Congress miss the point: the lie isn’t in content moderation policies but in the entire apparatus itself, which treats human consciousness as raw data to be harvested, processed, and monetized. This procedure becomes even more sinister when paired with NSPM-7. You voluntarily create your own dossier—political views, associations, locations, patterns of behavior—and the national security state simply taps into databases the tech companies have already compiled. The surveillance system knows your fears because you shared them, believing you were merely chatting with friends or seeking assistance from an AI. V. Snowden’s Warning: The Retroactive Dragnet Edward Snowden appears in the film to explain how surveillance systems function as retroactive prosecution engines. “You don’t have to have done anything wrong,” Snowden explains. “You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made and every friend you’ve ever discussed something with and attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.” This is NSPM-7’s operational logic: the list designates you, then the database retroactively constructs your guilt from years of accumulated data—emails, posts, location patterns, purchases, and associations. You’ve been building your own case file every time you searched, clicked, or shared. But Snowden’s deepest fear isn’t the technology—it’s us. “The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures,” he says, “is that nothing will change. People will see in the media all of these disclosures; they’ll know the lengths that the government is going to grant themselves powers unilaterally to create greater control over American society and global society. But they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests.” There’s extra poignancy to these words now: Snowden’s Russian citizenship, granted after years of exile, came with the price of his natural-born American freedoms. He warned us about the surveillance state, was forced to flee to Russia of all places, and now watches from outside as America realizes the dystopia he tried to prevent. The man who sacrificed everything to defend constitutional rights can’t return to the country whose Constitution he defended. Peck lingers on this bitter irony. We know we’re being watched. We know the databases exist. We know NSPM-7 can weaponize them. And we scroll on. VI. The American Equation Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four spiked 9,500 percent in the week after Trump’s first inauguration, according to Penguin USA—a panic-driven recognition that something had shifted. Peck devotes substantial footage to Trump (though other global populists appear: Modi, Meloni, and Le Pen), and it’s fitting given the velocity at which he’s destroying whatever credibility America retained abroad. Miles Taylor, Trump’s own former DHS Chief of Staff, called NSPM-7 “Orwellian beyond belief.” The Intercept characterized 2025 as “a hellscape year for press freedom” marked by Trump’s “full-on authoritarian takeover.” Court orders ignored, MAGA loyalists controlling military and federal law enforcement, Congress stripped of power of the purse, critical media banished or investigated. The cruelty isn’t hidden—it’s performed, monetized, and celebrated. During Trump’s first term, Melania Trump wore a jacket to visit detained migrant children that read “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” on the back. The message went viral, spawned an entire merchandising industry, and perfectly distilled the administration’s ethos: not just indifference to suffering, but active mockery of those who care. Language weaponized as contempt. Even the physical architecture of government isn’t safe. Trump ordered the East Wing of the White House demolished to make room for a ballroom—no consultation, no congressional approval, just executive fiat treating the people’s house as his personal estate. The symbolism is precise: each successive president could now remodel on a whim, as if the building belonged to the person rather than the office. This literalizes the degradation of “executive order” itself—the phrase once meant stabilizing governance through systematic policy but now means arbitrary personal whim encoded as law. Order without order. The language eats itself. Yet mainstream outlets continue covering this as “politics as usual,” describing Trump as “unconventional” or “testing boundaries” rather than naming what’s happening: the methodical demolition of democratic guardrails, architectural and constitutional alike. “The friends of totalitarianism in this country usually tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable,” Orwell’s voiceover tells us, “a big lie is no worse than a little lie.” In one devastating sequence, Peck displays a New York Times piece from 2017—nothing but a long catalogue of the president’s documented lies and misinformation, scrolling endlessly. The visual effect is numbing, which is precisely the point. When lies accumulate at this velocity, fact-checking becomes theater. The opposition exhausts itself cataloging falsehoods while the machinery grinds forward. 2+2=5, not because anyone believes it, but because correcting it every single day is unsustainable. Eventually, people stop checking the math. Peck’s treatment of January 6th is perhaps the film’s weakest section—surface-level interviews with MAGA protestors screaming about accessing the Capitol to overturn the “stolen” election and gestures toward FBI involvement without evidence or exploration. But the footage does demonstrate 2+2=5 fully internalized: these are people who believe what they’re told to believe with religious fervor. Trump declares the election stolen; therefore, it’s stolen. No amount of evidence matters. This is Orwell’s warning realized at street level—not sophisticated Party members but true believers who’ve accepted that reality is whatever the leader says it is. VII. From Idealist to Informant: Spain’s Bitter Lesson The film lingers on Orwell’s Spanish Civil War experience, and Peck understands why it matters. For a generation of American and European intellectuals, Spain represented idealism’s last stand—Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and Martha Gellhorn went to bear witness to what they believed was the great anti-fascist struggle of the age. Orwell went to fight fascists as an idealistic socialist, joining the POUM militia. What he found shattered him: not just the expected brutality of Franco’s forces, but the ruthless dishonesty of the communists he’d come to support. In Dorian Lynskey’s biography The Ministry of Truth, we learn that Orwell witnessed Stalin’s purges replicated in miniature—show trials, disappearances, and the rewriting of who had fought where and for whom. The Left’s press lied as readily as the Right’s. Yet even amid this disillusionment, Orwell retained his essential humanity. In one incident, he had a fascist soldier in his rifle sights but couldn’t pull the trigger—the man was caught mid-defecation, pants down, vulnerable. Orwell later wrote that the soldier was “visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him” in such a moment. This recognition of shared humanity, even across enemy lines, makes what came after all the more damning. Idealism itself became the war’s primary casualty—that faith that noble intentions and righteous causes would inevitably triumph over naked power. Spain’s loss was a dress rehearsal for what followed. The democracies’ failure to confront fascism there emboldened Hitler and Mussolini, drawing a direct line from the streets of Barcelona to global conflagration. The stakes that seemed contained to the Iberian Peninsula metastasized worldwide. And when World War II finally ended, it concluded with twin ruptures that exceeded mere military defeat: the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were exclamation marks ending language itself. After those detonations, discourse regressed to pure power. We entered an infantile code that required massive national security states to protect what became an increasingly abstract notion—”security” itself, as meaningless and all-encompassing as “terrorism.” Freud could explain what happened here. In Civilization and Its Discontents and Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he describes the infant’s rage at separation from the mother’s breast and the pre-lingual fantasies of omnipotence that precede symbolic order. The bomb represented exactly this regression: the fantasy of total annihilation elevated to technological reality, the void of God replaced by satanic demigods—our contemporary tech elites living in autistic bubbles, imagining themselves as world-builders while destroying the conditions for human meaning-making. Language became what it is now: memes, slogans, and the shittification Ressa describes. We stopped negotiating reality and started demanding compliance with increasingly unhinged declarations. 2+2=5, not as a proposition but as an executive order. But the real betrayal came after: traumatized and disillusioned, Orwell returned to England and compiled his list—38 names of writers and intellectuals he deemed communist sympathizers, which he handed to British intelligence. The man who couldn’t shoot a defecating fascist because he saw a fellow creature ended up listing fellow writers as security risks. Alexander Cockburn, the notorious polemicist for The Nation, where he penned the column “Beat the Devil,” called him “a rat,” and the epithet stings because it’s accurate. Orwell became the informant before he wrote the warning. VIII. NSPM-7: The Rat Cage Operationalized Which brings us to December 2025, where the architecture Orwell warned against—and helped prototype—has been perfected. Investigative journalist Nick Turse revealed that the Trump administration refuses to rule out summary executions of Americans designated as domestic terrorists under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7. NSPM-7 is the rat cage. The list is secret. The criteria are classified. You cannot know if you’re on it. The military has already killed 95 civilians in the Caribbean and Pacific under this “designated terrorist organization” framework, and U.S. Northern Command’s Gen. Gregory Guillot testified before Congress that he would conduct similar strikes within American borders if ordered. The rat cage strapped to Winston’s face has been bureaucratized, digitized, and operationalized. It doesn’t require interrogators anymore—just an algorithm that sorts citizens into targets and a chain of command willing to execute the order. Orwell’s 38 names have become NSPM-7’s classified database. Winston screams, “Do it to Julia!”—but Orwell had already done it to his comrades, decades before he imagined Room 101. IX. Always On: The AI Amplification Peck closes with a warning Orwell couldn’t have imagined: AI will amplify this exponentially. The rat cage becomes autonomous, operating at inhuman speed and scale—always on, facial recognition targeting you, learning your breaking point before you know it yourself. We’ve already seen this phenomenon at work in Gaza, where AI systems sort civilians into targets with algorithmic efficiency. The algorithm doesn’t need Room 101’s interrogators; it just needs your data trail, your movement patterns, and your social graph. Freud understood this inevitability in Civilization and Its Discontents—we’ll never reach moral equanimity as a species because there are too many rogues, too many who know how to manipulate reality into fiction, and too much will-to-power. The fight against 2+2=5 isn’t winnable; it’s permanent. But Peck’s film refuses despair even as it rejects false hope. The value of Orwell’s 2+2=5 lies in its insistence on witness, on naming the cage even as it closes. The father tells his son in that opening scene: at the moment of death, you must still insist the answer is four. Not because you’ll survive. But someone else might remember that the truth was possible. The post The Rat Cage is NSPM-7: On Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Kendall Hawkins.
Hildegard Knef would have celebrated her 100th birthday on December 28 just passed. Given the number of cigarettes she smoked (Marlboros, three packs a day), the years she spent addicted to morphine (nearly twenty) as a result of the many operations she underwent and after the disastrous birth of her only child, and her long More The post Hildegard Knef’s Century appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Hildegard Knef’s grave. Waldfriedhof (Forest Cemetery), Zehlendorf, Berlin. Public domain. Hildegard Knef would have celebrated her 100th birthday on December 28 just passed. Given the number of cigarettes she smoked (Marlboros, three packs a day), the years she spent addicted to morphine (nearly twenty) as a result of the many operations she underwent and after the disastrous birth of her only child, and her long battle with breast cancer, she was lucky to make it to 77 when she died in 2002. She was lucky even to make it out of her teens in Berlin. She survived harrowing air raids, was once nearly incinerated trying to get into a crowded bunker. In the last days of the war she fought against the Russian advance into her neighborhood dressed as a male in German army uniform. She helped operate a machine gun, fired on the enemy though she hated the Nazis. In this disguise, she avoided rape, but also, miraculously, execution for impersonating a soldier. In the conflict’s closing chaos she married an older German officer who, after the defeat, was disappeared to Russia and never returned. In the weeks after the surrender, Knef’s beloved grandfather killed himself. Her gripping memoir, Der geschenkte Gaul (The Gift Horse), published in 1970, four years before she turned fifty, was a huge hit. The English translation remained atop The New York Times bestseller list for eighteen weeks. Her surreal account of the Battle for Berlin is literally hair-raising: severed limbs aflame, oxygen sucked from the air, people losing their minds and lives or both. Soon after the war she was summoned to America by David Selznick, keen on making her the next Ingrid Bergman. On her arrival, the notorious producer insisted that she take six hours of English lessons every day. Selznick also wanted her to change her name to Gilda Christians. She refused. Out in L.A., she studied German literature with Herbert Marcuse, but he didn’t teach her her extraordinary gifts for language. Her autobiography is a gripping, often non-linear, sharply written book filled with acid commentary and self-criticism. Mixing dialogue in her native Berlin dialect with grammatically intricate and brilliantly telling details in eccentric, challenging prose, Knef’s work is hateful of hypocrisy and full of the unblinking flair that also brightens and darkens her songs after she increasingly turned away from film acting in the 1960s. Marcuse and Selznick are just two of the dozens and dozens of names that are dropped in Der geschenkte Gaul. They don’t fall as densely and lethally as the bombs of Berlin but do detonate with their own kind of explosive power on the page. After getting a job as an animator at a Berlin movie studio, she caught the eye of producers and was soon receiving acting training and bit parts. Goebbels noticed her on screen, but with the help of canny mentors in the Berlin film business she evaded him as she did ordnance. Married first to a Jewish-American officer who also spoke German, since he’d been born in Bohemia, Knef got American citizenship and shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic working in films in English and German. To rave reviews, she starred in the original Broadway cast of Silk Stockings in 1955, was befriended by its author Cole Porter as well as Noël Coward. William Faulkner got drunk at one of her parties at her apartment on Fifth Avenue and fell asleep in the corner. She acted across from Erich von Stroheim, was a protégée of Marlene Dietrich, but fell out with her as she did with so many friends, lovers, and husbands. Knef was in Billy Wilder’s penultimate film, Fedora (1978), only to find out at the premiere that her voice had been dubbed. In this one case, she claimed not to have the words to express her disgust. Too much attention is often paid to the fact that Knef did the first nude scene in German cinema, posing for a portrait being done by the onscreen artist (Gustav Fröhlich), in Die Sünderin of 1951. Censorship, indignation, and protests ensued, especially in Catholic Bavaria. In her memoir, Knef quotes the response to all this moral outrage offered by another of her mentors, the most important interwar German film producer, Erich Pommer (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Metropolis; The Blue Angel): “They start a revolution over a film, but not over the gas chambers.” The nude scene was cut from the version released in America. Over these decades Knef raked in heaps of money with her books and songs and movies but spent more than she made. More than a little was stolen by unscrupulous managers. She lived large because she couldn’t be small. Declare your admiration for Knef now to Germans of my generation—children of the 1960s—and prepare to be scoffed at. Younger folks will look blankly at the mention of her name. Ella Fitzgerald called her “the greatest singer in the world without a voice.” That contradiction captured an essential quality of Knef. Her devotees were as ardent as her detractors. There was no middle ground in anything she made or did or in the reactions to the spectacle that was her life. Ella’s was a sincere compliment, not a backhanded one. It was easier to dismiss and defame Knef from afar than to confront the force of her persona on screen or in song. She communicated a truth, often bitter even if—or because—it was hazed or honeyed, whether live in a concert hall or club, or in the soundproofed confessional booth of the recording studio. She is known mostly now outside of Germany, a quarter century after her death, as a chanteuse in spite of being a huge film star in her day. Her song lyrics oscillated between cynicism and maudlin sincerity that, on reflection, couldn’t necessarily be trusted, at least not completely. She brought the sweet and sour together in sometimes painful embrace. One of her biggest hits, Für mich soll’s rote Rosen regnen (For me it should rain red roses) of 1968, was an oozy paean to youthful dreams and potential that could be heard both to accept and to mock its own limitless desire and heartwarming resilience. In 1999 she simultaneously updated and demolished the song with the backing of the German punk rock band Extrabreit. My favorite from her considerable catalog is the first song I heard: “Ich bin den weiten Weg gegangen” (I’ve walked the long path), written with her longtime collaborator, the Austrian composer and keyboardist Hans Hammerschmidt, who died just over a year ago at the age of 94. He’s heard on the groovy electric keyboard that animates this Lied as anti-biography. It’s a simple song made out of a relentlessly repeating bass line that descends by step before changing direction to arrive at the cadence and the start of another pass through the cycle. A radiant bridge occasionally rises from amidst these repetitions. I was immediately drawn to the song not only because of its soaring 1970s strings and studio effects, the paradoxically laid-back urgency of the drumming, the slightly frail cockiness of the electric bass, the frankness of the singing (back me up here, Ella), but also because it reminded me of one of my favorite ground basses, Dieterich Buxtehude’s setting of the 42nd Psalm: Quemadmodum desiderat cervus (Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God). This baroque masterpiece of some six minutes demands virtuosic singing that Ella could have mustered, but not Hilde. The ecstatic lines unfurling at tempo and the sustained notes holding out against the kaleidoscopic counterpoint of the ensemble ardently express an unquenchable, ever-forward striving love of the Lord. Knef’s take on this vamp begins with an admission that the road she has taken has often gone in circles. She was clever but never wise. In the second pass through the bass pattern, she sings that her life initially pursued had clear goals. She knew what these were and where she was going, in spite of the opening acknowledgment of circularity that, like the bass line, brings the narrator and listeners incessantly back to where they started. Nonetheless, she believed that her goal was a good one. It must have been fame but is never mentioned. After the third pass through the pattern there is a preemptory key change up a half step. This classic pop maneuver is usually saved as a triumphant, even redemptive gesture that comes late in a three-minute song, not dangerously near the opening as it does in “Ich bin den weiten Weg.” This chromatic boost announces not transcendence but defeat: her goal was “run over” (unters Rad gekommen)—destroyed, presumably by the wheels of the express train of her own ambition. Still, the bass line rolls on, unstoppable, indifferent as she confesses to seeking a new goal but to no avail, even as the violins strive for contradictory heights. In the end the music carries her on after she renounces direction, instead embracing individual moments (the scent of the early morning and the cool of green trees) and “the hope in others.” It is as if she wants to stop time even as the music refuses to. The inexorable groove of progress and achievement gives up on those very goals. The path leads not ahead but in circles, Knef repeats at the end before Hammerschmidt riffs into the smoggy sunset of the fade-out: words and music to live and listen by, whether the year is new or old. The post Hildegard Knef’s Century appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Yearsley.
The Reactionary Backwash: Year 2025 in Review for Latin America and the Caribbean
2025 saw progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) delegitimized and displaced. Right-wing forces have seized on drug-related crises to attack the so-called Pink Tide governments, driving a reactionary backwash and putting new, neoliberal administrations in power. The irony is that the rise in drug use and crime is driven by neoliberalism’s failure More The post The Reactionary Backwash: Year 2025 in Review for Latin America and the Caribbean appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395586" class="size-medium wp-image-395586" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Antiimperialismo_caracas-680x332.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="332" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Antiimperialismo_caracas-680x332.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Antiimperialismo_caracas-768x374.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Antiimperialismo_caracas-500x244.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Antiimperialismo_caracas-600x293.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Antiimperialismo_caracas.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Erik Cleves Kristensen – “Fuera el Imperialismo” – CC BY 2.0 2025 saw progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) delegitimized and displaced. Right-wing forces have seized on drug-related crises to attack the so-called Pink Tide governments, driving a reactionary backwash and putting new, neoliberal administrations in power. The irony is that the rise in drug use and crime is driven by neoliberalism’s failure to meet social needs. But this has been successfully cloaked. A further irony is that governments with the strongest records in limiting the social damage caused by illegal narcotics have been the principal targets of US destabilization campaigns. + Contrary to Trump’s ludicrous mistruths, reports from the United Nations, the European Union, and even the US Drug Enforcement Agency certify that Venezuela is essentially free of drug production – no cocaine or marijuana production, and certainly no fentanyl. +With its community-based policing, Nicaragua is one of the safest countries in the whole region. In contrast, neighboring Costa Rica – under aggressively neoliberal administrations – is beset by a “tsunami of cocaine” and crime “amid a backdrop of growing inequality, high unemployment, and an erosion of investment in education,” according to a special report in the Los Angeles Times. + Cuba, despite over six decades of punishing Yankee blockades, is arguably the most gang-and drug-free country in the hemisphere. Despite the reactionary backwash, more than half the region’s population is still governed by progressive administrations, of which the largest countries are Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. This could change in 2026, with presidential elections in Colombia and Brazil, where right-wing challenges threaten progressive gains. As the Financial Times observes, “Brazil’s global balancing act is trickier than ever.” Peru, where left-wing President Pedro Castillo was deposed and imprisoned two years ago, may also continue rightwards in elections scheduled for April. Of the current Pink Tide governments, Mexico appears best insulated from an imminent reversal. The “Donroe” Doctrine Presiding over these developments is an increasingly assertive US hegemon, citing a “Donroe” corollary to the nineteenth century Monroe Doctrine as justification for the havoc it is wreaking. Now formalized in the National Security Strategy, it claims to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence” in LAC. As Venezuelan Ambassador Samuel Moncada warned the UN Security Council, Venezuela is only the “first target of a larger plan” to divide and conquer the region “piece by piece.” Through a combination of elections, judicial maneuvers, and extra-parliamentary pressure, including direct interference by Washington, countries that were formerly left or left-leaning have swung sharply to the right. This trend was evident in LAC’s four major elections in 2025 – in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Honduras. There were, however, crumbs of comfort for progressives. In Ecuador, the victorious President Daniel Noboa – whose win is likely attributable to electoral fraud – has since lost key popular referendums. In Bolivia, President Rodrigo Paz faces massive popular resistance as he moves to impose austerity economics. And in Chile, the defeated communist candidate Jeannette Jara did nevertheless secure 42% in December’s runoff vote. Progressive governments have also shown a degree of unity in opposing US aggression against Venezuela, although Mexico and Brazil have also had to contend with Washington’s direct pressures on them. In Mexico, this included overt military threats. The rightward shift is starkly illustrated by Chile’s election, where the outgoing Gabriel Boric had been a “flash in the pan” and unfulfilled expectations have “reshaped the political horizon of the left.” In March, when José Antonio Kast takes office, Chile will have a “Nazi” in power – or at least a self-avowed defender of the Pinochet dictatorship and the son of an actual German Nazi. Kast’s first foreign visit after his win was to Argentina’s hard-right Javier Milei, restoring an alliance between the two major Southern Cone countries. Both have large, right-leaning middle classes that sustained dictatorships in the recent past. “Trump’s policies have intensified the extreme polarization in which the far right has replaced the center right,” notes Steve Ellner, retired professor at Venezuela’s Universidad de Oriente. Across the region, the right now arguably constitutes a significant Washington-aligned force encompassing not only Chile and Argentina but also Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, and El Salvador. All support Washington’s military aggression against Venezuela and genocide in Palestine. As Vijay Prashad observes, this new right bloc shares the libertarian economic doctrines of the Pinochet-era “Chicago Boys” (Kast’s brother was one of them), dramatized by Milei waving a chainsaw to symbolize his attack on the state. Crime and the criminalization of migration Both left and right agree that organized crime poses a major threat to LAC’s security. Although statistics show that most of the region is safer than a decade ago, violence has surged in some previously safe countries and reactionary forces have pushed crime as an issue in many others. “Polls show that in at least eight countries, including Chile, security is the dominant voter concern, driving many Latin Americans to demand iron-fisted measures and show a greater tolerance for tough-on-crime policies,” reports The New York Times. The right’s response is captured by the phrase la mano dura (“the iron fist”), exemplified by the torturous prisons of Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador. Such approaches have proven more attractive to electorates in Chile, Honduras, and Ecuador than the community-based strategies advanced by the left – even though they are proven to work. Rafael Correa successfully reduced crime in Ecuador a decade ago. Xiomara Castro, too, achieved a significant decrease in Honduras, where the homicide rate dropped to the lowest level in 30 years. Left-leaning Mexico most dramatically reduced homicides by 37%. The right’s alarming yet successful rhetoric links rising crime to drug trafficking and immigration. Trump-style measures have been sold to many Latin Americans yet, as Michelle Elner of CodePINK explains, in Cuba and Venezuela he is blocking migrants from entering the US “while systematically destroying the conditions that allow them to survive at home.” This framing resonated even in Chile, which remains Latin America’s safest country despite an increase in gang-related crime. Kast successfully blamed the increase on Chile’s half million Venezuelan migrants, whom he threatens to deport, while also proposing to construct a US-style border wall. The principal driver of the region’s crime is the drug trade. The unseen elephant in the room is the US – the world’s largest market for illegal narcotics as well as the leading money launderer of drug profits and the cartels’ gunrunner of choice. Yet Washington portrays itself as an ally in drug-related crime prevention, claiming to be tackling “narcoterrorism” not only in Venezuela but also in Colombia and Mexico. This is hypocrisy of the highest order. As Venezuelan writer Francisco Delgado Rodríquez points out: “the only culprits are cartels and bandits with Latin American surnames, and their US counterparts or partners never appear, defying common sense given that the volumes of drugs, weapons, and profits generated necessarily require organized structures of their own on US soil.” Nicaragua-based analyst Stephen Sefton also notes “the central role of the US government in manipulating the regional structures of organized crime and money laundering.” In reality, “US government propaganda uses the alibi of fighting organized crime and drug trafficking to justify its extensive military presence in the region.” Trump has elevated this hypocrisy to new heights by releasing a former Honduran president who was serving a 45-year US prison sentence for drug trafficking and links to violent crime. Trump’s administration has gone on to murder, on the high seas, over 100 supposed drug traffickers, offering no proof of their crimes, and has committed acts of piracy against commercial vessels leaving Venezuela. This is in open defiance of the Law of the Sea, which the US explicitly cites in a different context – its actions to maintain “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. The surge of drug-related crime, and even more of the rhetoric surrounding it, have coincided with the rise of a powerful Christian right. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, the region has seen rapid growth in conservative Protestant evangelical movements, particularly in Central America. Evangelicals constitute approximately 43% of the electorate in Honduras, 40% in Guatemala and Nicaragua, 37% in El Salvador, 29% in Panama, and 27% in Costa Rice and Brazil. Aligned with the populist right, these movements tend to promote social conservatism and pro-Zionism. Regional fragmentation In 2014, the 33 member states of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared the region a Zone of Peace, pointedly asserting its sovereignty and its opposition to US military infiltration. In opposition to any such accord, Washington instrumentalizes a “war on drugs,” which Cuba has described as “a pretext to conceal military, paramilitary, and interventionist operations.” Biden’s expansion of US military penetration continued seamlessly with Trump – only intensified further. This includes the deployment of a full naval armada off Venezuela’s coast, major military buildups in Puerto Rico and Panama, and the recruitment of Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, and Guyana into the offensive against Venezuela. Trump began his new term with mass migrant deportations and sweeping tariffs imposed on the region in January, a lurch toward xenophobia and economic parochialism. In response, Honduran President Xiomara Castro, then head of CELAC, called an emergency meeting, which was then canceled for lack of regional unity. The pan-Caribbean CARICOM has seen unity undermined by Trinidad and Tobago’s servile support of Trump’s armada. In response, Black Studies professor Isaac Saney asks, “Will the Caribbean accept fragmentation as its fate, or will this rupture provoke a renewed Pan-Caribbean struggle for a future beyond empire?” Indeed, other regional organizations such as the progressive-oriented CELAC and even the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) have waned, especially given the latter’s anemic response to US military aggression in the Caribbean. The OAS’s controversy-ridden Summit of the Americas, scheduled for December, has been postponed to 2026. Among the region’s most progressive forces, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) has faced setbacks, including the loss of Bolivia following the election of a right-wing president. The influential leadership of Ralph Gonsalves was also lost when he was voted out in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “The level of fragmentation that we are seeing today among Latin American countries,” Foreign Policy observes, is “the most dramatic in the last half-century.” Great power competition Washington’s push to consolidate hemispheric dominance is linked to efforts to counter China, now South America’s largest trading partner and the second largest for the overall LAC region. China’s regional strategy sharply contrasts with Trump’s. China offers a win-win model of economic cooperation for mutual benefit, while the US proffers a zero-sum model of winners and losers. China rejects excluding third parties from the region, while the US pledges to “deny non-Hemispheric competitors.” China emphasizes multilateral cooperation and shared Global South priorities, such as reforming international financial institutions, scientific collaboration, and high-tech investment. Beijing criticizes Washington’s “unilateral bullying.” Most LAC governments try to triangulate between Beijing and Washington, while also developing new trading partnerships with countries such as India. Under US pressure, however, Brazil and Mexico may impose new tariffs on Chinese goods, although trade with China remains crucial for both. Argentina’s President Milei accepted a US bailout, but nonetheless renewed a currency swap line with China. Washington is pressing its client states to take an anti-China stance, which it does not even take itself, by recognizing Taiwan and cutting formal diplomatic relations with the PRC. New rightist presidents in Bolivia and Honduras have promised to do so. Furthermore, both the US and China need access to lithium, a vital mineral in advanced technology. Argentina, Bolivia and Chile possess around 60% of the world’s known reserves. But while China offers complementary investment and industrial partnerships in return for a share of such resources, the US offers military bases and threats. Despite the counter-hegemonic presence of China, the power of the US is such that it can threaten punitive tariffs on all the constituent countries and impose unilateral coercive measures on roughly 35% of the states in the Western Hemisphere. These sanctions, which are collective punishment, are illegal under international law. This is done with relative impunity and little prospect for relief for the victims. And victims there are of the so-called sanctions – especially those imposed on Venezuela and Cuba, which are under country-level embargoes or sectoral restrictions that constitute blockades because the measures are enforced against third countries. What Pax Americana looks like Haiti represents the ultimate outcome of neoliberal whittling down of the state: a hollowed-out government, near-total loss of sovereignty to the US and its allies, and a vacuum in which criminal gangs operate with impunity. This is the logical outcome of enforced submission to empire. The US seeks to impose a similar subjugation on Venezuela precisely because Venezuela represents the hope of an alternative socio-economic order. Michelle Ellner rightly argues that Venezuela is a test case: “What is being refined now—economic siege without formal war, maritime coercion without declared blockade, starvation without bombs—is a blueprint. Any country that refuses compliance with Washington’s political and economic demands should be paying attention. This will be the map for 21st century regime change.” Even if Venezuela had not a drop of oil to be exploited, it still would be in the crosshairs of imperialism as are Marco Rubio’s other two “enemies of humanity” – resource poor Cuba and Nicaragua. Havana, made more vulnerable by the blockade on Venezuela, is now teetering on the brink of a disaster not of its own making. Nicaragua, so far treated lightly, faces attacks on its tourism industry and the likelihood of punishing tariffs. Also in line for regime-change is Colombia, whose President Gustavo Petro has emerged as a continental conscience through his criticism of Washington’s deportation policies and his outspoken support for Palestine. Nonetheless, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro faces the hardest test, likely with worse to come. He embodies a nation and more broadly a region bravely resisting imperial domination with remarkable resolve. Anti-imperialists hope and believe that such resistance by Latin America’s progressive governments will sustain them during 2026 and beyond. The post The Reactionary Backwash: Year 2025 in Review for Latin America and the Caribbean appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Roger D. Harris - John Perry.
The first thing you notice when you exit London is the silence. The city’s noise becomes an abstract memory. “In silence there is eloquence,” wrote Rumi. “Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.” Lying awake at night, there is utter silence. It is loud, almost physical, and revealing what is usually hidden, such as More The post The Abbey and the Airbase appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395588" class="size-medium wp-image-395588" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-680x452.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="452" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-680x452.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-947x630.jpg 947w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-768x511.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-1536x1021.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-500x332.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Chamber_of_the_Pyx-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Chamber of the Pyx, Westminster Abbey, London. “ptwo” – https://www.flickr.com/photos/ptwo/8328037714 – CC BY 2.0 The first thing you notice when you exit London is the silence. The city’s noise becomes an abstract memory. “In silence there is eloquence,” wrote Rumi. “Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.” Lying awake at night, there is utter silence. It is loud, almost physical, and revealing what is usually hidden, such as heartbeat, expectation. It also gives meaning to what comes next. Without silence, sound would have no shape. The artist and the artist’s mother visited “the Abbey” to light a candle for my recently deceased father-in-law—an attentive man of wide interests, still deeply grieved by the family. The real abbey itself was founded by Henry I in 1130 on the site of a late-Saxon church. It didn’t survive Henry VIII and Cromwell. It was dissolved and largely destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. People still call the main church “the Abbey” because of historical memory, physical closeness, habit, not because it was ever officially the abbey. The staff, or crosier, were preparing for a children’s nativity play. The canon, in a multicoloured waistcoat, was melodically counting chairs—“167 in all”—while his endearing wingman, a much taller man with a generous belly, shifted large objects about like a roadie in a recently re-formed heavy metal band. Enter, stage right, a comedian famous for a television series set in the area, made with her equally eccentric younger brother, on the familiar theme of poverty wrestling with hope. Though the abbey called for a semi-serious demeanour from Our Lady of the Laughs, you could sense a desire to break out into wonderfully anarchic humour. I stared up at the sunlight through the stained-glass windows, remembering a monk I once knew who would clasp his hands and tilt his head right back and himself erupt into cosmic laughter—as if that were the only response to life’s vicissitudes. There is a large cemetery a mile from the abbey. It includes the graves of young Polish and Czech airmen from the Second World War—surnames such as Gmitera, Janowicza, Mielcarka, Skrzypka, Stefanusa, and Maleńczuka. After Poland was invaded in 1939, many Polish pilots escaped to France and eventually the UK, where they were assimilated into the Royal Air Force and Polish-manned squadrons. More than 17,000 Poles had served with the RAF by the end of the war. Buried nearby are two twenty-one-year-old Czech airmen, František Doležal and Oldřich Fiala. Their Magister P2448 went down shortly after takeoff in February 1941. Polish and Czech dignitaries still grace these immaculate headstones. The war dead are always chilling and moving: chilling because of the absurdity of war, moving because of the extraordinary care taken over such sites. “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honours, the men it remembers,” said JFK—himself arguably killed in action and, more recently, forcibly made to squeeze up at the Kennedy Centre. Not far from here is an airbase which, during Trump’s command, still hosts units and operations of the United States Air Force. Used regularly for USAF deployments and exercises, its presence includes the 501st Combat Support Wing and U-2 reconnaissance detachments. It is the USAF’s primary European forward operating location for heavy bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Each year, over the festive period, its American crews—when not working—enjoy the hospitality of kind-hearted villagers. Local draught bitter is served for them in large pint glasses by publicans in time-honoured pubs, many pre-dating the time when the United States separated from Britain. Nowadays, the US government is revoking visas for British citizens. People from here are being told increasingly they cannot visit. They are not welcome. Go home is the gist. This presents an awkward conundrum. Among those high-profile enough for us to know about them are Clare Melford, British co-founder and chief executive of the Global Disinformation Index, and Imran Ahmed, head of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate—though a US judge is now blocking authorities from detaining or deporting him. It seems Bash the Brits remains a minor nationalist pastime among tribal Trumpers—a possibly shrinking faction that mistakes itself for a nation. On Christmas Eve, the US Undersecretary of State Sarah Rogers went online to taunt Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a close ally of Ahmed, childishly posting an inane image of herself in a Santa hat above the words: “Hey McSweeney. Merry Christmas.” Ahmed has since been accusing tech giants of “sociopathic greed.” As a result, one or two Brits are now beginning to wonder how many of our American guests agree with this lack of a welcome for Brits. At what point, in such strained circumstances, does an American military presence here risk being misread by a minority as a form of occupation? Our American friends in power insist this country is “seeking to suppress American viewpoints.” Brits, in turn, now accuse Americans of undermining free speech by revoking visas. Not that this unease is about Americans themselves, whose generosity here is palpable, but rather about the language and actions of those currently speaking in their name. And, as if it needed saying, Elon Musk is still attacking Brits when they complain about racist, antisemitic, and extremist content on his platform. It is curious we hear so little about censorship in Saudi Arabia or Russia, only about Europe. Is it because of a broader hostility towards liberal democracies? Then again, we do live in a world in which one particular family, for example, was allegedly offered a nuclear power plant—stolen from another country—in order to mine cryptocurrency. The past is indeed another country. The town hosting the abbey was once a major Roman city, the second largest after Londinium. Beware: empires do rise and fall. Even out walking, it is easy to imagine the clatter of the past—an irate centurion resenting the bitter winds. Only mosaics, walls, and a broken-toothed amphitheatre survive. They say it didn’t take long for the place to shrink after Rome fell. Not until the twelfth to fifteenth centuries was there a revival of sorts with the wool trade, when certain landowners galloped through towns and villages viciously whipping locals to clear out of the way. Today, it is a well-heeled historic market town of wax candles, leather boots, and charity bookshops stocked with Picadors from the 1970s. Even at its centre there is those blasts of silence again. That is, until a local busker on the pavement—a tribal elder of sorts—starts playing Dylan’s Masters of War, perhaps in the perverse hope that some passing US airman, welcomed all the same, might strafe him with coins. The post The Abbey and the Airbase appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Bach.
I have a crush on Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been president of Mexico since October 2024. Foreign leaders usually strike me as more intelligent and accomplished than the ones we produce in the US. President Sheinbaum, a climate change scientist with a doctorate in energy engineering, is no exception. I wish we had someone like More The post Claudia Sheinbaum, I Love You! appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="382" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="382" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="382" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="382" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="382" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1121" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1121px) 100vw, 1121px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395590" class="size-medium wp-image-395590" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="382" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1121x630.jpg 1121w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-2048x1151.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/La_presidenta_encabeza_el_Grito_de_Independencia_2025-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: EneasMx – CC BY 4.0 I have a crush on Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been president of Mexico since October 2024. Foreign leaders usually strike me as more intelligent and accomplished than the ones we produce in the US. President Sheinbaum, a climate change scientist with a doctorate in energy engineering, is no exception. I wish we had someone like her in the White House. Contrast President Donald Trump. Trump finished his undergraduate degree at the Wharton School of Business and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. One of Trump’s professors there, the late Dr. William T. Kelley, called Trump “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.” Now there’s a new reason to fall for President Sheinbaum. She has offered Mexico’s services in mediating between Venezuela and the US in order to forestall war between the two countries. The Trump Administration has yet to say whether it will take up President Sheinbaum’s offer. My guess is that the Administration won’t respond. What Trump wants from Venezuela is plunder, not peace. +++ For months, the US has conducted a naval blockade of Venezuela (never mind that blockades are ordinarily violations of international law). Trump said on December 16 on Truth Social that the blockade will continue in force until Venezuela “return[s] to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” Trump was referring to Venezuela’s past nationalization of the property of US corporations. The Trump Administration has taken several additional steps to force Venezuela’s compliance: + The US has seized two oil tankers in international waters off Venezuela. + Trump has authorized lethal covert CIA operations in Venezuela. + At the end of November Trump announced that Venezuela’s airspace was closed. + Since September, President Trump has promised a ground strike on Venezuela “soon.” (Still waiting on this one.) What all these actions combine to do is to increasingly place Venezuela’s economy under a US stranglehold; this is a favorite US strategy for dealing with left-wing governments in the global South. When democratic socialist Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970, US president Richard Nixon instructed the CIA to “make [Chile’s] economy scream.” Within three years, Allende was killed in a fascist coup. Democracy would not return to Chile for seventeen years. Trump says the reason he is putting pressure on Venezuela is in order to disrupt the flow of fentanyl from Venezuela to the US. Should we believe him? Trump calls Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro a narco-terrorist and has said that it would be “smart” for Maduro to step down as president. The New York Times, however, declares that “the fentanyl used illegally in the United States does not come from Venezuela.” Most fentanyl is produced in Mexico from precursor chemicals supplied by China and India. According to NBC News, “experts say” that “drug boats from Venezuela are mainly moving cocaine to Europe—not Fentanyl to the U.S.”[1] Trump has designated Venezuela a Foreign Terrorist Organization and fentanyl a Weapon of Mass Destruction. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists calls this an “eerie echo” of how the George W. Bush Administration lied the US into war in Iraq with bogus claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Sink First and Ask Questions Never Since September 2, the US has sent 30 boats with 105 people aboard to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The Trump Administration claims, without offering evidence, that these were boats from Venezuela which were transporting fentanyl and cocaine to the US. The first strike, on September 2, was a double tap strike. The initial strike killed nine people and left two survivors in the water—but not for long. They were deliberately killed—murdered—in a second strike. According to the Washington Post, Admiral Frank Bradley, who heads the US Special Operations Command and who ordered the second strike, was acting pursuant to a verbal command from Secretary of Defense—excuse me, Secretary of War—Pete Hegseth.[2] Secretary Hegseth denies issuing the order. Had any of the 105 victims been convicted of a crime? We don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. They may have been smuggling drugs, but smuggling drugs is not a capital offense. Moreover, the deliberate killing of persons rendered hors de combat is a war crime. We have already alluded to President Trump’s December 16 ultimatum that Venezuela must return “oil” and other assets to the US. Other Republicans have put US war aims even more bluntly. Florida Congresswoman Maria Salazar told Fox Business delightedly that “Venezuela for the American oil companies will be a field day.” (Someone check Representative Salazar’s stock portfolio.) Sheinbaum’s mediation offer does not mean that she or Mexico is neutral. Sheinbaum supports Venezuela. She opposes US intervention in Latin American affairs. Latin Americans know all about US imperialism. Trump has talked more than once about the possibility of a US “soft invasion” to obliterate Mexico’s drug cartels. That’s not happening on Sheinbaum’s watch. She has made it abundantly clear that she is absolutely opposed to US troops on Mexican soil. And she knows that the countries of the global South need to stick together. Donald Trump may finally have met his match. Let’s hope so. Notes. [1] Incidentally, if you’re shopping for cocaine, skip Venezuela and head to Honduras. On December 1, Trump pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had begun a 45-year prison sentence in West Virginia for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine. Tell me again how concerned Trump is over drug trafficking. [2] Washington Post coverage of the incident declared that “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody,’ one of them said.” The post Claudia Sheinbaum, I Love You! appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Charles Pierson.
NFL Welfare in Oz: Pay No Attention to that Billionaire Behind the Curtain
Don’t say dreams don’t come true. If you wish very hard, wish upon a STAR and click your feet together (and are a billionaire with a net worth of 1.6 billion dollars), you too can get your 3 billion dollar domed football stadium. You can get that stadium built with a majority of public funds—a More The post NFL Welfare in Oz: Pay No Attention to that Billionaire Behind the Curtain appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="346" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-680x346.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-680x346.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-1200x610.jpg 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-768x390.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-1536x781.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-2048x1041.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-500x254.jpg 500w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-680x346.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-768x390.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-1536x781.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-2048x1041.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-500x254.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-600x305.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395593" class="size-medium wp-image-395593" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-680x346.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="346" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-680x346.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-1200x610.jpg 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-768x390.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-1536x781.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-2048x1041.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-500x254.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mahomes_cadence_-_Browns_at_Chiefs_2021-600x305.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Conman33 – CC BY-SA 4.0 Don’t say dreams don’t come true. If you wish very hard, wish upon a STAR and click your feet together (and are a billionaire with a net worth of 1.6 billion dollars), you too can get your 3 billion dollar domed football stadium. You can get that stadium built with a majority of public funds—a 60/40 split. That STAR you wished upon is a Sales Tax and Revenue Bond. STAR is a method to use future sales taxes to fund current projects, this being the plan going forward to move the NFL Kansas City Chiefs from their current Missouri location across the river to a new site in Kansas. STAR bonds have been used in Kansas before for much smaller projects. Some have been successful like the one that funded The Salt Museum. Yes, the Salt Museum—not exactly billion-dollar deals. Not all of the STAR bond initiatives have worked out well, however. Notably, an 85.2 million bond used to fund the Schlitterbahn Water Park went awry in the most horrendous way imaginable. The success of this development project did not come to fruition due to a water slide causing the decapitation of the Kansas Secretary of State’s 10-year-old son. The park closed, and 74.8 million was left of the STAR debt, much of it being “worked off” by restaurants and shops in the ex-Schlitterbahn area through the sales tax. A new plan is afoot to redevelop the water park site into something new with another round of enhanced STAR bonds. Hopefully, a non-lethal idea this time. It’s not surprising that Kansas wants to become known for something bigger and brighter, especially in the tourism arena. Yes, they have attractions such as the World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City and the site of the In Cold Blood murders. They have the Barbed Wire Museum and the “They Also Ran Gallery” (a museum on the second floor of a bank in Norton that celebrates past presidential race losers). Perhaps the most stunning attraction is the mummified under-glass remains of S.P. Dinsmoor at “The Garden of Eden” in Lucas. The Civil War veteran was said to have received an accidental double Civil War pension, so he did what most of us would do in that situation if we had some extra fraudulent funds. He used the money to create about 150 narcissistic statues around his house depicting……well, him mostly, but he did it with a biblical slant. He also married a 22-year-old (he was only 81) and charged people a quarter to see him pose in a clear casket. He had a “speaking tube” from the house to the street that he used to yell at anyone walking by the house without paying. Dinsmoor now poses all the time in that glass casket, the only activity in there being some mold. So yes, Kansas was itching for some global street cred on the tourist front. It’s too bad they didn’t question the billionaire snake oil salesman that breezed into town from Dallas, promising more trickle down benefits, similar to that asbestos snow that fell in Oz. The Chiefs are owned by Clark Hunt, a man with a net worth of $1.6 billion, his family’s overall net worth being $24.8 billion. You may recognize the name–his grandfather H.L. Hunt was a famous oil tycoon who dabbled in reactionary rightwing politics. He was affiliated with the John Birch Society, gave advice to the Alabama segregationist George Wallace on how to get around rules for the governorship in Alabama, advocated for black Americans to be sent to Africa and well, a lot of other things…He also produced 15 children with three wives, two of whom tried to corner the silver market in the late 70s. So, you know, just regular family stuff. Clark’s father, Lamar Hunt brought the Chiefs to Kansas City long ago after getting some stadium deals of his own (twice). The family never really left their Dallas enclave, though Kansas City seems to think the family is one of their own. The Hunts do have a place to stay while in town, though, a 3-story home away from home in Arrowhead Stadium. I’m sure they will need similar lodging to be built in the new stadium. It can’t just be any small spot, however, not for someone with a reported 12,000 square foot, $17-million home in Dallas. Why do you care about this dude’s home, you may ask…Well, mainly because this obscenely wealthy person is asking the public to fund much of his new stadium. In a setting of garnishing wages for student loan defaults and driving the poor off of Medicaid, it seems stunning that one so wealthy would have the gall to not pay for his own damn stadium. And I’m sure he will require the above-mentioned subsidized housing in that stadium. The Hunt family is very religious, however, so I guess that makes up for some of the bad behavior. Presumably, James 5:1-3 isn’t to be taken very seriously. It’s the one that says riches corrupt, hoarded items, including precious metals (!) testify against them. You know, leftist hippie crap. Gracie Hunt, one of the younger family members, is getting involved by combating the assault on goodness from those who hoard wealth. Just kidding, she’s getting involved in getting worked up about Bad Bunny being the halftime performer at the upcoming Super Bowl. She is pushing for an alternative halftime show from Turning Point USA featuring Erika Kirk. She says that Bad Bunny has “cheap appeal” and that his shows don’t align with “American values”. Remarkably, Gracie was thrilled to meet Taylor Swift, stating she was enchanted by her and said of Taylor that she is “wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, all the things……” Presumably she was impressed with Taylor’s song “Wood” an ode to Travis Kelce’s dick, but done tastefully while white and blonde, not performed in the style of rap lyrics done while Puerto Rican. To give a clear notion of the money involved here—two billion, well, that’s almost $700 for every Kansan. Good to know in times of scarcity, as we find ourselves in now, that amounts like that will be required to give some billionaire welfare. Wait a minute, you say: this isn’t a direct tax on every single Kansan—this will be paid for by a sales tax. Yes, this is true. The most regressive tax there is and also, those bondholders want interest for their trouble, of course. So it’s gonna be more than two billion, some economists estimate the true cost will end up being more like 6.3 billion over the next 30 years. A sales tax hits everyone in the area hard and the way it is set up is that the surrounding area will have to tack this on to goods and services. If there isn’t enough revenue generated, it’s likely the radius of the sales tax implementation will expand. And even if it is successful and paid off, it will be on the backs of people living in the area who might not really want to fund bondholders’ profits and subsidize the Hunt family fortune. But they really didn’t get a say, did they? And about that possible 30 years of paying on the debt..the Hunt/Chiefs organization aren’t going to own the stadium. They will be paying “rent” that they get to largely keep. It’s supposed to go back to their own use for security services and who knows what else. This means that they can reap the benefits of the stadium, receive all those profits and leave the place like an abandoned rented Walmart when and if they please. Probably when the place starts needing major renovations and upkeep, I’d venture. Who knows? They live in Dallas, maybe they’d like to move the team down there and get another sweet revolving deal. Unlike the fans, there is no local allegiance with these types. The lesser amount they are fronting will likely be replaced quickly and will increase exponentially. They may leave town and a crumbling stadium behind them whenever they’ve milked the place dry. The politicians of Kansas seem to be–well, a bit naive. Governor Laura Kelly, dressed in her smart cardigans, is negotiating with sharks. She breathlessly exclaims, “This is a game changer for Kansas and a signal to America and the world that our state’s future is bright.” Kelly is basically a Democrat who is what a Republican used to be before they went completely bonkers. That is to say, bland and ineffectual and more likely than not to assist corporations over citizens. Her Republican accomplice in this deal, Ty Masterson, the President of the state Senate states, “Best of all this will not cost one more penny for taxpayers”. Now, I’m not an accountant, but I am pretty sure the ST in STAR is Sales Tax. I guess that regressive tax doesn’t count as a tax to Masterson unlike horrors such as estate taxes. I don’t know that I’d take too much stock in his financial literacy, however. He went bankrupt in 2010 with 885,000 in debt, 160,000 of it being from credit cards. Also, if you please—look up his image. He most certainly lives for New Year’s Eve and completely loves a sloppy steak at Truffoni’s. I just don’t get a good feeling about these guys being decision makers for multi-billion dollar deals. But most of all, you’d think that Kansans would take a peek behind the curtain and see who is making all these unlikely promises. Who is the wizard? Hell, even Missouri is “The Show Me State”. Perhaps that’s why they let this one get away—good old-fashioned skepticism and disbelief. Another issue to consider is that average citizens can’t really even afford to go to an NFL game. Estimates place cost averages for high value team tickets at nearly $300 and this doesn’t even include incidentals like parking. Speaking of which, Chiefs fans love their tailgating but that won’t be allowed in the new stadium. You can’t expect the Hunt family to make money if you don’t buy their $50 cups of beer, I guess. But here we are, in this time of bread and circus, when even the circus has to be funded by the public, and they can’t afford the tickets to go watch it. The post NFL Welfare in Oz: Pay No Attention to that Billionaire Behind the Curtain appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kathleen Wallace.
This is Not a Ceasefire: The Israeli Genocide Continues
On 19 January 2025, a ceasefire took effect to halt the Israeli bombing of Palestinians in Gaza. This ceasefire emerged from a mediation process by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, which had been sealed in June 2024 with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735. However, the Israelis rejected the agreement and waited until Donald Trump More The post This is Not a Ceasefire: The Israeli Genocide Continues appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395607" class="size-medium wp-image-395607" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10-600x450.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bombed_buildings_of_Gaza_during_the_Gaza_war_2023-2025_10.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Hla.bashbash – CC BY-SA 4.0 On 19 January 2025, a ceasefire took effect to halt the Israeli bombing of Palestinians in Gaza. This ceasefire emerged from a mediation process by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, which had been sealed in June 2024 with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735. However, the Israelis rejected the agreement and waited until Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election to proceed so that Trump could take credit for the deal. Yet, Israel neither fully withdrew from Gaza nor ceased its attacks, nor did it allow the necessary aid into Gaza. Despite the ‘ceasefire’, the genocide against the Palestinians continued. A month into the ceasefire period, it was clear that Israel had committed at least 265 violations of the agreement (including home demolitions, ground incursions, and shootings targeting civilians). During this time, the United Nationsfound that 81‘percent’ of Gaza was either controlled by the Israeli military or subject to arbitrary Israeli displacement orders. That first ceasefire ended in March and was only revived in October 2025. During the intervening period, Israel took advantage of the situation to pummel Gaza once more without facing criticism from its major backers in Europe and the United States (who continued to arm Israel). The second ‘ceasefire’ has been as ineffective as the first, with Israel having violated its terms 875 times between 10 October and 22 December. Thus, there is a ceasefire in Gaza, insofar as the intensity of the bombing has lessened; but there is no ceasefire in substance, as Israel’s genocidal pressure campaign against the Palestinians continues. It is worth assessing the situation on the ground in Gaza. Facts are important, and it is key that the United Nations agencies have resumed their basic humanitarian aid work – which includes the collection of data on the problems faced by the Palestinians. I rely heavily on UN data here, especially from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, (UNRWA), which is itself under attack from Israel for being an impediment to its extermination campaign. For clarity, I have provided a brief sketch of four principal areas of bare life in Gaza (some of the data relies on the UN’s dashboard for monitoring UN Security Council Resolution 2720): Displacement and Housing In March 2025, UNRWA estimated that 92 ‘percent’ of all housing in Gaza had been either destroyed or severely damaged. Therefore, the 2.1 million surviving residents of Gaza have been living in UN-run displacement sites or in tents and temporary shelters perilously built into destroyed buildings. The UN Mine Action Service warns that unexploded Israeli bombs litter the rubble and that it would take experts 20 to 30 years to remove them. Heavy rain in Gaza this winter has flooded tents, creating a serious crisis of acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, and hepatitis. Food and Water The ceasefire deal stated that the Israelis, who control the frontier, would allow 600 trucks of aid into Gaza per day. However, between October and December, the Israelis only allowed an average of 216 trucks per day, according to the UN 2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard. This shortfall is a primary reason why the food, water, and fuel situation in Gaza remains dire. Three sentences from a recent UNreport deserve wide coverage: first, ‘at least 1.6 million people – or 77 per cent of the population – are still facing high levels of acute food insecurity in the Gaza Strip, including over 100,000 children and 37,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women’, second, ‘Nutrition-rich foods, particularly proteins, remain scarce and prohibitively expensive, leaving 79 per cent of households unable to buy food or have access to clean water’, and third, ‘No children are reaching minimum dietary diversity and two-thirds experience severe food poverty, consuming one to two food groups’ (out of five food groups). Health Care By December 2025, Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure remained severely degraded. Many hospitals and clinics are damaged or only partially functional, with critical shortages of medicines and supplies, frequent interruptions of fuel and electricity, and service availability far below pre-conflict levels. UN agencies describe conditions as fragile, overstretched, and struggling.The Gaza Health Cluster Bulletin provides useful data, with the most recent bulletin noting that ‘the ongoing military operations continue to exacerbate several operational constraints that has been numerously elaborated including continued restrictions to access program sites and severely limited entry of essential medical supplies, continuous looming threats of deregistration of INGOs [international non-governmental organisations]’. Nonetheless, in the ruins of the al-Shifa hospital, 168 Palestinian doctors graduated on Christmas Day. Education The UN Education Cluster reports that more than 97 ‘percent’ of Gaza’s schools have been damaged, with only 38 ‘percent’ of school-aged children able to access any learning over the past two years. Over 700,000 Palestinian children have lost the right to education, including 658,000 who have already lost two academic years. Around 71,000 students in Gaza could not take their General Secondary Education Examinations (Tawjihi) and therefore cannot move to higher education. Bare life is not yet restored, nor has the capacity for the Palestinians to revive their political institutions. No real progress can be made to end the genocide and occupation if Israel continues to prevent Palestinian leaders of different factions from rebuilding their political institutions. During this ‘ceasefire’, Israel has assassinated several important Palestinian political leaders, such as Issam al-Da’alis (Hamas’ Government Administrative Committee), Mahmoud Abu Watfa (Interior Ministry), and Huthayfa al-Kahlout (spokesperson for the al-Qassam Brigades), and Israel continues to hold leaders such as Marwan Barghouti (Fatah) and Ahmad Sa’adat (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) in prison. Israel’s insistence on the disarmament of Hamas demonstrates Tel Aviv’s lack of seriousness to negotiate in any direction. This is both a ceasefire and not a ceasefire. It is a relief that the intensity of the bombing has decreased, but it is no relief for everyday life– especially with no end in sight beyond the anticipation of the next atrocity. This article was produced by Globetrotter. The post This is Not a Ceasefire: The Israeli Genocide Continues appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.
Caitlin Johnstone’s customary finger on the Zionist pulse is how I was first exposed to the telling presentation by Sarah Hurwitz to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on 16 November 2025. Hurwitz was a senior adviser in the Obama administration (from which she was appointed as a member of the United States More The post The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-680x414.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1035x630.jpg 1035w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-768x467.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1536x935.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-2048x1246.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-500x304.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-600x365.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1558" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-680x414.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1035x630.jpg 1035w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-768x467.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1536x935.jpg 1536w, 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-680x414.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1035x630.jpg 1035w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-768x467.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1536x935.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-2048x1246.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-500x304.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-600x365.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1035" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1035x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1035x630.jpg 1035w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-680x414.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-768x467.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1536x935.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-2048x1246.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-500x304.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-600x365.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1035px) 100vw, 1035px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395595" class="size-medium wp-image-395595" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-680x414.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="414" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-680x414.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1035x630.jpg 1035w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-768x467.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-1536x935.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-2048x1246.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-500x304.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Nordiske_Mediedager_2017_33746304154_cropped-600x365.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Thor Brødreskift / Nordiske Mediedager – CC BY-SA 2.0 Caitlin Johnstone’s customary finger on the Zionist pulse is how I was first exposed to the telling presentation by Sarah Hurwitz to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on 16 November 2025. Hurwitz was a senior adviser in the Obama administration (from which she was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council). Says Hurwitz, young people no longer read but are hooked on social media. There, with respect to Gaza, they confront a ‘wall of carnage’. Hurwitz laments that: “So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds: carnage. And I sound obscene.” (Grown up) rationality has seemingly succumbed to (teenage) unprocessed sense impressions. More, Holocaust education has been turned against us because our own young kin are applying the role of the evil oppressor, (Jewish) god forbid, to Israel itself. British philosophy academic Lorna Finlayson (New Left Review’s Side Car) chimes in with respect to the Hurwitz performance: “The true meaning of the Holocaust, we might infer, is not that it was bad because the strong were hurting the weak, but because Jews were the victims. When the victims are Black or Palestinian, it’s different.” Peculiar that Hurwitz imagines that ‘the data and information and facts and arguments’ at her command contradict the youngster’s visualizing the ‘wall of carnage’. The ‘data and information and facts and arguments’ that I am familiar with are consistent with the visuals. Finlayson concurs: “The trouble for Hurwitz, however, is that if the pictures aren’t on her side, the ‘facts’ and ‘data’ are even less so. The more we see of them, the worse Israel looks.” Dead children, medicos, journalists, aid workers – an impressive and mounting tally. Ah, and the infrastructure! Bradford University’s Professor Paul Rogers, interviewed in April 2025, estimated that 70,000 tonnes of explosives had been dropped on Gaza to that date. Hurwitz waxes mystical: “The problem is, we’re not just a religion … We’re a nation. Civilization. Tribe. Peoplehood. But most of all we’re a family. … The seven million people in Israel, they are not my co-religionists, they are my siblings.” ‘The seven million people in Israel’ – what? Hurwitz is referring implicitly to Jewish people in Israel and, presumably, Jewish settlers who don’t live in Israel. Hurwitz conflates the local Jewish population and the state of Israel. Civilization I don’t think so. ‘Tribe’ is correct – this is tribalism writ large. Yet the bad eggs, the founders and successive leaders of apartheid Israel, are dictating to the tribe the terms in their entirety on which tribalism will prevail. For Hurwitz – Israel is us, period. Being Jewish, you’re in the tribe on Israel’s terms – period. What do you think, at some expense, we send you to Jewish day school and Hebrew school for? Finlayson again: “The problem [for Hurwitz] with Palestinian children is not that they are evil [as per the claims of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant] but that they a PR challenge.” How in the world could the bloodthirsty Zionist enterprise face a PR challenge? The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the density of its lobbying and propaganda entities. The character of the matrix is well captured in a review of American academic Harriet Malinowitz’s recently published book Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara, from whence this Malinowitz summary is extracted: “[The hasbara, which can be] “bluntly described as propaganda, but in fact comprises a huge network of government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit agencies and charities, campus organizations, volunteer groups, watchdog bodies, professional associations, media networks, fundraising operations, and educational programs that aim to fortify a Zionist-defined notion of Jewishness in persons within Israel, the United States, and other countries.” Quite. And that’s just for Jewry itself, to keep it on the straight and narrow. The network addressed to the non-compliance and ignorance of non-Jews is something else. Attached below is a list, inevitably incomplete, of organisations that one has been able to compile from public sources. The resources devoted (both in funding and person hours) to selling Israel and warding off and attacking its detractors have been and are formidable. Do Zionists have time in their life for anything else? There’s an anomaly here. If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytize it, to defend it and to lie about its character? The juggernaut has evidently had impressive results, of which the following. The US Congress is a Zionist-occupied entity. The mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu is invited into the hallowed premises, debauches it with his mendacity and is met with standing ovations. The EU-Israel Association Agreement ‘entered into force’ in June 2000. The Agreement accords Israel considerable privileges. The background is here. The 154 page document is here. Of integral relevance is Article 2: “Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.” Israel is an apartheid state by construction, so how could this trade Agreement ever get on the drawing board, leave alone come to fruition? Israel remains ensconced in global sporting entities, as exemplified with soccer. There is currently pressure on UEFA and FIFA to exclude Israel but the governing bodies have resisted to date. Russia has been sanctioned. Israel remains in the bosom of global sport. Ditto culture. Eurovision’s sponsor, the European Broadcasting Union, is also under pressure to exclude Israel but has ignored it (this is ‘a non-political event’). Russia is immediately expelled in 2022. Israel remains in Eurovision. Israel has won Eurovision four times, with more recent questions arising of dubious voting integrity and the transparent ‘soft power’ leverage by Israel of the platform to detract from the ongoing genocide. +++ Perusing the list, one can observe select categories. 1. Some early organizations began as charities to support Jewish communities in need. Amongst these, there has been a general trend to turn towards support for the state of Israel. Some latter day organizations are formally Jewish community support-oriented but add Israel to their charter. 2. Some organizations stand out with respect to the influence of their operations. Uniquely there is the Jewish Agency for Israel, in Mandatory Palestine, which was the nucleus for the state of Israel after 1948. Singularly important are the dominant organisations in particular countries, not least AIPAC in the US, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France). The power of AIPAC (and the size of the American Jewish community) puts it in a league of its own. AIPAC exerts an enormous influence on the US Congress, not least through funding for and against sitting members and candidates. AIPAC funding contributed to the defeat of long-serving Illinois Representative Paul Findley in 1982. Findley’s contemporary and fellow activist Pete McCloskey, California Representative (1967-83) was perennially under attack from the Zionist lobby. AIPAC and other Jewish organizations’ funding facilitated the defeat of long-time Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney and Alabama Representative Earl Hilliard, both in 2002 primaries. AIPAC funding defeated Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, seeking re-election to a seat she previously held, in 2022. AIPAC funding defeated Missouri Representative Cori Bush and New York Representative Jaamal Bowman, both in primaries in 2024. Apparently AIPAC ‘invested’ $45 million in the November 2024 elections, half of which went to defeating Bush and Bowman. AIPAC conferences present a ghoulish spectacle in which Congress and government members bow down before AIPAC’s commitment to the imperatives of a foreign rogue state. (More details regarding the US Israel lobby are available in Serge Halimi’s ‘Is the United States’ patience with Israel running out?’, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2025.) 3. A discernible category covers Christian Zionist organizations and Jewish organizations seeking amity with and support from Christian groups, not least Evangelicals. Christians United for Israel (US) is clearly the most significant of this grouping, with CUFI claiming over 10 million members. Israel and Zionism evidently value this alliance in terms of the numerical ‘heft’ that it brings. Israeli academic Tom Ziv performed a quantitative analysis of the size of evangelical Christian Zionist populations in 18 Latin American countries (‘Evangelicalism and Support for Israel in Latin America’, Politics & Religion, 2022). He found a link between the size of such groups and the country’s support for Israel as reflected in UN votes, with such groups evidently having a direct impact on their country’s foreign policy. Being a ‘true’ value-free academic, he declines to articulate the ‘policy implications’, although the Israeli authorities would be thoroughly aware of the implications for hasbara PR funding. As mainstream protestant churches were reducing their support for Israel (not least tangibly in divesting denomination-related investments from Israel-related corporations and activities), so also there had been some small shift against whole-hearted support for Israel amongst young evangelicals. The Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice’s’ biannual ‘Christ at the Checkpoint’ conference, first held in 2010, heralds a counter-agenda from within the evangelical camp, spooking Israeli Zionist sources who (in 2014) labelled this movement an ’evangelical intifada’. The Bethlehem Bible College (established in 1979), BIPJ’s sponsor, has been attacked by the ever-reliable Jerusalem Post as spreading ‘anti-Israel propaganda’. After 7 October, the US Christian Zionist lobby upped its support for Israel ‘under threat’, ramping up eschatological interpretations. Israel’s well-financed push (including from Israeli settlers directly) for Christian Zionist support has incorporated the ‘Global South’ (Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Pacific) as well, but everywhere a trickle amongst this movement globally have continued to question previous unqualified allegiances because of the ongoing barbarism in Gaza. 4. Organizations, or divisions therein, whose focus is on converting criticism of Israel into antisemitism. These constitute the specialist hasbara outfits of the omnipresent ‘antisemitism industry’. 5. Campus-oriented organizations. There are organizations fostering Jewish ‘togetherness’, enhancing ‘Jewishness’, most notably Hillel. Become Hillel International, it is unrepentantly Zionist – as a consequence fostering some anti-Zionist spinoffs on US Campuses under a ‘Judaism On Our Own Terms’ umbrella. Then there are singularly focused ‘attack dogs’ like Campus Watch. The official state-enabled repression of anti-Israel protests and anti-Israel opinion on campus has emboldened the campus-oriented Israel-firsters. Naturally, the university campus is seen a key battleground for ideas and opinion with the implicit stamp of respectability. From a Zionist perspective, not least with the high status of some anti-Zionist and/or Palestinian scholars, a critical take on Israel has been allowed to fester for too long. University Presidents, academic staff and students have been casualties. 6. There are the ‘Country X’ – Israel Chambers of Commerce. Seemingly innocuous, they can be a key focal point for economic and ultimate political influence through the medium of business leaders’ and corporate interaction in regular speechified gatherings and inter-country missions. The Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce actively functions on this broader palette. Ultra-Zionist Jillian Segal, appointed ‘Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism’ in 2024, has been an especially active player in this particular domain of soft power. 7. A handful of linkages have a technical or scientific exchange orientation. Such are the Israel Innovation Network (ILAN) in Mexico, the Caribbean Israel Leadership Coalition, and the SIGNAL Group’s involvement with Chinese institutions. This is soft power at its most sophisticated. 8. Some organizations claim progressive intent and credentials but also claim unqualified support for Israel. For example, The World Union for Progressive Judaism clams itself “… the central hub that connects Reform, Liberal, Progressive, and Reconstructionist Judaism around the world while upholding the State of Israel as the center of the Jewish people and Jewish identity. … The WUPJ aims to provide innovative platforms and tools to advanceProgressive Jewish values …” Some organizations have charters that formally support or work on terms of equality of treatment and equality of access of all Israelis and Palestinians to services. However, their orientation is to accept and work, without apology, within the current structure of apartheid Israel and its tyrannous Occupation of Palestinian lands. Such is the case, for example, of Project Rozana, a medical assistance organization originating in Australia. Rozana has been criticised by the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network: ‘This organization is not a neutral humanitarian initiative – it is a political project designed to normalise Israeli apartheid.’ Following 7 October 2023, Rozana’s ongoing efforts have been overwhelmed by the carnage, exposing its work as a band-aid on a medical crisis of monumental proportions, denying the source of the problem. +++ The scale of the pro-Israel support network defies comprehension. It is a gigantic apparatus, a juggernaut, committed to support and defense of a criminal state. With Israel’s escalating barbarism since October 2023, the support network has ramped up rather than diminished. Some anti-Zionist Jewish organizations, perennially small in size and excommunicated by their Zionist brethren, have continued to criticize Israel. Some new ones have appeared. Yet no ‘official’ Jewish organization, nor prominent leader within those organizations, has issued a mea culpa since October. It is an unsavoury spectacle. There is manifest here a collective sickness of soul, a moral depravity. Paradoxically, the centre of gravity of this apparatus is the so-called ‘diaspora’, which declines to make ‘Aliyah’ to reside in the state that is the singular object of its devotion. The personnel of this apparatus claim disgust at the recent seeming escalation in acts of ‘antisemitism’. The cause is self-evident. Zionists, heal yourself. Comes the appalling massacre at Sydney’s Bondi beach on 14 December, and a tidal wave of reported opinion in the media. Not a single mention of Israel. Yet Israeli flags adorn the memorial site and the political class is being pressured to make ‘hate speech’ against Israel illegal. The propaganda complex is in full working order. +++ Pro-Israel Organisations (Jewish media, important vehicles for the hasbara, have not been included in the list. Similarly, Jewish ‘faith’ educational institutions have necessarily been excluded. Some locations (lobby or hasbara?) may be arbitrary on the margin.) Zionist activist and lobby groups (a handful of these entities have acquired a Zionist orientation after their benign origins in support of Jewish community welfare) B’nai B’rith 1843- WZO World Zionist Organization (formerly Zionist Organization) 1897- JAFI Jewish Agency for Israel 1929- Hashomer Hatzair 1913- (youth movement. originally ‘Marxist-Zionist’(!); now Israel-based) Betar 1923- (youth movement; Latvian origins, Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky) WUPJ World Union for Progressive Judaism 1926- (originally UK, now Israel-based) Netzer Olami (Reform Zionist youth movement) World Jewish Congress 1936- Hillel International (The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life) 1923-; 1988- (US origins) World Union of Jewish Students 1924- (now Israel-based) IAF Israel Allies Foundation 2004-07- (Israel-based, targeting Christians) ________ URJ Union for Reform Judaism 1873- Yallah! Israel 1958- (youth-oriented Israel trips) Jewish Council for Public Affairs 1944- (US) (Zionist lite?) American Zionist Council (1949-1966) AIPAC American Israel Public Affairs Committee 1954- ADL Anti-Defamation League 1913- (US) AJC American Jewish Committee 1906- (originally anti-Zionist)\ Kibbutz Program Center 1967- Jewish Defense League 1968- (Kahane) CUFI Christians United for Israel 1975- (US) Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs 1976- (Israeli ‘think tank’) SWC Simon Wiesenthal Centre 1977- Republican Jewish Coalition 1985- Middle East Forum 1990- (Pipes) Partners for Progressive Israel 1992- (Zionist lite?) Taglit-Birthright Israel 1994- (youth travel sponsorship to Israel ‘to strengthen diaspora Jews’ connection to Israel and increase a sense of Jewish identity’) Jewish Federations of North America 1999- (merger of the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF), the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), and the United Israel Appeal (UIA) IAC Israeli-American Council 2007- eJewish Philanthropy 2007- J Street 2007- (Zionist lite?) SSI Students Supporting Israel 2012- (US) LionPAC ~2012-? (‘Columbia University’s AIPAC on Campus’) Israel Victory Project 2017- (Pipes/Middle East Forum) StopAntisemitism 2018- (US-based) StopDontShop 2023- CAM Combat Antisemitism Movement 2019- ________ Jewish Federations of Canada – UIA 1917- (originally a Jewish support organisation) CIJA (Canadian) Centre for Israel & Jewish Affairs 2004-2011- Mizrachi Canada 1960s-? (religious) ________ Board of Deputies of British Jews 1760- (originally anti-Zionist) AJA Anglo-Jewish Association 1871- (originally anti-Zionist) Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Israel 1899 Jewish Labour Movement 1903- (UK) UJS Union of Jewish Students of the United Kingdom and Israel 1919- UJIA United Jewish Israel Appeal 1920- (UK-based) Labour Friends of Israel 1957- (UK) Conservative Friends of Israel 1974- (UK) Habonim Dror 1982- (Labor/Socialist Zionist; from earlier organisations) Community Security Trust 1986- (child of Board of Deputies of British Jews) Jewish Leadership Council 2003- (UK) Fair Play Campaign Group 2006- ________ CRIF Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) 1944- Central Council of Jews in Germany 1950- (state-funded) Sweden-Israel Friendship Association 1953- Israel-Italy Chamber of Commerce 1955- DIG Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft (German–Israeli Society) 1966- MIFF Med Israel for Fred (With Israel For Peace) 1978- (Norwegian origins) European Jewish Congress 1986- (umbrella organisation) GIF The German Israeli Foundation For Scientific Research & Development 1986- (state to state). ECWF European Council of WIZO Federations 1992- (Women’s International Zionist Organization; Scandinavian ‘chapters’ from 1917) European Coalition for Israel 2004- (Christian Zionist) EFI European Friends of Israel 2006-15 (European parliamentarians) European Jewish Association 2007- (Orthodox) ELNET European Leadership Network 2007- German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation 2007- (German-Israeli state to state) Transatlantic Friends of Israel 2019- (cross-national Parliamentary Members; formed by the Brussels-based AJC [American Jewish Committee] Transatlantic Institute) Netzwerk Israel (Israel Network) 2023-? (German) Le Chéile (Together) Dublin Center 2025- (cloistering a significant Israeli population) Italy-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Association (date of formation unknown, but the AJC claims that the Association is the largest of its kind in Europe, with over 200 members) ________ Press and Digital Diplomacy Departments (official; Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tel Aviv and Embassy-based) Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs 1976-, 2024- (conservative ‘think thank’) Nefesh B’Nefesh 2001- (Israel, promoting Aliyah) ILF International Legal Forum date? (Israel-based ‘lawfare’) Shurat HaDin: Israel Law Center 2003- (Israel-based ‘lawfare’) Masa Israel Journey 2004- (Jewish Agency / Israeli Government) SIGNAL Group (sino-israel.org) 2011- (takeoff) (Israel-directed ‘soft power’ links with China, esp. academia, with increasing commercial/technological orientation) Global Israel Initiative 2023- (Indo-Pacific-oriented) ________ AIJAC Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Committee 1997- (from two prior organisations, 1974- and 1984-) ZFA Zionist Federation of Australia 1927- JCCV Jewish Community Council of Victoria 1938- Zionist Federation of New Zealand 1943- ECAJ Executive Council of Australian Jewry 1944- NSW Jewish Board of Deputies 1945- AUJS Australasian Union of Jewish Students 1948- Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce 1975(?)- Labor Friends of Israel 1977-; revitalized 2024 (Australia) New Zealand Jewish Council 1981- AILF Australia Israel Leadership Forum 2009- Leadership Dialogue Institute 2010- (AILF expanded to include the UK, of which Australia Israel Labor Dialogue) ________ CUFI Christians United for Israel Latin America 2016- (US-based) LCI Latino Coalition for Israel (US-based, evangelical) Latin American Jerusalem Task Force 2018 CILC Caribbean Israel Leadership Coalition 2017 (US- & Barbados-based) ILAN Israel Innovation Network 2018- (Mexico-based) AFOIA American Friends of Isaac Accords 2025- (Latin America) ________ South African Zionist Federation 1898- SAFI South African Friends of Israel (directed at Christians) Africa-Israel Initiative 2011- (Christian) ________ International Christian Embassy Jerusalem 1980- (Jerusalem-based, evangelical, Pacific Island connections) Christian Friends of Israel 1985- (Israel-centred) One For Israel (Israel College of the Bible) 1990- (‘Christian Reformed fundamentalist private Hebrew-speakingMessianic Bible college’) PFIS Prayer for Israel Samoa _________ Hasbara groups CAMERA Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis 1982- UN Watch 1993- MEMRIcMiddle East Media Research Institute 1998- Honest Reporting 2000- Masada 2000 2001-07 (attacking Jewish Israel critics; too rabid even for Zionists) SWU StandWithUs (or Israel Emergency Committee) 2001- Hasbara Fellowships 2001- NGO Monitor 2001- Israel at Heart 2001- Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre 2002- The David Project 2002-17 (Hillel; merged into Hillel) ICC Israel on Campus Coalition 2002- (Koret Foundation) Campus Watch 2002- (Pipes/Middle East Forum) CoHaV Coalition of Hasbara Volunteers 2003- Jihad Watch 2003- (David Horowitz Freedom Center) ISGAP Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy 2004- Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation 2004- Centre for Israel Education 2007- (Stein/Emory University) AMCHA Initiative 2012- (US Campus-based) Canary Mission 2014- Campaign Against Antisemitism 2014- (UK) The Philos Project 2014- (US-based; Christian) Maccabee Task Force 2015- (Adelson) Act.IL 2017-22 (Israel) Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism 1924- Project Esther 2024- (US-based; Heritage Foundation, newly-registered Bridges Partners; recruiting social media personalities) Show Faith by Works LLC 2025- (Israel-funded targeting of US evangelical Christians) Clocktower X LLC 2025- (US PR firm hired by Israel for pro-Israel propaganda towards ‘Gen Z audiences’) DocuNation Season 3: The Heart of Israel 2025- (Times of Israel sponsored) Fund raising bodies JNF Jewish National Fund 1901- Keren Hayesod (United Palestine Appeal / Palestine Foundation Fund / United Israel Appeal) 1920- FIDF Friends of the Israel Defence Forces 1981- ________ (Non-establishment) Israeli organizations Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) 1978- B’Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories 1989- Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel[ 1996- PHRI Physicians for Human Rights – Israel 1988- BtS Breaking the Silence 2004- Yesh Din: Volunteers for Human Rights 2005- Road to Recovery 2010- (Israeli; cross-border volunteer medical transport assistance) Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy 2012- _______________ Non-Zionist or Anti-Zionist (Jewish) Organisations UJPO United Jewish People’s Order 1926- (Canada) Neturei Kerta (Guardians of the City) 1938- (Haredi) UPJB Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique 1939- ACJ American Council for Judaism 1942- Jewish Anti-Zionist League 1946-47 (Eqypt; closed down) New Israel Fund 1979- (US-based; opposes BDS; Zionist lite?) AJDS Australian Jewish Democratic Society 1984- JVP Jewish Voice for Peace 1996- (US-centred) UFJP Union juive française pour la paix (French Jewish Union for Peace) 1994- (France) Jewish Voice for Just Peace- Ireland Een Ander Joods Geluid (A Different Jewish Voice) 2001- (Netherlands) EJJP European Jews for a Just Peace 2002- (umbrella grouping) JAO48 Jews Against the Occupation 48 2003- (Australia) IJV Independent Jewish Voices 2007- (UK) IAJV Independent Australian Jewish Voices 2007- IJAN International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network 2008- (US-centred) Open Hillel 2013-19 (Swarthmore College, US; defiant of Hillel International’s embedded pro-Israel orientation) Judaism On Our Own Terms 2019- (defiant of Israel-first Hillel International) Project Rozana 2013- (Australian origins; funds and organises assistance to Palestinian medical personnel and organisations in treating Palestinians in need) If Not Now 2014- (US) Vozes Judaicas por Libertacao (Jewish Voices for Liberation) 2014- (Brazil) Na’amod: British Jews Against Occupation 2018- Tsedek ! 2023- (France) JCA Jewish Council of Australia 2024- Judeis X Palestina (Jews for Palestine) 2021- (Argentina) Jews Demand Action 2025- Jews Against Genocide (UK, informal) The post The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Evan Jones.
2025: The Year the Government Stopped Pretending It Cared About Freedom
Some years chip away at freedom. Others tear the mask off. 2025 was the year the government stopped pretending it was constrained by the Constitution—when executive power expanded openly and unapologetically, surveillance became ambient, dissent became dangerous, and the machinery of militarized government embedded itself into daily life. Under Trump 2.0, the erosion of civil More The post 2025: The Year the Government Stopped Pretending It Cared About Freedom appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372821" class="size-medium wp-image-372821" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_8541-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Some years chip away at freedom. Others tear the mask off. 2025 was the year the government stopped pretending it was constrained by the Constitution—when executive power expanded openly and unapologetically, surveillance became ambient, dissent became dangerous, and the machinery of militarized government embedded itself into daily life. Under Trump 2.0, the erosion of civil liberties gave way to something more brazen: the dismantling of constitutional government itself. What made 2025 different was not any single abuse of power, but the relentless accumulation of them. The losses mounted week by week, crisis by crisis, executive order by executive order, until exhaustion itself became a political condition. Outrage no longer led to accountability; it simply rolled into the next emergency. What follows is not a list of grievances or a catalogue of partisan disputes. It is a record of the year freedom lost its guardrails—and of a nation torn apart from within by the very individuals and institutions entrusted with preventing such tyranny. Donald J. Trump entered his second term promising revenge, retribution, and sweeping transformation. In that regard, he has been utterly successful. Where he has failed—spectacularly—is in honoring his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. From the outset, Trump treated the Constitution not as a governing framework but as an obstacle—something to be maneuvered around, ignored, or rewritten by executive fiat. Indeed, he signed more executive orders in his first month than any other president had signed in their first 100 days. The warning signs appeared immediately. Within days of his inauguration, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights disappeared from the White House website. While the administration later insisted the documents would be restored, the timing and symbolism were impossible to ignore—especially as executive orders poured out at a pace designed to bypass the very rule of law those documents exist to preserve. Almost immediately thereafter, Trump declared two national states of emergency, announced his intention to disregard the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, established new federal agencies without congressional authorization, and pushed for an expansion of the death penalty. Constitutional boundaries were not merely tested; they were treated as optional. At the same time, the presidential pardon—intended as a tool of mercy—was transformed into a currency of loyalty. Political allies and insiders were shielded from accountability, signaling that allegiance to the president now mattered more than fidelity to the law. Economic governance followed the same pattern. Trump unilaterally launched tariff wars against longstanding trade partners, seizing Congress’s power of the purse and throwing already fragile markets into turmoil. Constitutional process was no longer a prerequisite for national policy; presidential will was sufficient. Immigration enforcement soon revealed just how far the rule of law had eroded. Despite campaign promises to target violent offenders, Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded dragnet-style raids that swept up undocumented immigrants with no criminal history. In a calculated effort to evade judicial review and human rights obligations, detainees were secretly flown out of the country to foreign prisons beyond the reach of U.S. courts. As public opposition mounted, the government’s response was not restraint but force. The National Guard was deployed first to Washington, D.C., and then increasingly to states across the country, under the pretext of addressing crime and unrest. Civil liberties organizations warned that the line between civilian law enforcement and military occupation was rapidly disappearing. The administration pressed on regardless. By this point, the nation was teetering on the brink of a constitutional crisis. The president openly embraced the notion that “I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Abroad, constitutional limits collapsed just as readily. The United States carried out preemptive military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites without congressional authorization. Drone strikes escalated in Yemen. Civilian boats were targeted under the banner of counterterrorism and drug interdiction. Trump openly threatened land invasions of Venezuela. The Founders’ fear of a standing army turned inward—and war powers exercised without consent—was no longer theoretical. It had become standard operating procedure. Domestic tragedy did nothing to slow this consolidation of power. Crisis after crisis was folded into an ever-expanding rationale for centralized control, rather than prompting accountability, restraint, or reflection. By midyear, even the machinery of government itself was being dismantled. Under the banner of “efficiency,” the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began shuttering agencies and hacking away at public services. In practice, the initiative cost taxpayers more than it saved, hollowed out institutional expertise, and left Americans with fewer protections and fewer remedies. The government became less capable of serving the public—and more capable of policing it. At the same time, the surveillance state reached a new level of sophistication and reach. Government agencies consolidated financial records, biometric identifiers, communications metadata, travel histories, and online behavior into centralized intelligence systems, often facilitated by private contractors. Artificial intelligence tools generated risk scores and predictive profiles, flagging individuals not for crimes committed, but for behaviors, associations, and speech deemed suspicious. The presumption of innocence gave way to the logic of pre-crime. Due process eroded accordingly. Habeas corpus—the oldest safeguard of liberty—lost meaning as Americans were detained first and forced to justify their innocence later. Political speech itself was increasingly treated as a public-safety risk. Incarceration, meanwhile, became national infrastructure. Predictive policing systems fed people into the system at the front end, while bureaucratic cruelty defined life inside it. Justice became mechanical, impersonal, and deliberately unforgiving. Federalism collapsed in parallel. Local police forces were federalized in practice if not in name. National Guard units were commandeered. Federal enforcement authority expanded into states and cities once shielded from centralized power. The balance between local self-governance and federal authority—one of the Constitution’s most important safeguards—was steadily erased. Oversight mechanisms fared no better. Inspectors General were sidelined. Congressional subpoenas were ignored. Whistleblowers were punished rather than protected. Transparency collapsed as Freedom of Information Act requests were delayed, denied, or buried. Routine documents were classified. Internal communications vanished. None of this happened overnight. That is the point. The damage was cumulative, calculated, and exhausting by design. The goal of 2025 was not merely to expand power, but as I make clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, to normalize its abuse, to wear the public down until resistance felt futile. The question for 2026 is not whether this trajectory will continue, but whether the American people will reassert the constitutional limits that make freedom possible—before those limits disappear entirely. The post 2025: The Year the Government Stopped Pretending It Cared About Freedom appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John W. Whitehead – Nisha Whitehead.
A Thesis Confirmed: Epstein, Dershowitz and the Israel Lobby
Conman, convict, paedophile and a life terminated in circumstances of purported suicide. The list for Jeffrey E. Epstein, figure of cosmic social and political influence in the United States, is long. Trafficking in female flesh for his extensive client list, lubricated by his lover Ghislaine Maxwell, tends to be the crowning feature of most discussions about his More The post A Thesis Confirmed: Epstein, Dershowitz and the Israel Lobby appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395609" class="size-medium wp-image-395609" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27-680x589.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="589" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27-680x589.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27-727x630.jpg 727w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27-768x665.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27-500x433.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27-600x520.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_27.jpg 1384w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Stephen Ogilvy – Public Domain Conman, convict, paedophile and a life terminated in circumstances of purported suicide. The list for Jeffrey E. Epstein, figure of cosmic social and political influence in the United States, is long. Trafficking in female flesh for his extensive client list, lubricated by his lover Ghislaine Maxwell, tends to be the crowning feature of most discussions about his sordid legacy. Another shrouded aspect has been neglected. The fuss about releasing the Epstein files – the slowness with which the US Justice Department is undertaking that task, the erratic nature of its redactions, and what gold nuggets might be found – gives us a chance to examine the Israeli dimension in US politics. In November, Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain of Drop Site News showed the seedier side of that dimension in exposing Epstein’s role in what can be loosely termed the Israeli lobby. This involved a dedicated effort to discredit the work of two scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who had done much to sketch the outlines of the very thing his own conduct affirmed. Originally commissioned in late 2002 by The Atlantic, the article, written as a working paper, was simply entitled “The Israeli Lobby”. The subject, however, had become heated and worrying to the editors. When the article was ready for publication, the United States was involved in a futile, bloody conflict in Iraq that Mearsheimer and Walt argued was “motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.” The authors were offered a “kill fee” of $10,000 for their consent to pull the piece. “That’s the fastest $10,000 we ever made,” quipped Mearsheimer in an interview with Tucker Carlson. The article eventually found a home at the London Review of Books, to be followed in book form, having an immediate, incendiary effect. It notes the Israeli Lobby as an extensive, fanning presence in the American political landscape, comprising think tanks, the muscular American Israel Public Affairs Committee, neoconservatives, Christian Zionists, and journalists with clout. Its aims are clear: “Maintaining US support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is essential in so far as the Lobby is concerned, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power.” Hand in hand, Israel and pro-Israel groups in the US had “worked together to shape the administration’s policy toward Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.” Epstein proceeded to play a role in the campaign against Walt and Mearsheimer. His pro-Israel credentials were impeccable. He had a close relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. He aided the brokering of various deals for Israeli intelligence and security interests. These included oiling a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia; aiding the creation of a backchannel between Israel and Russia during the Syrian Civil War and facilitating a security agreement between Israel and the West African state of Côte d’Ivoire. He hosted an Israeli intelligence officer, Yoni Koren, on at least three occasions in Manhattan. “He was a dealmaker and a fixer at a very, very elite level,” says Hussain. One need not bother about the accusation that Epstein might have been in the specific pay of the Israeli intelligence service to show where his allegiances lay. He was a dedicated spear carrier for Israeli interests. In the apoplexy that broke out among members of the lobby to the Walt and Mearsheimer paper, he featured prominently, as emails from his Yahoo! account reveal. Epstein’s specific role in targeting the two scholars came from correspondence obtained by the non-profit whistleblower entity Distributed Denial of Secrets and made available to Drop Site News. Of interest here is the correspondence between Epstein and Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz, himself a devoted apologist for Israeli causes. During the first week of April 2006 Dershowitz, who also acted for Epstein in criminal matters, passed on several drafts of his article “Debunking the Newest – and Oldest – Jewish Conspiracy” to the financier. That tatty, travesty of a piece accused Walt and Mearsheimer of putting together “little more than a compilation of old, false, and authoritatively discredited charges dressed up in academic garb”, incarnating in modern form the conspiratorial tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. After Epstein’s warm congratulations for the libellous effort, the question of how best to distribute the piece comes to the fore. To a query from Dershowitz’s email address sent by an assistant regarding progress on the matter, Epstein replies: “yes I’ve started.” Here, the vital entrails of the Lobby become clear: Epstein’s relationship with Harvard (donor of sums over $9 million between 1998 and 2008); Epstein as trustee and president of the family financial office of retail mogul and philanthropist Leslie Wexner, himself a donor of almost $20 million to the Kennedy School between 2000 and 2006 via a foundation bearing his name and responsible for a scholar program for visiting Israeli government officials to study a one-year Master’s degree. The effect of such strategizing was to curb the reach of Walt and Mearsheimer. Scheduled talks were cancelled or readjusted to include a pro-Israeli voice. Mearsheimer, in reacting to the emails, proved characteristically unflappable. “I’m not surprised to see these emails, because Dershowitz and Epstein were close and both have a passionate attachment to Israel.” It will be a frigid comfort for both he and Walt that their thesis on the bewitching influence of the Israeli lobby’s workings has been so profoundly vindicated. The post A Thesis Confirmed: Epstein, Dershowitz and the Israel Lobby appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
As 2025 ended, one thing was as plain as day. American small businesses and their customers are paying a price for global trade tariffs, an import tax, courtesy of President Donald J Trump. How this economic fact plays out legally and politically is an open question, connected with long-running trends. On the legal front, small More The post Kitchen Tables and Tariffs appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395599" class="size-medium wp-image-395599" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-680x448.png" alt="" width="680" height="448" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-680x448.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-957x630.png 957w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-768x506.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-1536x1011.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-2048x1348.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-500x329.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-6.55.19-PM-600x395.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Hale Tat As 2025 ended, one thing was as plain as day. American small businesses and their customers are paying a price for global trade tariffs, an import tax, courtesy of President Donald J Trump. How this economic fact plays out legally and politically is an open question, connected with long-running trends. On the legal front, small businesses, over 700 of them at last count, have joined together as part of an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) to the U.S. Supreme Court with their testimonies against President Trump’s tariffs on foreign imports (Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. and Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump). Recall that the president promised to use tariff revenue on foreign imports to increase American manufacturing. Why the need for tariff-revenue to grow private-sector manufacturing across the U.S.? Corporate America has been disinvesting in industrial production stateside for decades. Shifting manufacturing abroad and eliminating unionized employment for reasons of higher profits has been one of the hallmarks of the U.S. economy under Democratic and GOP administrations. That’s a bipartisan consensus. Looking at this trend with a class and politics lens, it’s a kitchen table issue. Material reality, such as wage-income and prices for groceries and rent, shapes ideology and systemic thinking about the political economy of living and working. The current moment of social tumult has been gathering steam since the end of the Vietnam War, which heralded the sunset of a postwar U.S. economy of broad-based prosperity, with blue collar, family-wage employment for male workers. Dubbed neoliberalism under successive Democratic and Republican presidents, a political economy of corporations and the wealthy lobbying for and receiving increased government help to snag higher profits and market share has ruled the roost of U.S. society. That government intervention, from copyrights and patents to misnamed free trade pacts, favors big business and investors to the detriment of the working class. This trend ushered in the growth of the “working poor.” To be fair, President Trump didn’t begin this class war of a few against the many. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court with a conservative majority, is expected to issue a decision on a “demand for restitution” from businesses paying the Trump tariffs soon. The case challenges the president’s authority to impose tariffs due to a “large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits,” creating a national emergency. Persistent implies a long-standing trend. This economic emergency of an imbalance in American exports and imports is a symptom of the corporate agenda. It’s driving both political parties support to deindustrialize America. Political resistance to this agenda exists, but it’s weak. Think of the rise and fall of the anti-corporate globalization movement decades ago. On that note, Public Citizen does magnificent work to advance the kitchen table issues of the working majority. However, the other side has unlimited cash to buy politicians, a major reason the corporate agenda barrels ahead. Centering kitchen table issues of labor and living conditions can garner working class support in rural and urban America in 2026. The Democratic and Republican parties have billions of reasons to fight such a working-class agenda. The parties rely in part upon division to bolster their power and privilege. Countering such a strategy of the ruling class is a tall order, but a necessary step. There will be many opportunities to build unity against the bipartisan consensus of war and Wall Street and for peace and social justice in the new year. The post Kitchen Tables and Tariffs appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Seth Sandronsky.
In his classic book of essays, Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold described his changing view of wolves. Initially, like many men of his era, Leopold shot wolves whenever he could. However, over time, Leopold came to see that wolves played a critical role in the ecosystem, and he urged us to think on a different More The post Thinking Like a Forest appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="503" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="503" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3894px) 100vw, 3894px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3894" height="2881" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg 3894w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3894px) 100vw, 3894px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3894" height="2881" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg 3894w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3894px) 100vw, 3894px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3894" height="2881" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg 3894w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3894px) 100vw, 3894px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3894" height="2881" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg 3894w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3894px) 100vw, 3894px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="3894" height="2881" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-scaled.jpeg 3894w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 3894px) 100vw, 3894px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="852" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 852px) 100vw, 852px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395174" class="wp-image-395174 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="503" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-680x503.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-852x630.jpeg 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-768x568.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-1536x1136.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-2048x1515.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-500x370.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1020474-1-600x444.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Old growth forest, Dark Divide Roadless Area, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington Cascades. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. In his classic book of essays, Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold described his changing view of wolves. Initially, like many men of his era, Leopold shot wolves whenever he could. However, over time, Leopold came to see that wolves played a critical role in the ecosystem, and he urged us to think on a different timescale and to recognize that the wolf kept the deer herds in check against overpopulation and kept them healthy by removing the weak and otherwise vulnerable animals. As he admitted, “I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades.” He concluded his essay with this insight: “We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time.” A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Maybe this is behind Thoreau’s dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.” The same mantra can now be applied to our understanding of the relationship between wildfires and forests. I read or hear far too often that a large blaze, characterized as “catastrophic,” has “destroyed,” “devastated,” or “ruined” the forest. Or I hear people lamenting that chaparral and grasses have replaced trees in the landscape. It is natural to bemoan changes in the landscape. Seeing once tall green trees reduced to charred boles and blackened stumps can illicit feelings of loss. However, many tree species can live for hundreds of years, even thousands in some cases. A major wildfire, once in a few hundred years, is not the end of the forest, but a new beginning. As in Leopold’s essay, adopting a different timescale and recognizing the critical role of wildfire in forest renewal and the beauty of the burnt forest can lead one to view such blazes as an essential element that maintains the entire ecosystem. Many species, including trees, insects, fungi, flowers, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals, depend on occasional episodic wildfires to sustain their lifeways. Trees like sequoia, lodgepole pine, pitch pine, Monterey pine, and Bishop pine, among others, have serotinous cones that open upon heating, showering the landscape with seeds. Other species like ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, and Douglas fir have self-pruning to remove lower branches that might ignite, combined with thick bark to sustain themselves in wildfires. Redwood, live oak, sycamore, gambel oak, and other trees have epicormic buds or suckers that send forth new branches and stems after a fire. After a major wildfire, bees and butterflies often increase in numbers and species diversity. Certain birds are primarily found in high-severity burns or are at least more abundant in such sites. Trout in rivers frequently respond to major blazes with additional growth and abundance. Large mammals such as elk, moose, and bears find more browse and other foods in recently burned areas. Wildfire is like the wolf Leopold described, that keeps the forest ecosystem functioning. Trying to control or suppress wildfire is analogous to killing the wolves that keep the forest ecosystem functioning. Without being too anthropocentric, one can say that many species live in mortal fear of green forests more than the occasional large wildfire. When we propose “active forest management” or legislate logging and prescribed burning like the Fix Our Forests Act and other forest manipulation measures under the guise that we are “fixing” or “saving” the forest, we fail to see the landscape from the forest’s perspective. Like Leopold’s admonishment, we need to start thinking like a forest, and on a time scale of forests. Only then can we appreciate the magic that wildfire can work in transforming the landscape and sustaining the forest ecosystem. The post Thinking Like a Forest appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Wuerthner.
But Wouldn’t It Be Nice? A Paean to Decency
[The Combine] worked on (my father, the Chief) for years. He was big enough to fight it for awhile…. He said [to the government men with the checks]; What can you pay for the way a man lives? He said, What can you pay for what a man is?…The Combine… whipped him. It beats everybody. More The post But Wouldn’t It Be Nice? A Paean to Decency appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
[The Combine] worked on (my father, the Chief) for years. He was big enough to fight it for awhile…. He said [to the government men with the checks]; What can you pay for the way a man lives? He said, What can you pay for what a man is?…The Combine… whipped him. It beats everybody. It’ll beat you too.” –“Chief” Bromden, narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey Civilization is by its nature ‘bourgeois’ in the deepest spiritual sense of the word. ‘Bourgeois’ is synonymous precisely with the civilized kingdom of this world…The spirit of civilization is that of the middle classes; it is attached and clings to corrupt and transitory things; and it fears eternity. – Nicolai Berdyaev, The Meaning of History What would a politics be like that was obliged at last to be fully part…not just of capitalism, but of capitalism as form of life, capitalism as terminator of anything resembling society? –T. J. Clark, The Job, London Review of Books, 12/4/25 Perhaps, as an aged person, I simply fear the whole idea of obsolescence. Thus, like old people everywhere, I lament the changes happening that appear to old one-foot-in-the-grave me, to be the knell of doom for civilization “as we know it.” As it happens, while I probably am becoming more predictably conservative with age, I am one of those who, while not cheering for the end of civilization, cannot lament it. This for a whole checklist of doom-burdened reasons to which my recent reading of Nicolai Berdyaev has added ontological critique! It is not loss of civilization I mourn or fear, indefensible as it is from so many perspectives; rather, I fear, in its continuation, with Mr. Clark, loss of any possibility of being anchored in recognizably human life, “in anything resembling society.” Though I do not characterize myself as “warm and outgoing,” and, yes, I am comfortable being much in my own head, nothing terrifies me more than imagining the loss of human warmth, easily conjured for me in possibilities of either fascism or robothood. Pathetic as it may sound for me to claim this fear comes from the lack of warmth in my childhood, it is true. More than fear of something anticipated, it is a default condition in my soul. Thus all my creative effort aims at this-world restoration of something I never actually knew – that sense of safety and containment that might be, were we a society that places the utmost value on protecting its most vulnerable members. Nevertheless I believe that a trauma-free safety is real, that its rarity has to do not with bad parenting (only) but with civilization and its addiction to power. And I believe embodied safety is foundational for people who will be in their very habits and communal ways of life, resistant to fascism and robotic existence. For people who, even if they lose, and likely they will lose, win. I’m at a disadvantage, thus, to Chief Bromden’s father, inasmuch as the fictional character represents an indigenous perspective. I grew up, as most of us do, in the “Combine.” I am fairly well adapted to its ways, needed no whipping to get me in line, but, importantly, I did not adapt happily. I venture that the entire effort to resist machinehood depends upon one’s willing admission of deep, unresolvable unhappiness, for authentic happiness remains outside the control of the Combine. In my case, the mix in my childhood of two dominant and at-odds influences left me with a particularly hard-to-resolve unhappiness. Materialist “bourgeoisity” ( i.e, the Combine) was not the sum of my environment. Added to it was the undeniable impression of my father’s delight in the invisible reality attained through his art. The fact that bourgeoisity was not the whole story left me less capable than some of accepting the pseudo-happiness of “attachment to corrupt and transitory things” – but at the same time and equally – stuck in it. Looking around me, it’s difficult to find corroboration for thinking other people are fearful, as I am, of what is being lost. Good riddance, yes, to women being treated as inferior humans, to Jim Crow, to the divine right of kings, and by all means let’s keep the improvements going – let’s lose colonial settlerism, factory farms, stop unlawful deportations and the exploitation of the planet for the enrichment of the few. However, in this alarm I feel for what we are losing, I’m with the conservatives, not in the MAGA way, but in a what-has-happened-to-human-decency way. It’s hard not to look at what is happening socially as a gradual crumbling of social glue, and not only between skin colors and ethnicities, natives and immigrants, upper class and underclass. The erosion of habits and customs in in-place communities, that at very least gave a standard everyone knew by which to measure and judge behavior, leaves us incredibly socially crippled. Trump is not the cause of this crumbling of decency. He is merely exploiting it for his own purposes, a means for keeping all eyes upon the spectacle/himself. I believe it is up to individuals to stop the hemorrhage of the lifeblood of relatedness. How much failure to hold a line for behaviors, how much loosening of the once-reasonable expectation everyone will do his/her part for the good of the whole (not merely for one’s private good or for appearances) has already become normalized? I know I’m just being annoying bringing up such antediluvian concepts as fidelity, stability, constancy, loyalty, but what happens to maturity and adulthood when these standards for behavior are all relativized? But it’s not the behaviors for which I plead, actually. It is the knowledge of a unifying transcendent reality within which constancy and loyalty become the positive choice, affirmed in the eye of Eternity – the perspective alive in the human soul – that’s needed. I plead for the souls of men and women, that which we have in common with indigenous and all people. +++ At the last meeting of the book club that has grown from a seed germinated at our Cafe several yeas ago, we touched upon this subject of the collective human future. At first much of the conversation focused – given the setting of Cuckoo’s Nest, not surprisingly – on the treatment of mental patients, almost more sociologically than personally. (I did not bring up my view of mental illness, that – at least in some cases – mine for example – psychosis is a stage in the natural process of soul recovery). Still, the fact that Kesey’s narrator, the schizophrenic Chief Bromden, with his personal memory of indigenous life ways existing outside the soulless bourgeois system, his imagining of the Combinethat reduces human beings to complete docile uniformity, points in the direction of the real, existing soul. That night in the book group, no one spoke personally of his/her own experience in “the Combine;” i.e., no one confessed personal unhappiness. Then one young man asked if people thought “doomscrolling” is a sign of mental illness. This led to talk that made me aware how these particular young people, who were attracted to our Cafe and its commitment to local culture, are alarmed at the normalized phenomena of “screens-as-refuge.” They fear the loss of any notion of the more effortful world of communication face-to-face, of negotiating relationships, of finding actual activities and involvements with which to occupy oneself, with gaining strength from joining with the alienated others here, in shared life outside the screen. Listening to them I easily imagine these young people as managing to stay just slightly ahead of the “Combine” that pursues them relentlessly, Terminator-like. This Combine destroys people not by paying them off with cash like the Indians (for white people that’s “pre-history”). This Combine’s the “closer. “ By means of the phones everyone must have, the Combine now has the advantage of people’s 24-7 access to that corporate-owned reliable facsimile of democratic relatedness. No matter the degree of social phobia, no matter one’s distance from fully functioning – in the sense of looking out for the welfare of the larger community – adulthood, one can “function” fine in the faux connectivity of the online world, at one remove from personal unhappiness and from one’s soul. +++ The Netflix mini-series Death By Lightning, about the assassination in 1881 of President Garfield has caused much excitement locally because of the large role in it for Roscoe Conkling, Senator from Utica, and also for its depiction of the Oneida Community, the ambitious Utopian social experiment in nearby Sherrill, where the assassin Charles Guiteau had sojourned briefly. After finally getting a chance to watch the series, over four consecutive nights, my dominant thought about it was this: whatever its shortcomings, misrepresentations and exaggerations, the film effectively makes a contrast between people who still understood and abided by rules of decency (represented in the person of President Garfield), and those who flagrantly did not (i.e., Utica’s own Roscoe Conkling.). The distinction comes to a climax in the “redemption” scene with Chester Arthur, in which, overcome by shame for his betrayal of the now dead President, he breaks with his longtime crony Conkling and returns from “the dark side” to “the good.” If one saw Conkling as in some ways the most interesting character in the series, this may have been due not so much or only to acting ability – I thought all the actors were superb – but to liberal society’s nearly complete nullification of the notion of goodness. For by now goodness is insipid and boring and frankly must have its antagonist to be at all interesting – the Anti-Christ rather than the Christ. In real life, goodness, virtue, can at best now incarnate as “codependence,” acts of service and caring based in deep unworthiness. I wondered if the film makers share my alarm at the loss of “virtue for its own sake,” and so sought to present Garfield as “that guy,” rooted in home place and family, reluctant to accept the Presidency, making a stand for values fast becoming obsolete not only in the corridors of power, but in the hearts and minds of the people being ground up in the Combine. By now standards of decency have not merely been erased; their erasure is the Spectacle. The entire political spectrum resembles the corrupt Roscoe Conkling, without even his excuse, his possibly sincere belief in the spoils system, with all of its casual brutality and coarseness (the movie Conkling uses the f-word liberally; he sounds like an Italian gangster, very modern). But still I persist in longing for that decency. +++ It may be the fact I read Dickens every night before going to sleep that keeps me acutely attuned to this distinction between normal decency and the brave new heartless world of “whatever.” The decency in, say, Scrooge’s nephew, or little Nell, or Little Dorrit, is nearly impossible for a modern person to see as anything besides impossibly old-fashioned sentimentality. But still, wouldn’t it be nice? I believe virtue is so hard for us to recognize because it comes from positive self-regard – not naivete, but it depends upon an active religious function which, in Dickens’ time, could still be commonly referred to. Without spiritual enlargement, the personal “self” is reduced to neurotic narcissism and self-loathing, authentic, non co-dependent kindness from a simple good heart hard to come by. Not coincidentally, Dickens’ characters live in places – some desolate – as we for the most part no longer do. Our places, like ourselves in capitalism, lack intrinsic worth, and are redeemable solely by commercial worth. To relearn the habits of decency it matters if we live within circumstances that allow people – or force us – to put into practice the “old” social/relational virtues. This, I suggest, is the paramount reason why the return to the local makes sense. All the other good reasons aside, the return to restriction in local living provides the relational “heating up” that reveals to the person her soul’s unhappiness. It forces one in the direction of that ultimate, real, spiritual dependency that is also the direction of one’s creativity. The unifying mandate given in the soul of each unique and interdependent human being awaits its expression in creative acts. Society is starved for human wisdom, which does not come secondhand. For that there must be those who will take up the “hero’s journey,” the creative life, undertaken like a religious practice. +++ I began this piece under the most appalling feeling of alienation from the “holiday spirit.” It was wrung out of me with every non-negotiable demand communicated through the very family relationships I’m committed to. For several weeks I felt much more aligned with Scrooge “before” than “after” his ghostly visitations. Turns out I needed my own visitation, from the spirit of our Cafe. It was due to the talismanic power of the little urban Cafe we served for 22 years that this extended family are gathered here in one location The Cafe was the sign – in the sense of “signs and wonders” – that made this family closeness about living in accord with our need as human beings to feel safe in our souls, to know we are part of an interconnected, ancestrally connected whole. Not abstractly, in our heads, but among real flesh-and-blood people, people we know and can depend upon being connected with, for better and for worse, in sickness and health, all our lives. Only recently in history has the human need for stability of place and community become optional. The fact that, absent patriarchy and authoritarianism, we no longer know how to be limited this way, does not detract from its meaning, which, though absolute is not dogmatic. I am surrounded here by my family members who, imbibing in their own way the Cafe’s message of godly creativity, have valued other things than “success” on materialist terms. To be this kind of person, to be good positively, one needs the confidence accessed by means of creativity. That is why, like Allen Ginsberg, I advocate that each person become “mindful of… your own art, your own beauty,” that you “go out and make it for your own eternity.” I’m at a loss for whatever else might work. I think we must open ourselves to the unhappiness that’s in our personal hearts, let it speak its deep truth; this is where decency starts. The post But Wouldn’t It Be Nice? A Paean to Decency appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kim C. Domenico.
The New York Times Goes Deep…for Propaganda
Pornographic associations aside, I’m old enough to remember when “Deep Throat” was a quasi-heroic figure spilling the beans on U.S. government malfeasance during Watergate. In the New Year, Deep Throat is a shapeless phantom who peddles propaganda for the New York Times. He/she/they might as well be a clerk in the Times mailroom, for all More The post The New York Times Goes Deep…for Propaganda appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-337081" class="size-medium wp-image-337081" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28%E2%80%AFPM-680x519.png" alt="" width="680" height="519" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28 PM-680x519.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28 PM-825x630.png 825w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28 PM-768x587.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28 PM-500x382.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28 PM-600x458.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-5.13.28 PM.png 1508w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Rafael Hoyos Weht Pornographic associations aside, I’m old enough to remember when “Deep Throat” was a quasi-heroic figure spilling the beans on U.S. government malfeasance during Watergate. In the New Year, Deep Throat is a shapeless phantom who peddles propaganda for the New York Times. He/she/they might as well be a clerk in the Times mailroom, for all we know. What’s important is that they get to make claims the Times wants to promote sound more real by coming from a secret source. Such is the Fourth Estate in the Year 2026. On the last day of 2025, the Times ran with a story headlined “Venezuela Detains Americans Amid Growing U.S. Pressure,” leading off with, “Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans in the months since the Trump administration began a military and economic pressure campaign against the government of the South American nation, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.” This “U.S. official … spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.” Checkmate. Like so much else the Times sees fit to print, the point of this random story is to stoke the fires of belligerence toward Venezuela and its leader Maduro. “President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has long used detained Americans, whether guilty or innocent of serious crimes, as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington, his greatest adversary,” the reporters claim, with no context or evidence. (There are three reporters bylined; apparently it takes a village to concoct such inanity.) “The number of detained Americans in Venezuela began to rise again in the fall, according to the U.S. official. That rise coincided with the deployment of a U.S. naval armada in the Caribbean and the start of airstrikes against boats that Washington says transport drugs on Mr. Maduro’s orders,” the story continues. Again, no data or evidence to back up the assertion that the number has risen, and no sense of irony at all that, even if it were true, the fact that the U.S. has essentially begun a war on Venezuela might, perhaps, be germane. “Some American citizens who have been released from prison in Venezuela earlier this year have described abusive conditions and lack of due process. Many were not charged with any crimes, and few were convicted.” I’m sorry, but the lack of self-awareness on the part of the Old Gray Lady is just mind-boggling. You could substitute “America” for “Venezuela” and be spot-on accurate. She’s starting to sound like satire. None of this should come as a surprise anymore, but it’s good to be reminded as we turn the calendar that our “mainstream media” have become propaganda arms of the regime. New Year. Same Old Times. The post The New York Times Goes Deep…for Propaganda appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Fred Baumgarten.
Zionists have attempted to teach me the following: 1) Because I am Jewish, all Palestinians clamor and scheme to have me erased from the Earth. 2) There is no such entity as the Palestinian people. Damn convenient: The people you are perpetrating a genocide upon do not exist. Damn odd: The people you are erasing More The post There is No Bothsidesing Genocide appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Phil Rockstroh.
Much of the world we live in is artificial and there are forces in the world that take advantage of our psychological / emotional vulnerability. AI is a perfect example, but it’s not the only artificial intelligence out there that is out to exploit and control us. There is the media, with its invasive advertising More The post We are Consumers Being Consumed appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-385618" class="size-medium wp-image-385618" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_4528-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Much of the world we live in is artificial and there are forces in the world that take advantage of our psychological / emotional vulnerability. AI is a perfect example, but it’s not the only artificial intelligence out there that is out to exploit and control us. There is the media, with its invasive advertising of products that we buy but that we need like we need a hole in the head. You might think that capitalism is behind advertising but it is more sinister than that. It is the zeitgeist that serves the entrenched self-centeredness of Western civilization. (zeitgeist = from the German “Zeitgeist”, meaning “spirit of the times”) Think of how often you hear the word “consumer” used to refer to a generic you or me or our neighbor. It is now being used instead of “the public” which originally meant “people” or “adults”. Consumer in current usage means “those who consume goods and services”. When we are just consumers we aren’t even human, or at least our humanity isn’t relevant. Consumer, definition 2: “A person or thing that eats or uses something.” I find that insulting, demeaning and provocative. That’s the zeitgeist insinuating itself. The way you know if some aspect of your culture is coming at you via the zeitgeist is if it begins to shed its legitimacy when you look at it even a little out of context. It might seem acceptable if it ushers from the lips of someone you respect, like Terry Gross on NPR. You might forgive her for the lapse (or journalistic laziness in not finding a better word) , but if you just consider where that word has been, so to speak, i.e., bandied about by amoral, economic strategists, political opportunists and dime dozen suck-ups of the rank and file, that word begins to stink like a rotten piece of meat. You want some more words from the zeitgeist? Here they are: “Move the needle” (the image behind this phrase refers to the pointer on an analog measuring device for measuring, for example) , “project performance”. Here’s more: “Target” buyer or user (the key word here is “target”). There is “low-hanging fruit”, “working class”, “competitive advantage”, “core competencies”, even “zero-sum”. Do you know what zero-sum means? It means when “what is gained by one side is lost from the other”. That about sums up what has been making the global economy tick, right? To survive as a business I have to try to get the “competitive edge”, and expand my “customer base”. How do I do that (oh Zeitgeist)? By advertising my product or services. How do I do that? I hire an expert. Probably someone who doesn’t even know me. You see what I am saying? Are we thinking for ourselves? Does our business reflect who we really are? The zeitgeist doesn’t care about that. It actually doesn’t care about us! I once wrote, “the global economy doesn’t actually need consumers. In the long run, it just needs consumption”. Yes, the bitter truth is, consumption is an end in itself. That is the edge of the abyss that we are walking toward blind-folded by our subservience to the current zeitgeist. You might ask: “How do I know if I am being subservient to the whims and will of the zeitgeist?” If you share a few of your dreams with me I can tell you! The post We are Consumers Being Consumed appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Gary Lindorff.
Her parents were too poor for her to get a proper education, and the schools were houses of neglect. With a family that couldn’t feed itself with love, it was time to move out and get to work. She was only twelve years old and it was 1997. “I couldn’t continue my studies because there More The post Interview With a Bolivarian Miliciana appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395463" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM-680x603.png" alt="" width="680" height="603" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM-680x603.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM-710x630.png 710w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM-768x681.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM-500x444.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM-600x532.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-12-31-at-10.49.32-AM.png 1418w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Her parents were too poor for her to get a proper education, and the schools were houses of neglect. With a family that couldn’t feed itself with love, it was time to move out and get to work. She was only twelve years old and it was 1997. “I couldn’t continue my studies because there were so many of us at home, so many siblings,” said Yolimar Semprum, who spoke to me from Valencia in the centre of Venezuela. Her employment was as a nanny for a family that wasn’t Venezuelan. She had to use her sisters papers in order to legally get the work taking care of children while she was still a child. “But I needed a permit, and the permit I needed to stay with that family was given to me by my older sister.” By 1999, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias had become the elected president of Venezuela, and much to the surprise of cynics across the country, Chávez actually went about doing the things he campaigned on in during the election. Right from the beginning of what he would term the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez worked for a radical level of inclusivity, holding vast referendums and plebiscites, where the population determined it was time to write a new, democratic and emancipatory constitution. That, too, took a long time. In the process of writing the new constitution, Venezuelans who had never been involved in public life were not just consulted, but were the collective drivers of the new society taking shape. Yolimar, a teenager who had already hit the ceiling of the old society, was enthralled with the democratic rights that the government was going out of their way not only to recognize, but to teach and explain patiently to those who had previously been marginalized. “In the late 90s, I wasn’t involved in politics because I wasn’t old enough yet, but after I turned 16, I started looking into registering with the National Electoral Council (CNE) so I could vote for socialism.” (Legal voting age in Venezuela is 18 years old) In April of 2002, when Yolimar was 16, the first of many American attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution by force was launched. “I was working, but I saw everything on television, and then after I saw that, the riots started in the country. People went out to protest, and there was complete chaos in the country because everyone wanted President Chávez to return to power at Miraflores Palace. And then everyone dropped everything and we went to march, and we went out to protest. I had a sister who passed away, but she was older than me, and she also went out to protest. We went out together. She also shared the same conviction that I had: The Bolivarian Revolution of this country brought about many changes in the way people and society think. Clearly, it made us more aware not only of our rights in the country, but also of that feeling as Venezuelans of caring for and protecting the homeland that our liberator Simón Bolívar bequeathed to us.” Popular education, creating what Ché referred to as a socialist being, began before anything else. If you have a revolution, it must be both understood and participatory. Though she wasn’t able to return to studies full time due to needs for paying rent and eating, Yolimar continued her education once again by attending courses at Mision Robinson, one of the many missions created by Chávez to handle the foot dragging of the deputies of the prior republic. These courses were taught in large part by other Venezuelans, though using the popular education programs developed in revolutionary Cuba. “When Commander Chávez came to power, he thought a lot about people without education, like me, and he began to implement missions and large-scale missions so that people could study and to eradicate problems through the laws and the constitution. There are laws for workers so that they are not exploited in their jobs. There are laws that protect women from domestic violence. There are laws, there is a law in the constitution that gives workers the right to demand fair compensation for their work. And Chávez came so that we could have a voice when we didn’t have one. All the laws that exist now in Venezuela are thanks to Commander Chávez.” This is where you get the real sense of what the revolution has meant to Venezuelans. This confidence, this understanding of their own value. Self-pride, but wrapped up in internationalism (unless it’s time for a Baseball game). Chávismo, especially under Chávez himself, knew you couldn’t change society without working to get the people to believe in themselves. “The revolution came into my life to change it in a very positive way. It made me very aware of everything I’ve already told you and much more. This Chávez instilled in us a fighting spirit, a sense of not surrendering, of not giving up and fighting for this homeland, because it’s ours, it’s what we have, and nobody gave it to us. It cost the Liberator [Simon Bolivar] dearly to break the chains that oppressed us, and he made us free, he made Venezuela free, and he gave us this homeland, okay?” I have been struck, time and again, by the way that Chávez seemed to not just connect with the people, but to feel with them. Venezuelans had a sense that, given only 20 seconds to explain their trials and tribulations, Chavez would understand them and work to help them. “When Commander Chávez arrived [in the 90’s] he took to the streets with his presidential candidacy and said many things that were true about the Fourth Republics and the previous governments before he came to power. He captivated me; he touched my heart because I understood that Chávez was a man who wanted what was best for our country and for all Venezuelans. He wanted a country with people who progressed in every way: politically, socially, and in their studies.” “Was he humane? Yes, he is sensitive, he is empathetic, he has a lot of empathy for the most vulnerable, he has a lot of empathy for those who have no voice, and he has a lot of love. It is a program, it is a model that promotes peace, love, and harmony among brothers and sisters.” The realization of a politics in action, and the struggle to replace the current state with a communal state has been stalled in the years since Chávez’ death (to put it mildly). While the economic strangulation of Venezuela escalated rapidly during the Obama administration, and with Canadian help trying to illegally install a fake “president” among other attempts to destroy Chávismo never wavering for a moment, Nicolas Maduro’s government has been beset by both external and internal problems. Nonetheless, Yolimar is a miliciana, and she joined the Bolivarian militia long before Donald Trump and Marco Rubio started trying to steal her country. Yolimar, all 1.5 meters of her, has been training to defend her rights, and her country. “[I am] now ready to fight to stop the invasion. I am ready to go and fight and combat with my other comrades the foreign forces of the United States so that new generations like my daughter and others and those yet to come have a homeland, so that they have a free and sovereign independent country.” “Of course, the Bolivarian Militia has a duty to contribute to the defense of [the country,]” she explained to me. I told Yolimar the point for me in doing this interview was to get a bit of a snapshot of today’s militia members. From 12 year old working class runaway, to single mom and woman who knows her rights– and how to use them– life and revolution have been almost the same thing since. Does she have anything that she would like us here in the West to know? “Leave my country in peace? I want you to stay out of the country’s internal affairs, because Venezuelans understand each other and know how to handle our problems. We don’t want any intruders, any foreign forces, to come and occupy our country. We want to remain free, independent, and sovereign. And I want the world to know that there is freedom of expression in Venezuela. I want them to know that here we have freedom of expression; we can think differently, speak differently, have different political leanings, not be revolutionary, and that’s why this country is sovereign, because we accept each other’s opinions. In other words, we Venezuelans respect each other and respect everyone’s way of thinking. And the West has no right to interfere in our politics, our model, or even our very essence.” The post Interview With a Bolivarian Miliciana appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Macdonald Stainsby.
The ‘Sacred’ Pledge that Will Power the Relaunch of Far-Fight Militia Oath Keepers
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia, announced in November 2025 that he will relaunch the group after it disbanded following his prison sentence in 2023. Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes committed during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In More The post The ‘Sacred’ Pledge that Will Power the Relaunch of Far-Fight Militia Oath Keepers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia, announced in November 2025 that he will relaunch the group after it disbanded following his prison sentence in 2023. Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes committed during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In January 2025, President Donald Trump granted clemency to the over 1,500 defendants convicted of crimes connected to the storming of the Capitol. Trump did not pardon Rhodes – or some others found guilty of the most serious crimes on Jan. 6. He instead commuted Rhodes’ sentence to time served. Commutation only reduces the punishment for a crime, whereas a full pardon erases a conviction. As a political anthropologist I study the Patriot movement, a collection of anti-government right-wing groups that include the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Moms for Liberty. I specialize in alt-right beliefs, and I have interviewed people active in groups that participated in the Capitol riot. Rhodes’ plans to relaunch the Oath Keepers, largely composed of current and former military veterans and law enforcement officers, is important because it will serve as an outlet for those who have felt lost since his imprisonment. The group claimed it had over 40,000 dues-paying members at the height of its membership during Barack Obama’s presidency. I believe that many of these people will return to the group, empowered by the lack of any substantial punishment resulting from the pardons for crimes committed on Jan. 6. In my interviews, I’ve found that military veterans are treated as privileged members of the Patriot movement. They are honored for their service and military training. And that’s why I believe many former Oath Keepers will rejoin the group – they are considered integral members. Their oaths to serving the Constitution and the people of the United States are treated as sacred, binding members to an ideology that leads to action. This action includes supporting people in conflicts against federal agencies, organizing citizen-led disaster relief efforts, and protesting election results like on Jan. 6. The members’ strength results from their shared oath and the reverence they feel toward keeping it. Who are the Oath Keepers? Rhodes joined the Army after high school and served for three years before being honorably discharged after a parachuting accident in 1986. He then attended the University of Nevada and later graduated from Yale Law School in 2004. He founded the Oath Keepers in 2009. Oath Keepers takes its name from the U.S military Oath of Enlistment, which states: “I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States …” Informed by his law background, Rhodes places a particular emphasis on the part of the oath that states they will defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He developed a legal theory that justifies ignoring what he refers to as “unlawful orders” after witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Following the natural disaster, local law enforcement was assigned the task of confiscating guns, many of which officers say were stolen or found in abandoned homes. Rhodes was alarmed, believing that the Second Amendment rights of citizens were being violated. Because of this, he argued that people who had military or law enforcement backgrounds had a legal duty to refuse what the group considers unlawful orders, including any that violated constitutionally protected rights, such as the right to bear arms. In the Oath Keepers’ philosophy, anyone who violates these rights are domestic enemies to the Constitution. And if you follow the orders, you’ve violated your oath. Explaining the origin of the group on the right-wing website “The Gateway Pundit” in November 2025, Rhodes said: “… we were attacked out of the gate, labeled anti-government, which is absurd because we’re defending the Constitution that established the federal government. We were labeled anti-government extremists, all kinds of nonsense because the elites want blind obedience in the police and military.” Rebuilding and restructuring In 2022, the nonprofit whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets leaked more than 38,000 names on the Oath Keepers’ membership list. The Anti-Defamation League estimated that nearly 400 of the names were active law enforcement officers, and that over 100 were serving in the military. Some of these members were investigated by their workplaces but never disciplined for their involvement with the group. Some members who were not military or law enforcement did lose their jobs over their affiliation. But they held government-related positions, such as a Wisconsin alderman who resigned after he was identified as a member. This breach of privacy, paired with the dissolution of the organization after Rhodes’ sentencing, will help shape the group going forward. In his interview with “The Gateway Pundit,” where he announced the group’s relaunch, Rhodes said: “I want to make it clear, like I said, my goal would be to make it more cancel-proof than before. We’ll have resilient, redundant IT that makes it really difficult to take down. … And I want to make sure I get – put people in charge and leadership everywhere in the country so that, you know, down the road, if I’m taken out again, that it can still live on under good leadership without me being there.” There was a similar shift in organizational structure with the Proud Boys in 2018. That’s when their founder, Gavin McInnes, stepped away from the organization. His departure came after a group of Proud Boys members were involved in a fight with anti-fascists in New York. Prosecutors wanted to try the group as a gang. McInnes, therefore, distanced himself to support their defense that they weren’t in a gang or criminal organization. Ultimately, two of the members were sentenced to four years in prison for attempted gang assault charges. Some Proud Boys members have told me they have since focused on creating local chapters, with in-person recruitment, that communicate on private messaging apps. They aim to protect themselves from legal classification as a gang. It also makes it harder for investigators or activist journalists to monitor them. This is referred to as a cell style of organization, which is popular with insurgency groups. These groups are organized to rebel against authority and overthrow government structures. The cell organizational style does not have a robust hierarchy but instead produces smaller groups. They all adhere to the same ideology but may not be directly associated. They may have a leader, but it’s often acknowledged that they are merely a figurehead, not someone giving direct orders. For the Proud Boys, this would be former leader Enrique Tarrio. Proud Boys members I’ve spoken to have referred to him as a “mascot” and not their leader. Looking ahead So what does the Rhodes interview indicate about the future of Oath Keepers? Members will continue supporting Trump while also recruiting more retired military and law enforcement officers. They will create an organizational structure designed to outlive Rhodes. And based on my interactions with the far-right, I believe it’s likely they will create an organizational structure similar to that of the cell style for organizing. Beyond that, they are going to try to own their IT, which includes hosting their websites and also using trusted online revenue generators. This will likely provide added security, protecting their membership rolls while making it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to investigate them in the future. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/269775/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post The ‘Sacred’ Pledge that Will Power the Relaunch of Far-Fight Militia Oath Keepers appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alexander Lowie.
The world can become a gigantic garbage can. The world can become a liberatory laboratory of fulfillment. Which will it be? To my eyes two tasks beckon. 1. Stop Trump. 2. Advance The Long March Toward A Truly Desirable Society. To my mind, however, the two tasks are not separate. To fail to stop Trump More The post Navigating Our Times appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395635" class="size-medium wp-image-395635" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52-680x383.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="383" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52-600x338.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Crowd_at_the_Hands-Off_rally_Washington_DC_2025-04-05_13-17-52.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Crowd in front of the Washington Monument, Hands-Off rally, Washington, DC. G. Edward Johnson, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons The world can become a gigantic garbage can. The world can become a liberatory laboratory of fulfillment. Which will it be? To my eyes two tasks beckon. 1. Stop Trump. 2. Advance The Long March Toward A Truly Desirable Society. To my mind, however, the two tasks are not separate. To fail to stop Trump would at best make the Long March much longer. Therefore, to stop Trump and to advance the Long March are really at least potentially one task. But if they can be one task, why the hell did I say “two tasks”? I said they were two because in some people’s minds the Long March to a better society is one task and attempting to stop Trump isn’t part of it and will even distract from it. Those people feel that to stop Trump, to stop MAGA, points activists toward elevating election outcomes which then impedes the long march. Their most frequent and I think most effective argument runs like this. To vote for someone who you despise because his or her opponent is even further off the rails is a trap that binds people into a never ending game of electorally whack this rat or electorally whack that rat. It turns eyes only toward whacking rats, and grows attachment only to electoral activity. It thus diverts those involved away from the larger prize, which is to win a fundamentally transformed better society. Listening to that argument, I have to agree that people can become so enmeshed in supporting despicable Democrats against fascist Republicans that they bid goodbye to the long march. They bid hello to endless electoral limitations. They even slip into rabbit-holed Democratic Party thinking. That does sometimes happen. But to claim, for example, that election 2026 or 2028 must distract from the long march rests on, dare I say it, a false binary: Stop Trump or March On. The truth is instead that one doesn’t have to work on the long march to the exclusion of working to stop the fascist threat that seeks persistent Washington power. Likewise, no one has to work to stop the Fascist threat to the exclusion of working on the long march. The two activities are not necessarily either/or. Are you fed up to the gills with the vapidity of what passes for American political discourse? Are you a radical who wants more for society than all but at most a few Democrats who might run against Trump will even contemplate? Are you indeed a revolutionary who wants an entirely new system? Do you feel in your bones that revolution, a new system, is the only real lasting solution to horrific injustice? Me too. All of that. Nonetheless, to seek to stop Trump and to seek worthy analysis, vision, strategy, and especially practice for the long march are not contrary tasks. They intersect. Each can and should abet the other. An effective movement can partake of both. We should try to aid the long march all the time. We should also try to aid the stop Trump, stop fascism resistance until he and his minions are replaced. But how can we do both? We can’t choose who runs against Trump. We don’t even have information that lets us calculate who would have the best chance to beat Trump. More, even if we somehow knew what we don’t know, then what? Can something we can do now impact this world now and be part of seeking a new world as well? Pending contrary evidence, I believe that voter turnout for whoever runs against Trump or Vance or whoever MAGA backs in contested states for President and for candidates against MAGA for Congress all over will be incredibly important. I also believe that voter turnout will be seriously impacted by the work of volunteers who tend to be mostly young and often, I suspect, to the left, and even to the far left of their candidate. So here is what I think every radical and revolutionary could contribute to help stop Trump over the next three years. First and foremost we can help develop and participate in activism that seeks to block or roll back Trumpian program and raise consciousness of his vile aims. We can aid rallies, marches, sit ins, occupations, and strikes. We can also help clarify, over and over, that to work to stop Trump does not require us to become Democratic Party simps. It does not require that we set aside our more radical positive beliefs.To work to stop Trump is to ward off calamity now and remove a huge obstacle to our needed long march. Trump must lose. MAGA must lose. Beyond that, for the long march, a very great number of Trump’s voters must be heard, understood, and communicated with until communicating with those who disagree with us becomes a central part of our organizing, and until a very great number of those who now disagree with us become part of our community of marchers. What I find most embarrassing, and perhaps even most scary about the Republican 2024 effort and what will undoubtedly occur in 2026 and 2028 is that Republicans are not only in it to win it. They have thought about it to enact it. They have prepared to do it their way. That is Trump 2 and, for them, if they succeed, it will inform what goes beyond. That is, if I have understood correctly, Republicans groomed many right-wing MAGA types to immediately take over various government posts during Trump 2. They together literally laid waste to and are now working to replace existing government structures due to having learned during Trump 1 that however limited and compromised those structures are, they nonetheless place impediments on what Trumpers can get done in office. So Trump 2 erases Departments. It eliminates oversight. It dominates the Supreme Court. It assaults and bends the culture. It seeks to shock and awe the public into submission. The 2024 election was their step one. We are now enduring their step 2. But still, what is embarrassing, as compared to just being vile and horrific about all that? It is that the morally and seemingly mentally moribund Republicans are playing chess, as the saying goes, while the Democrats are playing with or even shooting themselves, and while much of the left has too often only been playing, I fear, checkers. Okay, be all that as it may, suppose the resistance not only helps stop MAGA in 2026 and not only communicates effectively with Trump’s voters, but also works with growing activist and organizing efforts to pursue long march steps. Suppose it gets in gear for 2028. It organizes and demonstrates throughout communities, schools, and workplaces sufficiently to push the national discourse way to the left. It develops lasting organizational presence throughout the country’s communities, schools, unions, and families, sufficiently to give a subset of sincerely progressive Democrats a path via which to rise above the Party hacks. It provides a necessary constant push for them to do so. In that case, if invited, what might the emergent progressive 2028 presidential candidate say in a short election night acceptance speech to a gargantuan TV audience? Perhaps her speech might go something like this: Fellow citizens, given that the United States is the world’s most powerful purveyor of contemporary international violence and its most wealthy and chief obstructor of enlarging international law and reducing global warming as well as vile disparities in international health and wealth…. And given that the United States has massive economic resources that we could put to the well being of our own citizens and also use to redress historically imposed international injustices…. I propose in accord with the will of the movements that are responsible for my standing here before you, that in pursuit of a truly just and equitable United States and world, as the first acts of our 2028 Administration, and to lay a foundation for much more to follow, we should: (1) Abolish the Defense Department as we know it—which is in truth of course a War Department—and establish in its place a Department of Peace and Justice overwhelmingly concerned with eliminating violent strife and pledged to provide no military aid to nations engaged for any reason at all other than immediate self defense in international military operations—pledging as well to engage in no foreign military adventures ourselves unless under direct attack. This step would obviously save a huge percentage of current yearly military expenditures. Closed military bases could be transformed into worker co-ops for the creation of affordable housing and other socially worthwhile products at home and abroad. The prior military members of those bases could be given jobs, should they want them. And those who work at the transformed bases, could be given drastically reduced prices to purchase new homes. (2) Create a Department of Internationalism devoted to reversing the terms of international global exchange so that instead of most benefits of exchange accruing already rich nations, most would accrue to still poor nations. This would help reduce unjust, debilitating, and destabilizing income and power differentials. It would entail replacing the old IMF, World Bank, and World Trade organization as well as NATO and the like with new institutions, rooted in international participation and seeking an equity-pursuing rather than equity-smashing agenda. (3) Create a Department of Ecological Sanity devoted to social survival and diversity. This would include: (a) waging a massive campaign against global warming including advancing alternative solar, wind, water, geo-thermal, and clean fusion sources of energy on a national and international scale while ending fossil fuel dependency, (b) instituting and enforcing strict laws to limit pollution and waste and to facilitate collective rather than individual consumption wherever appropriate, (c) clarifying a willingness to collaborate with and to aid other nations for purposes of surviving ecological and other disasters, and (d) instituting parallel programs to ensure the well being of all affected workers and communities during this massive transition. (4) Create a Department of Domestic Equity devoted to narrowing the gaps between rich and poor within the U.S. This would include implementing massive increases in redistributive profit and property taxes as well as parallel reductions of taxes on low income members of society, plus increases of too low and lowering of too high wages across all industries, as well as massively providing low cost, desirable housing and instituting very strict rent controls and rollbacks. (5) Create a Department of Just Work seeking more leisure time off from work and better conditions at work. This would include: (a) to reduce the work week to thirty hours with no reduction in total weekly pay and with triple time pay for all hours worked beyond 30 for everyone who now earns below $80,000 a year, and to reduce hours to 30 with time and a half pay for overtime and with a proportionate reduction in total base pay per week for everyone who now earns more than $80,000 a year; (b) to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour, wherever the above does not immediately accomplish it, and (c) to establish a workers bill of rights including rights to assemble, engage in free speech, access financial records, unionize, collectively bargain and participate in decision making—the violation of which rights would be punishable by strict financial and organizational penalties. (6) Create a Department of Health and Well Being to promote preventive health care policies regarding vaccinations, medicine, food, pollution, etc. This would immediately: a) nationalize and establish sound health-based polices for pharmaceutical companies, enact free health care for all, and expand and update medical infrastructure, and (b) invest bountifully in quality of life improvements like parks, playgrounds ball fields, pools and auditoriums in cities and particularly in rural areas throughout the U.S. (7) Create a Department of Education for youth and elders alike. This would a) guarantee equitable apportionment of education resources to communities and schools so as to redress regional, race, and class disparities, b) guarantee free higher education for all who qualify via teacher recommendation or examination success, c) open public schools for use by community residents in the evenings after the school day, including providing provisions and resources for social engagement with neighbors and for after hours learning. (8) Create a Department of Race and Gender Liberation. This would a) immediately establish taxation penalties for violations of at least proportionate representation of women and minorities in positions of influence throughout the entire U.S. economy, polity, and culture, or for violations of well being of those employed with zero tolerance for structural violations of rights or dignity, b) work with the Department of Political Renovation (see below) to redress and ensure that race and gender do not affect legal outcomes other than in cases that seek to redress racist and sexist outcomes, and c) institute abortion on demand and free daycare policies and an end to all child trafficking and child labor. (9) Create a Department of Political Renovation with the purpose of reconstructing U.S. political institutions to enhance popular participation and collective self management at the expense of corporate and elite administration. This would not only renovate voting procedures and the norms, rights, responsibilities and powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of national government, including, for example, an end to the Electoral College and the unrepresentative Senate, but do likewise for states and cities including initiating grassroots participatory peoples’ assemblies and federations of such assemblies. (10) Create, in particular, a Renovated Department of Justice to move our country from being one of corrupt implementation of profit-protecting laws, to being one of accountable implementation of people-protecting justice where laws themselves are superseded whenever their implementation would thwart justice and where rehabilitation replaces vengeance as the aim of incarceration. The above ten-point list could obviously be substantively deeper and wiser as well as rhetorically more eloquent. It still wouldn’t fully implement the long march—the revolution—which will entail redesigning the institutions that define family life, cultural communities, political governance, and economic production, consumption, and allocation—but it would certainly be a very sweeping, energetic step in those directions as well as induce a whole lot of warranted positive support. Actually, now returning to realistic assessment, 2028 is highly unlikely to usher the above program into governmental power. To have the above, or something like it the agenda of government, would mark entry to a transition period toward a full fundamental renovation of underlying economic, political, social, and cultural institutions. We will need much more long march activism before a U.S. President could even urge all that. But consider, Project 2025, not least due to being Trumpian billionaire fueled and mainstream media abetted, is in fact trying to implement essentially the opposite agenda of people-hurting fundamental changes on an equally grand scale. My point? We can develop and partake of revolutionary vision, strategy, and program, electorally and extra electorally, even while we also fight off fascism. Stop Trump, pursue revolution. It can become one task, one struggle, and if some participants emphasize one aspect and other participants emphasize another aspect so be it. If we navigate well, if we can respect, engage with, and support one another, a massive makeover and then a fundamental transformation of society can become real. If MAGA can seek a reactionary transformation of defining relations—and they are doing just that by manipulation, fear, decree, and money spreading—the left can pursue a liberatory transformation of defining relations by honest organizing, solidarity, clear exhortation, and mutual aid. To quote a song from my youth, “they got the guns, but we got the numbers.” Or we will have the numbers if we can, to quote another song, “get it together.” The post Navigating Our Times appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael Albert.
Whatever Happened to Trump’s “Golden Age” for American Workers?
Although Donald Trump’s Department of Labor announced in April 2025 that “Trump’s Golden Age puts American workers first,” that contention is contradicted by the facts. Indeed, Trump has taken the lead in reducing workers’ incomes. One of his key actions along these lines occurred on March 14, 2025, when he issued an executive order that More The post Whatever Happened to Trump’s “Golden Age” for American Workers? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395484" class="wp-image-395484 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yunus-tug-6jTCbyzdzIg-unsplash-1-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Yunus Tuğ. Although Donald Trump’s Department of Labor announced in April 2025 that “Trump’s Golden Age puts American workers first,” that contention is contradicted by the facts. Indeed, Trump has taken the lead in reducing workers’ incomes. One of his key actions along these lines occurred on March 14, 2025, when he issued an executive order that scrapped a Biden-era regulation raising the minimum wage for employees of private companies with federal contracts. Some 327,300 workers had benefited from Biden’s measure, which produced an average wage increase of $5,228 per year. With Trump’s reversal of policy, they became ripe for pay cuts of up to 25 percent. America’s farmworkers, too―many of them desperately poor―are now experiencing pay cuts caused by the Trump administration’s H-2A visa program, which is bringing hundreds of thousands of foreign agricultural workers to the United States under new, lower-wage federal guidelines. The United Farm Workers estimates that this will cost U.S. farm workers $2.64 billion in wages per year. As in the past, Trump and his Republican Party have blocked any increase in the federal minimum wage―a paltry $7.25 per hour―despite the fact that it has not been raised since 2009 and, thanks to inflation, has lost 30 percent of its purchasing power. By 2025, this wage had fallen below the official U.S. government poverty level. Furthermore, the Trump administration is promoting subminimum wages for millions of American workers. Although the Biden administration had abolished the previous subminimum wage floor for workers with disabilities by bringing them up to the federal minimum wage level, the Trump Labor Department has restored the subminimum wage. In addition, the Trump administration is proposing to strip 3.7 million home-care workers of their current federal minimum wage guarantee. Trump’s Labor Department has also scrapped the Biden plan to expand overtime pay rights to 4.3 million workers who had previously lost eligibility for it thanks to inflation. And it is promoting plans to classify many workers as independent contractors, thereby depriving such workers of key labor rights, including minimum wages and overtime pay. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on December 18, 2025 that, from November 2024 to November 2025, the annual growth of the real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) of American workers had fallen to 0.8 percent. Trump’s policies have also fostered unemployment. Probably the best-known example of this is the Trump administration’s chaotic purge, led by billionaire Elon Musk, of 317,000 federal workers without any sort of clear rationale or due process. On top of this, however, it has shut down massive construction projects, especially in the renewable energy industry. Trump’s recent order to halt the huge wind farms off the East Coast is predicted to cause the firing of thousands of workers. Ironically, as two economic analysts reported in mid-December 2025, “key sectors of the economy that are central to Trump’s agenda have contracted, with payrolls in manufacturing, mining, logging and professional business services all falling over the last year.” Despite Trump’s repeated claims to be reviving U.S. manufacturing through tariffs, 58,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost between April (when the administration announced its “Liberation Day” tariffs) and September 2025. Consequently, U.S. unemployment, which, during the Biden presidency, had bottomed out at 3.4 percent, had by November 2025 (the last month for which government statistics are available) risen to 4.6 percent. This is the highest unemployment level in four years, leaving 7.8 million workers unemployed―700,000 more than a year before. Worker safety and health have also been seriously undermined by the Trump administration. According to the latest AFL-CIO study, workplace hazards kill approximately 140,000 workers each year, with millions more injured or sickened. Although the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is supposed to enforce health and safety standards, the Trump administration cut its workplace inspections by 30 percent, thereby reducing inspections of each site to one every 266 years. Similarly, Trump has nearly destroyed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which provides research on workplace safety standards, by reducing its staffing from 1,400 employees to 150 and slashing its budget by 80 percent. Through executive action, the Trump administration eliminated specific measures taken to protect workers. This process included blocking a Biden rule to control heat conditions in workplaces, where 600 workers die from heat-related causes and nearly 25,000 others are injured every year. Moreover, in the spring of 2025, the Trump administration announced that it would not enforce a Biden rule to protect miners from dangerous silica exposure and moved to close 34 Mine Safety and Health Administration district offices. Although a public uproar led to a reversal of the office closures, the administration then proposed weakening those offices’ ability to impose mine safety requirements and, also, weakened workplace safety penalties for businesses. In addition, Trump appointed corporate executives to head relevant federal agencies, gutted Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines, and, in March 2025, issued an executive order that terminated collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal government workers. This last measure, the largest single union-busting action in American history, ended union representation and protections for one out of every 14 unionized workers in the United States. In a special AFL-CIO report, issued on December 22, 2025, the labor federation’s president, Liz Shuler, and secretary-treasurer, Fred Redmond, declared: “Since Inauguration Day . . . the fever dreams of America’s corporate billionaires have come to life with a relentless assault on working people,” and “every day has brought a new challenge and attack: On federal workers. On our unions and collective bargaining rights. On the agencies that stand up for us and the essential services we rely on. . . . On our democracy itself.” Although Trump’s second term in office might have provided a “Golden Age” for the President and his fellow billionaires, it has produced harsh and challenging times for American workers. The post Whatever Happened to Trump’s “Golden Age” for American Workers? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Lawrence Wittner.
When the most powerful person in the world uses dehumanizing language, it is never just rhetoric. It is instruction. In late November, Donald Trump publicly referred to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as “seriously retarded” while attacking Walz’s leadership. When questioned afterward, Trump did not retract the slur. He doubled down, saying there was “something wrong More The post When Dehumanization Becomes Policy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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When the most powerful person in the world uses dehumanizing language, it is never just rhetoric. It is instruction. In late November, Donald Trump publicly referred to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as “seriously retarded” while attacking Walz’s leadership. When questioned afterward, Trump did not retract the slur. He doubled down, saying there was “something wrong with him.” This was not a stray insult or an offhand remark. It was a deliberate statement, delivered through the megaphone of presidential power, reviving a word long recognized as dehumanizing toward people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This is not a debate about free speech. It is a lesson in who is human—and who is disposable. Words spoken from the Oval Office are never empty; they shape empathy, justify policy, and redraw the boundaries of moral concern. When a leader devalues a group of people, society follows, step by step, policy by policy. Donald Trump is not a private citizen muttering into the void. He carries the authority of the presidency and a global microphone. Every word signals who deserves dignity, who can be mocked, and who may eventually be excluded from protection altogether. Disability advocates recognize this pattern immediately. BJ Stasio, a peer specialist with the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, explains that when national leaders weaponize the R-word, they reactivate real harm, especially for people who were once labeled, segregated, or deemed incapable by systems of power. Language does not merely reflect prejudice; it reopens it. Nicole LeBlanc, a disability employment consultant and self-advocate advisor, puts it plainly: people with disabilities want respect, acceptance, and access to services that allow them to thrive—not just survive. Degrading language fuels stigma, health disparities, and abuse. Respect, she reminds us, is not optional. This danger is not abstract. As Dr. Gary Schaffer, a disABLED professor of school psychology and mental health counselor, notes, the R-word is not neutral language. It is hate speech. When a president uses it, he signals that discrimination and segregation are permissible, not only toward people with intellectual disabilities, but toward anyone deemed “less than.” History shows where this logic leads. In 1927, the Supreme Court upheld forced sterilization in Buck v. Bell, with Justice William Howard Taft’s infamous declaration that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Rooted in eugenics, the decision has never been formally overturned. While later rulings discredited its reasoning, the precedent remains, a chilling reminder that when empathy erodes, the unthinkable can become law. That erosion is already visible. Federal oversight of special education has weakened. Enforcement of disability protections has been reduced. Programs like SOAR—SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery—which help people with serious mental health challenges and disabilities secure income, health care, and housing, face cuts that push vulnerable people closer to homelessness. Accessibility measures, including ASL interpretation at White House briefings, have been removed, signaling that participation in public life is conditional. Legal challenges to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act continue to generate uncertainty around basic civil rights protections. Even when sweeping attacks are paused or narrowed, the message remains unmistakable: disability rights are negotiable. This is how dehumanization works. First comes rhetoric—language that dulls empathy. Then comes policy—cuts, rollbacks, and weakened enforcement. Finally comes segregation, invisibility, and institutional harm. History shows that when people are rendered invisible, they become easier to discard. Disability advocate and Vietnam veteran Max Donatelli has warned that the public disrespect shown toward people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is unprecedented. Behavioral health coach and disability advocate Emauni Crawley is even more direct: this language is not ignorance. It is perverseness. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is the presence of dignity. Structural violence, policies that deny access, silence voices, and strip protections, destroys lives quietly, without bombs or battlefields. But it destroys them nonetheless. As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, the law may not be able to make people love one another, but it can restrain violence. When dehumanizing rhetoric is paired with hollowed-out protections, dignity becomes conditional and violence becomes structural. This is not fragility. It is responsibility. A president’s words teach a nation who it is permitted to abandon. When we accept language that renders some lives expendable, we set in motion a politics that eventually consumes its own moral center. The question is no longer whether such language is permissible. The question is whether we will resist a culture that treats human dignity as optional, and whether we will do so before the quiet violence spreads any further. The post When Dehumanization Becomes Policy appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Payne.
Happy New Year, Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners… though frankly, I’m not too happy about it. Old 2024 may have been an Annus Horribilis, but 2025 marked The End. Finis for me. That is, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, my beloved husband, publisher, producer, muse, witness, sweetheart, best friend and better half, Max, aka More The post Go Bonobos in 2026 appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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Happy New Year, Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners… though frankly, I’m not too happy about it. Old 2024 may have been an Annus Horribilis, but 2025 marked The End. Finis for me. That is, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, my beloved husband, publisher, producer, muse, witness, sweetheart, best friend and better half, Max, aka Pr. Maximillian Rudolph Leblovic Lobkowicz di Filangieri, aka “Captain Max,” aka Mickey, passed away, and nothing else much matters to me now. Maybe you know how that feels. I have lost the love of my life, and since my life revolved around love, I have lost my life. Physically and mentally, I am, as they say, a ghost of my former self. At least, that’s how I feel. Yes, it’s personal, but “the personal is political,” isn’t it? From the tearstained corners of my bleary eyes, I see the world being torn apart – as my darling Max has been torn away… leaving me in tears – ripped clothes and crying. Not that I don’t enjoy a few laughs of the gallows genre. Laughter is a mental orgasm, healing the pain of loss with a balm of endorphins, if only for a moment. Of course, life isn’t as funny as it used to be with Max. Even after the stroke took away his ability to tell jokes, he’d roll his eyes and wrinkle his nose into the funniest faces that made me laugh so hard, I’d forget for a moment that he couldn’t walk or talk, and that all his doctors said he didn’t have a chance. There’s nothing like the laughter of love. Now those laughs are gone, though other types of humor will do; even dumb political jokes can ease the pain. The mainstream media inadvertently serves up the occasional dish of comic relief in its frantic attempts to be relevant, but its shameless sugar-babyish pandering to its billionaire sugar-daddies is getting deadlier (and less mainstream) every day, so it really isn’t funny anymore. Especially when what you think is only a joke – like, say, the U.S. President casually declaring, “We’re just going to kill people” turns out to be real. Or has grief broken my funny bone? Social media isn’t much better, what with our all-powerful Tech Lords censoring pretty much everyone but their own nakedly self-absorbed self-interests. Moreover, their Artificial Ignorance is so baked into the feeds they force-feed us that we need to do deep research to distinguish fantasy from reality, and this little old weeping widow is just not motivated to bother. Are you? Does all this interconnectedness to everything just make you feel less connected to anything – especially anything that matters? Breath of Eros Sigh. I wish I had something sexier to say at the grand opening of another Happy Nude Rear, but my sex partner is gone. Of course, Capt’n Max was so much more than “my sex partner,” although good sex (eros) is the essence of life, and, in this mourning sexologist’s view, the bedrock of human well-being, a happy marriage and a less violent society. I’m thankful to have been blessed by the Breath of Eros for over 40 years of artistic collaboration and friendship overlapping 33 years of love and marriage – before Eros’ evil twin Thanatos (death) took my love away. It almost took my breath away. But I’m still here (much to my adversaries’ chagrin) and, though I’m not so sure why (except to keep Max’s legacy alive), I’m thankful for that too. With all these tears, I’m also grateful for veils. Not veils that censor or suppress, but veils that reveal as they conceal – from the sheer white veil of the bride that conceals her beauty as it reveals her hope for the future to the shadowy black veil of the widow that shields her anguish as it displays the glory of her grief. Bonoboville Still Breathes While I’m feeling thankful, let me also give thanks to the real-life human community we call Bonoboville that keeps going in the face of relentless attacks by unscrupulous extortionists, liars and one city government, that began in the wake of Max’s stroke and escalated after his death, despite the complete and utter lack of merit to all of their claims. More about that later, but in the meantime… Go Bonobos for us! Max and I brought Bonoboville to life 32 years ago, having *discovered* – at the tail end of The Nature of Sex on PBS – a then-obscure species of ape called bonobos. It was about a year after our rather traditional wedding, and we knew we both loathed war and loved making love, but we didn’t know they were so intimately connected. Then suddenly, it all made sense… Utterly captivated by these Make-Love-Not-War bonobos – as well as each other (call it the honeymoon phase, if you’re cynical, but the feeling lasted over three decades) – we began crafting both traditional and unorthodox therapies to “release your inner bonobo” (with other consenting adults only; we were among the first in modern times to focus on the importance of “enthusiastic consent”), and we called the community that organically grew around us “Bonoboville.” Captain Max was the Founding Father, the George Washington of Bonoboville; interestingly, one of Max’s more illustrious ancestors, Gaetano Filangieri, Fifth Prince of Satriano, was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and correspondent with Thomas Jefferson regarding matters of the day, like liberty, equality and revolution. And rather like Betsy Ross is said to have sewn up a flag, I stitched together The Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure, female empowerment (females rule Bonoboville), male well-being (we nurture and support our dudes), ecosexual intelligence (save our planet!), a strong sense of real connection (community is key), caring and caregiving, as well as sharing resources. For 33 years, romance ruled our lives. Born into “nobility” on both his Lobkowicz/Bohemian and Filangieri sides, but raised for revolution by relatives who escaped the Nazis, Max conjured a real-life fairytale existence for us, infused with art, zany and erotic adventures, political free speech activism, revolution and evolution. But no couple is an island, and the key to our longevity was (and is) community, both in theory and in the living breathing reality of Bonoboville. Now that community is keeping me afloat (with a little turbulence) as I try to navigate through the dark and stormy seas of tears, without Capt’n Max at the helm. The Bonobo Way of Grief At least, the Bonobo Way still guides me. Bonobos are, of course, now well-known for great sex. I’m proud to say that this is partly thanks to Max and me, along with a few savvy scientists, who helped to make these “hippie apes” famous for having such fabulous sex that it reduces violence and has completely eliminated murder and war in bonobo society (so far). If only we humans could do that too! Could we? What do bonobos know that we don’t? Bonobos are our closest living great ape cousins, after all, and I believe that the pro-bonobo drive to make-love-not-war – in addition to more violent, greedy urges – is within us all. It’s what drove Max and I to share The Bonobo Way. It’s what’s driving me now to write this somewhat perky piece, even though I’m calling it out from a dark, deep, bottomless well of grief. Here in the darkness, I am discovering that bonobos are not just remarkable for how they handle Eros, but also Thanatos. As sightings and studies show, bonobos grieve – exhibiting personal feelings of sorrow due to a loved one’s death. They also mourn – publicly wailing, grooming and attending to the bodies of their dead friends. For instance, a Mpechi Forest patrol team came upon a tribe of bonobos gathered solemnly around the corpse of a deceased female under a canopy with the area surrounding her cleared of twigs and debris. No signs of injury were apparent; it seemed she had died of natural causes, and her beloved bonobo community was grieving her loss. The human patrol team buried her body while the other bonobos watched in apparent sadness and cautious curiosity. The team put up a sign reading, “Cimitière bonobo” (bonobo cemetery), and marked her grave with a cross. A few days later, the patrol team noticed that several bonobos stayed close to the grave, some even building their nests to sleep in the tree above it. This “bonobo mourning” period continued for at least another month. Anthropodenial is the Lie Of course, the humans dug and marked the dead bonobo’s grave, but her fellow bonobos mourned over it for weeks. And no, it isn’t anthropomorphizing to call it “mourning.” However, to deny bonobos their deep grief, awareness of death, public expressions of sorrow and care for the dead could be called “anthropodenial.” According to “A Concept of Death in Genus Pan: Implications for Human Evolution” by Dr. Katherine H. McLean, University of Auckland, “Frans de Waal (2019) coined the term anthropodenial for when researchers reject similarities between humans and our close relatives to keep humans on an evolutionary pedestal. Many scholars criticise anthropomorphism (Gruber & Clay, 2016), but I believe anthropodenial is worse. If two closely related taxa act similarly under similar circumstances, then it is reasonable to believe they are similarly driven. Therefore, I describe [bonobo and chimp] emotional response to death as grief, and the behaviours that stem from it, such as grooming and keeping vigil, as mourning.” Max and I met the late, great Dr. Frans de Waal (October 29, 1948 – March 14, 2024) back in 1998 at the LA Library. Ten years later, I was touched when Frans defended me against The New Yorker’s attempt to mock my “anthropomorphizing” of bonobo sex, pointing out the New Yorker’s “anthropodenial.” Now Frans’ work is being utilized to defend the perception that bonobos (Pan paniscus) mourn their fallen comrades – more or less like we do. More research on bonobos is needed in this emerging field of evolutionary primate thanatology. But it’s not hard to imagine that bonobos might well be even more attuned to death than humans are, given the remarkable lengths they go to in order to avoid killing each other. Some nay-saying war-enthusiasts point out that bonobos can be “aggressive” like it’s some sort of trump card (and let’s not get started on that pitiful excuse for a primate who gives orangutans a bad name). But nobody called bonobos angels; they’re animals like us. The fact that bonobos are not completely nonviolent but just *know* – or are taught by their elders – where and how to draw the line before fighting devolves into murder makes them even more remarkable. It also renders more feasible – albeit remote in our current homicidal climate – the possibility of humans living “the Bonobo Way.” Everyone Grieves for Someone Nevertheless, you don’t have to be bonobo to grieve deeply. Common chimpanzees (Pan troglodyte), known to commit murder and engage in territorial wars, also grieve and even mourn their dead friends and lovers, as Dr. Jane Goodall showed us so well. Dr. Jane “loved” The Bonobo Way and aptly compared Trump to an “aggressive” male chimp “competing for dominance”; sadly, we also lost Dr. Jane in 2025. Since there are far greater numbers of common chimps than bonobos in the wild and captivity, more examples of chimp grief have been documented. “Cases of chimpanzees exhibiting distress after a death are numerous,” Dr. McLean continues, “one male made persistent ‘wraaah’ calls (a known sign of emotional distress), whimpered, watched the body for hours, and became agitated if others approached it (Teleki, 1973)… after a male failed to rouse a female he was bonded with, he screamed, tore at his hair, tried to prevent the body’s removal, and spent days moaning and crying (Fiore, 2013)…. after the death of an older female, her close friend and daughter groomed the body and kept vigil through the night—they also refused to eat for weeks post-death and exhibited disturbed sleep (Anderson et al., 2010).” Sounds like me. What about you? Mourning Chic Seriously, is public grieving now all the rage, or is it just me? With loads of extra-judicial snuff films mixed into the rising death count, it seemed like endless funeral processions marched and swayed through 2025 – from the anguished infant burials in Gaza to the grandiose hosannahs – with fireworks – filling American stadiums for a mysteriously assassinated celebrity-turned-deity. This is Mourning in America – with no apologies to Ronald Reagan whose demented rhinestone cowboy charm is at least partly to blame. Indeed, a grotesque parallel to my personal grief is that 2025 was the Year of Mourning Chic. According to all the grief experts, “everyone grieves differently,” and far be it from me to judge another widow’s tears, pyrotechnics nor her widow’s weeds of skin-tight, black pleather pants. After all, I wore a black miniskirt to Max’s cremation. That said, when it comes to my personal mourning role models, I’d rather look to the bonobos than, say, Erika Kirk. Though I have to hand it to the Widow Kirk for that flawless eyeliner (another thing she and JD have in common). Grief, grift or glycerin, the former Trump pageant girl’s mournful gaze is eternally camera-ready, while my own crying eyes resemble two spotted salmon floundering in mudpuddles on either side of the pink baby lobster that is my nose. Where’s that damn veil? Grief is the Price of Love Veiling, grifting and glycerin tears might be human inventions, though primates do engage in trickery. But real, authentic grief pervades the food chain. Many creatures, including some of our pets and farm animals, and maybe even our oldest trees, seem to register the passing of their companions, carrying the loss in ways both shared and solitary. Bonobos may be most emotional about it though. After all, bonobos are the “love apes,” and grief is the price we pay for love. Since Max’s and my love was so deep, wide, and high as the sky, I am now paying the price. Bonobo Project 2026 Still, my New Year’s resolution is to “go bonobos” in 2026, aka MMXXVI. That’s a lot of numerals, but Max was from Rome, an empire of great aqueducts and a lousy numbering system. Roman or Arabic (we don’t need Sharia Law to make us prefer Arab numerals); Israeli or Palestinian (Free Palestine already!); America First, Last, or just entreating all the Gods, Goddesses and Billionaires that we don’t collapse (at least not this year) – I hope you go bonobos too. Call it My Project 2026. And yes, it was my last year’s New Year’s Resolution and My Project 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015… But I’m trying again – with tears and many not unreasonable fears – slipping and falling, grieving and mourning, weeping and wailing, moving and shaking, tripping and swinging into the 12th Great Year of the Bonobo. Amen and Awomen. Here we go… Save the Bonobos If there’s any hope for us humans going bonobos – even if our chances are tinier than a war-profiteering billionaire’s manhood – we must do all we can to keep the real bonobos alive and thriving in their native habitat of the Congolese Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – as well as in sanctuaries, primate centers and (the better) zoos. Lola ya Bonobo (Bonobo Paradise) is a bonobo sanctuary outside Kinshasa in the DRC, sometimes called the “richest land with the poorest people,” currently being decimated over cobalt mining so essential to our precious smartphones and other devices. Lola ya Bonobo, founded by visionary Claudine André, rescues orphans of the devastating “bushmeat” trade – exacerbated by the population displacements caused by logging and mining. Lola cares for these little bonobo “refugees” like family, and eventually releases them back into the wild. Donations are administered by Friends of Bonobos, including our friends, Vanessa Woods and Dr. Brian Hare, authors of Survival of the Friendliest, as well as Ashley Stone and Amanda Kuttner, all of whom tirelessly help Lola to keep studying and saving bonobos. The Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), founded by another great pro-bonobo friend, Sally Coxe, is developing the Bonobo Peace Forest, saving many bonobos, often giving the orphans to Lola ya Bonobo. BCI also provides much-needed food, medical care, school supplies and jobs to Indigenous villagers who live close to the bonobos in the Congolese Rainforest, and who protect their precious and vulnerable wild populations from the ruthless, desperate or just uninformed poachers who shoot them for bushmeat. Give what you can (get that good Giving Feeling!), and go bonobos (Happy Nude Rear!) – as much as your circumstances legally and ethically permit. Even if you’re grieving – for the love of your life or for the world you once knew – it’s (always) a good time to go bonobos. The post Go Bonobos in 2026 appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Susan Block.
“No matter what God’s power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.” -Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity I have plenty of reasons to be pissed off at Jesus this Christmas. More The post Celebrate the Holidays like Jesus Did appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395487" class="wp-image-395487 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/dollar-gill-x4RjgQpCXSk-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Dollar Gill. “No matter what God’s power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.” -Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity I have plenty of reasons to be pissed off at Jesus this Christmas. Not that I didn’t have plenty of reasons to be pissed at Jesus last Christmas but over the years I just seem to collect more and more wounds inflicted on me in the name of Christ. As if spending decades in the closet of a backwoods Catholic church weren’t enough, I seem to just keep vomiting up repressed memories of the lewd things the priests did to my body in that blackhole between their lessons on all the reasons my gender identity was going to send me straight to hell. In order to survive this level of trauma at such a young age, I had to segregate my consciousness into five distinct dissociative identities to keep the secrets I couldn’t tell even to myself. Thus, most of my alters are still children and always will be, so when another powerful sexual predator like Donald Trump declares “gender ideology” to be a symptom of terrorism and commands the fine people who torched the children at Waco to stomp it out, I get to experience this resurrection of Christian nationalism from the perspective of a freshly raped five-year-old trans girl. So yes, dearest motherfuckers, I do indeed have many reasons to be pissed off, and I am not above lashing out. I use Norwegian Black Metal songs like lullabies to put my youngest alters to bed and I cannot drive past a church of any denomination without holding one finger high above my head. But I’m not pissed at Jesus, I’m pissed at Christians, and something tells me that Jesus would be too. Christ is an ancient figure steeped in mythology and lore. There are thousands of interpretations of the motherfucker and what he represented. I can’t pretend that my interpretations are any more or less legit than the next bitch with an ax to grind but I can tell you that I spent 11 years being indoctrinated in a parochial school and I spent another twenty studying scripture and the often-esoteric history that informs and frequently censors it in an attempt to unlearn that abuse. I have studied the Gospels, including the Gnostic ones, and I have poured over what ancient Islamic and Judaic texts have to say about Christ as well, not to mention the debates of a host of secular historians, linguists and philosophers on the matter. So, the following is my own mythology, constructed from many sources over many years, and I stand by it as absolute chaos magick. Make of that what you will. Jesus Christ was a shaggy-haired anarchist troubadour, a traveling mystical heretic delivering muckraking rants against the rich and the pious. Far from what the revisionists in Rome would have you believe, Jesus was a disgruntled Jew who despised the Old Testament and the gangsters who spewed it. Christ was hostile to pretty much all authority; banks, kings, empires… But he despised no seat of power more than “Moses’ seat” in the temples of ancient Roman Judea. He went from town to town, passing right by these so-called houses of God and the pompous bigots who frequented them and then headed straight for the local red-light districts to rally whores, lepers and eunuchs against them. Christ taught these people that God was a divine spark within them and that they didn’t require holy men to access enlightenment. Jesus also spent plenty of time trashing those holy men. Referring to them variously as snakes, hypocrites, blind guides and play-actors. Accusing them of slamming the door to the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces and devouring widow’s houses while they sat on Moses’ seat counting their gold. The only time Christ even stepped foot in a church, he flipped the fuck out, turning over tables and chasing moneychangers into the streets as he condemned their temple as a den of robbers. It’s hard to imagine the fury that the stadium churches of today’s millionaire Zionist Evangelicals would inspire in this mystic wildcard, but I imagine it would likely put the teenage church burning Satanists of the Norwegian Black Metal scene to shame. This is the Jesus I know and, in this light, even the wholesome fable of the first Christmas takes on a far more rambunctious flicker. After getting knocked up by an angel, Mary and her terrestrial side-piece Joseph fled Galilee on the orders of a census that was set to increase their taxes to the Roman imperial rump state of Judea. When King Harrod, the quisling in charge of this glorified colony, learned that holy men were traveling to Bethlehem to visit a newborn who might someday challenge his monopoly on power, he sent his own Waco death squad out to kill every male under two in the metropolitan area. Luckily, the Family Christ managed to dodge the pigs and go underground in Egypt until Harrod finally kicked and the heat died down. Then Young Jesus started kicking kings for kicks and the shit got real again… Is any of this shit true? Who fucking knows. What I do know is that the Gospels served as an inspiration for heretics, peasants and revolutionaries long before they were hijacked by the same tyrants who likely had Jesus killed with a little help from the Pharisees that he spent his short life flipping off. Believe it or not, as a battered, raped and tormented closet case, it was actually Christian revolutionaries that gave me the strength to defend myself against the church and they continue to inform my radical contrarian ideology to this day. I owe everything to proud Christian heretics like Jaques Ellul, Dorothy Day, Ivan Illich, Peter Maurin and Nikolai Berdyaev, and in the darkest days of my life, I have increasingly turned to the more Gnostic side of Christian mysticism, finding the strength to be the woman the Christians continue to conspire against me becoming through the divine feminine spirit of Sophia and the holy women defined by it; Mary Magdalene, Joan of Arc, Saint Brigitte and most of all, the Virgin Mary. Faith isn’t about what you can prove or what you can preach, it is about inner knowledge, gnosis, a personal kinship with the divine and how that inspires you to live or in my case survive. The church has declared war on me through another empire that uses a bad interpretation of the Bible to justify its conspiracy for global dominance and I have never felt closer to Christ in despising these cunts. In fact, I would argue that this current union of church and state is an excellent candidate for the Beast described in the Book of Revelations. After all…. “The first beast comes up from the sea… it is given authority and power over every tribe, every people, every tongue, and every nation.” Or as Jaques Ellul put it, “All who dwell on earth worship it.” How is this not the Christian nationalist church of Pax Americana during the age of artificial intelligence and Donald Trump? Wasn’t it the American Empire that first came from the sea with its battleships and gunboat diplomacy? Isn’t it the state-bastardized version of Christianity that first sought global hegemony over every pagan tribe, every people, every tongue, and every nation? Can you honestly think of a better candidate for Antichrist than JD Vance, a Silicon Valley technofascist masquerading as a homespun Christian populist bumpkin? It all fits like a noose around my neck but I’m not afraid to go down swinging. After all, the power of Jesus Christ Heretic compels me. So, during this holiday season, with Judea in ashes and the poor man’s pedophile Constantine languishing in the White House, I invite you to celebrate the birth of Christ the way he lived his life, by flipping off every church you pass and spitting in the eye of the powerful. Mery fucking Christmas, dearest motherfuckers, and a happy intifada. The post Celebrate the Holidays like Jesus Did appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nicky Reid.
Arotron Not Aerostar The Big Dipper The space spoon Is a kay a the plow Burrowing through night Isn’t that right, Isaiah? Beating swords and spears And cars into ploughs and prunes? Beat your sword into a spoon Do it soon Do it now Beat your spoon into a plow The Big Dipper Points you More The post Garden Time appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395633" class="wp-image-395633 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="680" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/gardentime-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo: Elliot Sperber Arotron Not Aerostar The Big Dipper The space spoon Is a kay a the plow Burrowing through night Isn’t that right, Isaiah? Beating swords and spears And cars into ploughs and prunes? Beat your sword into a spoon Do it soon Do it now Beat your spoon into a plow The Big Dipper Points you to Polaris Guides you to escape Plow up the multilanes The parking lots, the banks Plow up your brains The post Garden Time appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Elliot Sperber.
Upheaval, Resistance, Loss, and Resilience; KPFA News Year In Review Part 1 – December 31, 2025
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. KPFA News Year In Review Part 1. The post Upheaval, Resistance, Loss, and Resilience; KPFA News Year In Review Part 1 – December 31, ...
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. <img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-469402 size-medium" src="https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-345x230.png" alt="" width="345" height="230" srcset="https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-345x230.png 345w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-1024x683.png 1024w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-175x117.png 175w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM-768x512.png 768w, https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-4.53.16-PM.png 1250w" sizes="(max-width: 345px) 100vw, 345px" /> KPFA News Year In Review Part 1. The post Upheaval, Resistance, Loss, and Resilience; KPFA News Year In Review Part 1 – December 31, 2025 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
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Reflections on a Neoliberal Ne’er-do-well’s Road to Redemption
The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates ‘In the bad old days when I was embroiled in the business of churning out MBAs from capitalist ‘sausage’ factories masquerading as places of ‘higher education’ (business schools that were “the engine rooms of neoliberal indoctrination and elite formation” – Blunt, 2023), among many other harmful […] The post Reflections on a Neoliberal Ne’er-do-well’s Road to Redemption first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates ‘In the bad old days when I was embroiled in the business of churning out MBAs from capitalist ‘sausage’ factories masquerading as places of ‘higher education’ (business schools that were “the engine rooms of neoliberal indoctrination and elite formation” – Blunt, 2023), among many other harmful ideas (e.g., Purser, 2025), I used to teach eager would-be managers about ‘sequential’, ‘pooled’ and ‘reciprocal’ interdependence – between organisations and their environments, between workers within organisations, between departments, and between ‘teams’, and so on. Needless to say, ‘harmful’ because it was done with a view to increasing management control, worker docility and productivity, the extraction of surplus value, and shareholder profits. This is just one of many such examples that I could give, but it will suffice as a vehicle for illustrating how difficult it is once one is ensnared by the capitalist system and ideology to escape, to evade its all-encompassing embrace and to do some good here and there. Even privileged people like me who had the time, money, status, access (to the literature), critical inclination, and capability to break the spell, found it hard to do so. This essay gives an inkling of the wide and long – and in my case inadvertent – path of destruction that such people can wreck on their road to redemption and to doing (limited) good, and some of the obstacles to be overcome on the way. Paving the Way for Imperial Predation As with the evangelists of other religions, it is the duty of capitalist proselytisers to extol its virtues and to convert unbelievers wherever they may be found, particularly in those places with the natural resources and other assets needed to fuel capitalism’s insatiable appetite for perpetual economic growth. Although I have never considered myself to be an unreflective and committed capitalist ideologue or votary, my work within the prevailing system – and my initial polite attempts to test its boundaries, or be ‘reckless at slow speed’ (Roy in Kumar, 2011) – may have ultimately strengthened and refined that system. As my books and other publications on management in Africa (some discussed briefly below) demonstrate, this influence manifested itself in three main ways. First, my writing sought to improve the ‘fit’ between Western management theory and the African contexts in which it was applied. Second, as a direct result of this, it helped to expand the geographical reach of such theories. And third, the cultural-fit arguments probably made the ideas more palatable to African audiences. These three contributions – improving the contextual fit, expanding the reach of management theory, and enhancing its palatability – not only advanced academic understanding but also inadvertently bolstered the capitalist framework. Rather than being threatened by these proposals, the underlying capitalist structure was reinforced. In the words of a slogan used by rural workers in Brazil, I was ‘expanding the floor of the cage’, or making small improvements while leaving the overall structure or the ‘cage’ itself intact (Chomsky, 2011). Africa. To my enduring embarrassment and regret, I was among the first to inflict aspects of managerialism like interdependence on unsuspecting African audiences, suggesting for example that: [jobs should] Allow for interlocking tasks, job rotation or physical proximity where there is a necessary interdependence between the output of one group and the input of another. At the very least, this facilitates communication, and lessens friction, recriminations and scape-goating (Blunt, 1983). [that managers should analyse] workflows through the section or unit in order to determine degrees of interdependence with other groups, and the length and magnitude of the complete cycle of work leading to the group’s output. This analysis should take account of special skill requirements and training needs, and natural breaks in the flow of work which might provide suitable bases for the formation of additional semi-autonomous groups should this prove necessary (Blunt & Popoola, 1985). And – unrelentingly – ten years later that: Africa must develop the capacity to turn its ethnic, religious and racial diversity from a source of conflict and misunderstanding to a source of creative strength, mutual interdependence, and synergy (Blunt & Jones, 1992). I now wince and squirm more than a little when I read these statements and weasel words like ‘synergy’ and ‘teams’. Words which when they were written had the best of intentions attached to them – according to an AI search, because my books on the subject were: … significant for pioneering a shift from the universal application of Western management theories to a context-driven approach that integrates African socio-cultural and economic realities.. Ironically, I had been drawn to write about Africa partly out of a sense of guilt at having been brought up there, in Kenya, where “even as a young boy, enchanted by the wonders and joys of living in what was surely the world’s Garden of Eden and seduced by the privileges and pleasures of a colonial upbringing, I could not help but notice the fundamental injustices of the imperialist enterprise” (Blunt, 2023, ibid). But of course the effect of my good intentions – my desire to give back – was to pave the way for and sharpen the edge of neoliberal penetration (or ‘expand the floor of the cage’), and thereby to produce more ‘contented’ and ‘fulfilled’ workers. Workers who had been ‘culturally attuned’ to their enslavement and could be duped into producing more for less. China. I was primed to do much the same in China where I was part of the neoliberal (storm-trooper) vanguard in the country, beginning in 1990, when for three months a year for three years I was a visiting professor on the pioneering EU-funded Cambridge/INSEAD MBA programme headed by Professor John Child of Cambridge, which was delivered in Beijing. The programme went with all of the usual guff about the good things it would do to help China ‘advance’ and bring it into the (capitalist-enlightened) modern age. But even to unreflective capitalist dupes like me it was soon apparent that China was different. In many ways Chinese students were unlike those I had encountered in other developing countries I had worked in. One quality in particular stood out. They were clearly not willing to imbibe uncritically what Purser (ibid) refers to as the Kool-Aid of neoliberal managerialism that my colleagues and I were peddling. Unlike the mostly mercenary, mouths agape, keen-to-be-anointed MBA students I had encountered in the West and elsewhere, they seemed to be (politely) sceptical about what we had to say and highly selective about what they accepted. I believe this quality stemmed largely from a deep-seated confidence and security among them, a palpable self-assuredness regarding the greatness of their ancient civilisation. Unlike the citizens of many other developing countries I had worked in, who seemed desperate to ‘catch up’ with the West and to partake in capitalism’s consumer feeding frenzy, in China there was no fawning subservience to the white devils from abroad to be detected in the conversation and body language of my students. On the contrary, I can well imagine them thinking that only not-so-long-ago cave-dwelling and club-wielding, English-speaking cossetted white men (there were no female professors or so-called ‘people of colour’ on the programme) would have had the breathtaking gall to presume to tell a five thousand year old civilisation like China’s how to organise itself and how to engage in strategic management and leadership, and so on. Since then, China’s remarkable progress, its approach to international affairs compared to the US, and the clear disparities in the calibre of leadership between the two countries have clearly vindicated my Chinese students’ circumspection and foresight. The Beginnings of Redemption and Rehabilitation It was experiences like these that led me to start questioning more pointedly the limits of Western leadership theories (Blunt & Jones, 1997) and of culturally-loaded Western notions of sustainable human development and good governance (Blunt, 1995). However, as with my earlier writing about organisation and management in Africa, this too was done within the well-policed boundaries of the ruling (capitalist) paradigm and therefore still a bit ‘clerky and calculating’, as Arundhati Roy would say. Even so, the critiques were unusually outspoken for the mainstream literature of the time, to the extent that AI now classifies those (much-cited) studies as ‘seminal’ and ‘foundational’. My lame excuse for taking this long (up until about the mid-1990s) to begin to understand the ideology’s disastrous flaws and the consequences of what I was doing was my fixation with ‘making it’ academically. Like my business school colleagues, tail up and blinkers on, my eyes were firmly fixed on scaling the academic greasy pole as quickly as possible. Dutifully, naively, I had been doing my bit for internationalising the manufacture of consent and preparing the ground for imperial predation of one form or another. Taking a more adapted version of the gospel to places where there was cheap labour or markets or natural resources waiting to be had, and where (often with the connivance of co-opted local elites) there were ‘conducive investment climates’ to be concocted to ‘facilitate’ (another of those weasel words) extraction and ‘economic growth and job creation’. In the process, I carved out a market niche where I could legitimately claim international recognition and standing, which earned me a tenured full professorship at a relatively early age. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the idea of reciprocal interdependence per se. Indeed, how we interact with all aspects of our environment is the essence of sustainability. Likewise, there is no intrinsic evil in many of the topics typically addressed in a business school by people in my field: leadership, worker involvement, training and development, and so on. It is the uses to which the ideas are put or the purposes they are designed to serve and what is unsaid or left out that is harmful. Indeed, an irony of the typical business school discussion of the reciprocal interdependence between an organisation and its environment – which is preoccupied with the presence of competitors and their ‘hostility’, the state of physical and institutional infrastructure, the availability of skilled and compliant labour, the ‘investment climate’ and so on – is that it is conducted just an intellectual stone’s throw away from more enlightened discussion of the topic. Discussion that includes the dangers of the exploitation of the environment and the forms of life that inhabit it and the importance of their sustainability. Links that for obvious reasons are rarely drawn in business schools. The False Promise of Development ‘Assistance’ At the early stages of my long overdue Chomsky-induced éclaircissement, I attempted to get away from all of this and the growing commercialisation of universities in Australia at the time. Hoping to find institutions that valued reciprocal interdependence for planetary sustainability over exploitation, I resigned my tenured full professorship in 2000 and went head-first into the ‘business’ of development assistance. I believed – wrongly, it turned out – that by leaving academia, I would be able to contribute more directly to creating governance conditions in poor countries that prioritized ecological balance and social justice over profit and exploitation. But there too, as I have explained at greater length elsewhere, I soon found that it was tough going for ‘enlightened’ consultants who were interested in doing what donors claimed to be interested in doing. That is, consultants who genuinely wanted to provide so-called ‘technical assistance’ that was in the interests of the recipient country – as their terms of reference (misleadingly) required them to – rather than preparing the way for corporate smash and grab raids on natural resources and the like (e.g., Blunt & Turner, 2005; Blunt et al., 2012; Blunt, 2014; Blunt & Sainkhuu, 2015; Blunt & Khamoosh, 2016; Blunt et al., 2017; Blunt, 2021; Blunt et al., 2022; Blunt, 2023, ibid). I quickly found out that consultants like that had their hands tied and were always on the cusp of being fired. The unsurprising reason being that conventionally (from Blunt, 2021, ibid): “…. ‘technical experts’ and ‘agents’ were (and continue to be) despatched to developing countries bearing notions of Weberian bureaucratic rationality and managerialism, good governance and leadership that had been imprinted in their professional DNA by the management ‘education’ dispensed by business schools and their ubiquitous Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes and by courses on development studies. Indigenous bureaucrats from developing countries graduated from the same institutions, or their carbon copies at home, providing for donor-government discourse that could be conducted in a common language, a consistent patina of good graces for public consumption or ‘a haze of development cliché—participation, empowerment, facilitation, capacity building, coordination, harmonisation, ownership and so forth—(that) helps all involved to mask real meanings and intentions while maintaining politically correct outward appearances’….” The difficulties and repercussions for consultants who wanted to do otherwise – and for the governments they were trying to help – are illustrated by the two examples set out below, both of which involve the notion of reciprocal interdependence. A notion whose meaning has never been more crucial than it is now, as our planet teeters on the brink of catastrophe and we stand by and bear witness to its, and our own, calculated demise. Mongolia. In the Mongolian case, I was fired by my employer, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), for two main reasons. First, for producing SDC-sponsored research results, and arguments and recommendations based on them, that proposed the tightening of legislation governing the requirement for foreign mining corporations in Mongolia to provide compensatory development funding to nomadic herder communities in their areas of operation. The delicate balance maintained by indigenous communities of nomadic herders between their livestock and the vast and vulnerable open steppes upon which they depended, which had been nurtured for thousands of years, in many parts of the country had been badly disrupted by mining activities. My research recommended that the legislative tightening that was needed to compensate for this be reflected in the community development agreements that governed the recompense provided by foreign mining corporations. Community development that my research had shown to be woefully inadequate and often poorly designed and misdirected. My summary of the report on this work, which was published after my dismissal by SDC, states (from Blunt, 2014, ibid): “This is a case study of ‘development assistance’ that demonstrates how the interests of the supposed beneficiary of such assistance – Mongolia – were discarded as soon as there appeared to be the slightest risk that, if served, those interests might have jeopardized the economic or political interests of the donor country (Switzerland) and/or those of its (Western) trading partners and their mining corporations. Donor interests were deemed to be put at risk by a government and donor sponsored research report that made a case for strengthening mining legislation pertaining to community development agreements in Mongolia. The offending research report also challenged the establishment view of the aetiology of the ‘resource curse’, emphasizing the predisposing conditions established by neoliberal design and international financial institutions and the roles of foreign mining corporations, which are rarely mentioned in conventional accounts. The case provides further evidence for the view that Western ‘development assistance’ rendered by state capitalist ‘democracies’ (and others) is first and foremost designed, directly or indirectly, to serve the interests of the countries providing such ‘assistance’ and that development rhetoric and practice is intended to create an impression of altruism where, in reality, little or none exists.” The second – and precipitating – factor in my dismissal was that the research findings referred to above, which had been banned by SDC, nevertheless found their way to sympathetic sites in the Government of Mongolia. What ensued is summarised by Blunt and Sainkhuu (2016, ibid) as: “… a policy development process [that was] designed to advance the sustainable development of mining-affected communities in Mongolia and, indirectly, to invigorate debate concerning resource nationalism and community resistance to corporate predation. The policy process arose from a research report on community development agreements whose findings reached interested parties in Mongolia despite the ban placed on them by the donor research sponsor. The findings highlight, first, the lengths to which development assistance will go in its defence of foreign mining interests and the corporate-led assault on the commons; second, the serendipitous and vigorously contested nature of policy development; and third, the swift, variegated, muddled, uncompromising, yet effective, reactions of power to perceived threat. It is argued that Mongolia’s interests will best be served by a strong form of resource nationalism and that its predominantly indigenous population will be crucial to achieving this and to the defence of the commons.” An irony of the case is described by Blunt and Sainkhuu (2025, ibid) as follows: “Were it not for their potentially serious negative effects on rural communities and the commons, such blatant hypocrisy, such muddled thinking and such clumsy and disproportionate retribution [on the part of the donor officials involved] could also be seen as faintly comical, as their effects clearly ran counter to the very self-interests that they strove so frantically to defend and conceal. The failure to recognize the simple logic that shows that CDAs can make significant and low-cost contributions to stable political and conducive investment climate conditions suggests that donor petty officialdom is quickly out of its depth, and founders, in anything other than the safe and shallow waters of its own neoliberal rhetoric and development platitude. The ensuing thrashing about in response to real or, as in this case, imagined threat enables it to accomplish the quite tricky feat of being unhelpful to all sides at the same time – to mining-affected communities, to government at all levels, to local business interests and to international corporate investors and their national progenitors.” Pacific Island Countries (PICs). In the second case, in Samoa, I was forbidden by the (Australian) donor that funded my employment to research and report to government on the vital importance to society and economy of the reciprocal interdependencies or ‘fateful synergies’ between global warming and non-communicable diseases in the PICs. The work was squarely within my terms of reference. The donor gave no reason for its refusal to allow me to do the work or to publish the results, which were based entirely on secondary sources that were freely available in the literature. Neither did the donor question the validity of my arguments and conclusions. Several years after the completion of my contract in Samoa, I published an up-dated version of the work and explained its significance as follows (from Blunt, 2025a): “The two gravest and most immediate threats to equitable and sustainable development in the Pacific Island countries (PICs) are global warming and non-communicable diseases. Regional vulnerabilities to these threats are greater than anywhere else in the world. In some important respects, the threats are interdependent, feeding off each other in ways that are multiplicative rather than additive. This fateful synergy could shrink national economies by more than 20% per annum for decades and cause untold social harm. To date, the threats have been treated largely in isolation by governments, usually by line ministries. However, their magnitude, immediacy and interdependence demand that their effects and associated costs on economy and society be assessed at the same time, that such assessments be accorded the highest priority by PIC governments and that national responses be led from the centre of government, by offices of the prime minister, ministries of finance and national security bodies. The production by national governments of valid evidence on the fiscal risks associated with these threats and their interdependencies will make the profound public policy changes that are called for much harder to resist politically and provide solid grounds for much-needed international assistance.” The only plausible reason for the donor’s refusal to allow this message to be conveyed to the Government of Samoa and more widely was that it would strengthen the PICs’ case for seeking financial support for mitigation and the development of refugia for affected populations. As a significant contributor to the problem of global warming and the principal bilateral donor in the region, Australia would have been among the first ports of call for such assistance. These examples demonstrate the implacable intransigence of capital to even relatively minor threats to its interests and the great difficulty of doing genuine good if you are part of the system and subject to its control. The broader implications for preventing global warming, nuclear war, growing inequality, and authoritarian control are just as clear. The examples also help to explain why it is unlikely that even the straightforward commonsensical reforms of development assistance suggested in the papers referred to above and proposed by Blunt (2023, ibid), some of which are mentioned below, will be implemented: “… the best-case scenario for the reform of [latter day imperialist) LDI bilateral technical assistance would be that the proposals for change set out in this book would constitute a small but significant part of more fundamental and far-reaching reform of the main drivers of climate change and inequality by the major powers. Our gloomy assessment in this chapter makes that possibility seem highly unlikely. But the heavy dependence of our proposals on LDI donor willingness to ‘universalise issues’ and on empathy and fair dealing, that is, a willingness to treat others as we would have them treat us, also casts a dark shadow over even our worst-case scenario. This consolation prize, where the implementation of our proposals renders some kind of palliative care to the recipients of technical assistance in the hope that policies directed at the root causes will be developed and applied before it is too late, also seems unlikely. In the circumstances, perhaps the best that we can hope for is that some LDI donors in some places will do as we recommend for the reasons that we suggest, and that, forlorn as it may seem, sufficient pressure is put on them by recipient governments and by an ‘organised public’ to force policy makers to devise and implement measures that forestall the apocalypse (Chomsky, 2021b).” Our latest discussion of these matters (Blunt et al., 2025) reaches a similarly sobering conclusion: “… in keeping with the likes of Chomsky (e.g., Chapter 1; Chomsky, 2020; Chomsky and Pollin in Polychroniou, 2023), Roy (e.g., Roy, 2024a), Sachs (e.g., Sachs, 2024a, 2024b), and Varoufakis, perhaps the best we can do as humanity approaches the end of its long race to the precipice is to help prepare the ground for change as thoroughly and convincingly as possible and do the same with the crafting of policies that will bring about the conditions discussed briefly above. The construction or rehabilitation of the institutional means to do so – in what we have called that vital middle ground – will be messy and unpredictable and may or may not result in the global systemic change that is so urgently needed. The ascendancy and tenacity of capitalism, the adversarial character and structure of international relations that it has created, and the unrelenting quest of its self-professed chief executive – the US – for ‘full spectrum dominance’ surely suggest that it could not be otherwise. Unlike others such as McCoy (2024), under President Trump, we cannot see why the US would allow its hegemony to be overthrown or undermined without a fight. More so than his predecessors, the idea that the new egomaniacal, narcissistic, and dictatorial president (and his gang of policy sycophants) would readily abdicate the position of global emperor and go gently into the night seems fanciful to say the least (e.g., Cirincione, 2024; Hedges, 2025c; Zhang, 2025).” Black Marks as Badges of Honour Like so many others (e.g., Robinson, 2018), I am heavily indebted to the towering and tireless Noam Chomsky – whose heretical work was of course verboten and virtually unknown in business schools – for my eventual redemption and rehabilitation. The revelations were life-changing and marked the beginning of an intellectual journey, which I have described elsewhere as follows: “My questioning of the historical structural violence of imperialism and of the ideological packaging in neoliberalism of its neo-imperialist successors began to feature more prominently in my writing following my belated discovery of Noam Chomsky’s work in the 1990s (e.g., Chomsky, 1987,1996, 1997; Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Blunt, 1995a, 1995b; Blunt & Jones, 1997; Blunt & Rondinelli, 1997). More rein, and fuller expression, came from my reading of Arundhati Roy’s evocative and scathing essays on power and international relations published from the turn of the twenty first century (e.g., Roy, 2003a, 2003b, 2004; Blunt & Lindroth, 2012). Soon thereafter, Yanis Varoufakis burst on to the scene with his laser-like gaze, his penetrating analyses of the global economy, and his damning account of Greece’s mistreatment at the hands of the European Union (e.g., Varoufakis, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020; Blunt, 2018; Blunt et al., 2022). What little was left of my ‘normal scientific herding instincts’ (Blunt & Khamoosh, 2016), of any lingering sense that there were no alternatives to the dominant ideology of neoliberalism, disintegrated under the red dot and was blown away.” But as we have seen above and others will know defectors are not treated kindly by the system. My first black mark (and badge of honour) for dissent was earned many years ago during my time as a university student in Durban when I was banned for my antiapartheid views by the Government of South Africa. The ban was lifted at my request in 1993 after the release of Nelson Mandela. In the same way, I count as badges of honour and testaments to my (political economy) redemption and rehabilitation my dismissal by the Swiss (SDC) in Mongolia and my ‘close shaves’ with the Australian Government (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) in Samoa where I was constantly under threat of being fired. The same is true of my brushes with USAID in Iraq, where I resigned in disgust after three months (see Blunt, 2012), stating in my letter of resignation that (from Blunt, 2023, ibid): Perhaps the most telling and damaging aspect of the project was that it had been designed with little or no apparent consultation with the Government of Iraq. In a now sovereign country, the project therefore had no legitimacy, meaning that in the absence of formal authorisation from central government it should not commence operations. But it also meant that the project’s design was likely to be seriously deficient. By the end of December 2011, more than three months after project commencement in Iraq, formal government approval of the project had not been obtained, and no invitation had been extended to government to comment on or to influence the project’s design. And with the British Government (Department for International Development) in Afghanistan where, among others, my attempts to persuade the donor to address the question of the thousands of Afghan civilian deaths arising from friendly fire and other illegal acts carried out by the occupying forces were rejected peremptorily (see Blunt & Khamoosh, 2016, ibid; Blunt et al., 2017 ibid; Blunt, 2025b). These days, I also find some consolation (and honour) in the fact that my recent publications (e.g., Blunt, 2023, ibid and Blunt et al., 2025, ibid), which include articles in this journal and others like it, almost certainly mean that I would fail the new visa eligibility rules that have been introduced recently under the Trump administration in the US, and that officially I would (quite happily) be declared persona non grata there. Undoubtedly, the relevant authorities in the US, the UK, and Australia, and other places that pose as bastions of freedom and tolerance, have already drawn up blacklists of dissenting voices. These lists will have been produced by nets cast far more widely than ever before. As the crack-down on dissent accelerates and becomes fiercer and more widespread in the West (e.g., Kenny & Munro, 2025; Oberg, 2025), we have good cause to fear that not just the dissenters, but their vicariously tainted husbands and wives, and close friends and descendants could be blacklisted too. ‘The stench of fascism’ that Roy declared to be ‘on the breeze’ more than a quarter of a century ago (Roy, 1998) is now overwhelming. The post Reflections on a Neoliberal Ne’er-do-well’s Road to Redemption first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Peter Blunt.
U.S. Strikes Against Venezuela: Trump "Wants the Oil" as Grassroots Resist "Economic Asphyxiation"
Top U.S. & World Headlines — December 31, 2025
Overnight Russian Air Strikes On Odesa, Ukraine Injure Civilians
The U.S. Airstrike in Nigeria Confirms why the U.S African Command (AFRICOM) Must be Shut Down
If it was not clear before the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) Christmas Day bombing of its Sokoto state, that Nigeria is not a sovereign African nation but is instead a neo-colonial state with a Western puppet government, it should be crystal clear now. The longstanding fundamental crisis of the sovereignty of African nations lies in […] The post The U.S. Airstrike in Nigeria Confirms why the U.S African Command (AFRICOM) Must be Shut Down first appeared on Dissident Voice.
If it was not clear before the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) Christmas Day bombing of its Sokoto state, that Nigeria is not a sovereign African nation but is instead a neo-colonial state with a Western puppet government, it should be crystal clear now. The longstanding fundamental crisis of the sovereignty of African nations lies in the continuity of its neo-colonial structures, with the unrestrained operation of AFRICOM as a graphic example of that dependency. The Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) unequivocally condemn this veiled act of aggression in the strongest terms. The U.S. administration claims the strike was “…against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.” The Trump administration’s alleged concern for Christians is a transparent ruse for gaining a military foothold bordering the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). The 2011 U.S. destruction of the Libyan state gave power to these “jihadist” groups, who continue to serve U.S. interests by keeping Africa destabilized. The caretakers of the US-EU-NATO axis of domination are incapable of any such humanitarian regard. Palestinian Christians can attest to this. The U.S. has no right to attack anyone in Nigeria. As far as BAP and the USOAN — a network that consists of individuals and organizations throughout the African continent — is concerned the comprador leadership who do not genuinely represent the people, cannot give them permission to do so. The only two real motives for this attack are the influence of white supremacy inherent in the U.S. settler state, as expressed in the Trump administration’s ties to evangelicalism, as well as concern for the insistent anti-imperialism of the AES. It is actually unlikely that only one of these is a factor by itself. As BAP Africa Team member Tunde Osazua explains: The threat of U.S. military action against Nigeria, justified by claims of a ‘Christian genocide,’ did not emerge in a vacuum. Trump’s remarks came after weeks of lobbying by US lawmakers and conservative Christian groups and reflect renewed domestic political pressure to appear tough on the marginalisation or persecution of Christians abroad… It is important for African (Black) people to keep in mind that U.S. imperialism often uses a dual contradictory strategy: on the one hand engaging in so-called “counter-terrorism” operations while also on the other hand (covertly) supporting terrorism. Imperialist interests in Africa are dependent on a destabilized continent versus one where its people are free to exercise self-determination. Five days prior to the U.S. airstrike, the Alliance of Sahel States launched a unified military force to strengthen regional security. If the AES were to successfully repel and overcome the violent extremism plaguing that region, it would further delegitimize the paternalistic claim that Africa needs AFRICOM and other NATO forces. BAP and the leadership of the USOAN call on all anti-imperialist forces inside the U.S. to denounce the Congressional Black Caucus’ spineless silence on this incident. Their silence is emblematic of their role as a settler neo-colonial and comprador class, a counterpart to the Nigerian government. It is further proof that their true concerns about Trump and his administration are as shameless career politicians beholden to U.S. capital and the Democratic party wing of the duopoly. Today the U.S. is wary of carrying out a naked military attack in Africa if it cannot stand behind a veil of anti-terrorism supported by that continent’s comprador class. In contrast to the increasing lawlessness of the U.S. state that is allowed to act with impunity against Venezuela, if the U.S. were to directly strike an AES state, which are very popular across Africa and around the world, there could likely be a domestic mass Black led response. And not even U.S. lackey ruled African governments could support them in such an action. The Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) does not have the same luxury as the right wing white elites of Latin America who openly call for regime change in Venezuela. For it to be silent or complicit on U.S. adventurism on the continent would destabilize their already weak states. This is already happening with Nigeria with many not believing that the state signed off on the strike. ECOWAS remembers having to abandon its initial threat of military force against the AES because of support within their own countries. BAP also remembers and appreciates the response of the world when the AFRICOM Commander, General Micheal Langley openly admitted to regime change policy against Captain Ibrahim Traore, leader of the AES member state Burkina Faso. The AFRICOM operations in Nigeria must put all Africans on notice. We must respond with unity and purpose. The primary challenge to Africa’s self-determination today is neo-colonialism and its comprador layer that obscures the reality from the people. Kwame Nkrumah pointed it out as “the last stage of imperialism,” a stage in which the masses across the continent are standing up to today. BAP and the USOAN stand with them. No war on Nigeria! No war on Africans! Shutdown AFRICOM! Africans Unite! No Compromise, No Retreat! The post The U.S. Airstrike in Nigeria Confirms why the U.S African Command (AFRICOM) Must be Shut Down first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.
Trump’s Hosting of Kennedy Center Honors Tanks
While Donald Trump has long treated ratings as a personal scorecard, his turn as host of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors delivered a result he has conspicuously avoided addressing: the lowest viewership in the history of the broadcast. While its clear that the often-addled Trump should not keep his day job, he certainly shouldn’t consider […] The post Trump’s Hosting of Kennedy Center Honors Tanks first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img decoding="async" title="kennedy-center-honors-trump-with-name-addition-to-jfk-memorial-768x432.jpg" src="https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1509579/story_image/kennedy-center-honors-trump-with-name-addition-to-jfk-memorial-768x432.jpg?1766239864" srcset="https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1509579/story_image/kennedy-center-honors-trump-with-name-addition-to-jfk-memorial-768x432.jpg?1766239864 1024w, https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1509579/lightbox/kennedy-center-honors-trump-with-name-addition-to-jfk-memorial-768x432.jpg?1766239864 768w, https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1509579/large/kennedy-center-honors-trump-with-name-addition-to-jfk-memorial-768x432.jpg?1766239864 600w" alt="kennedy-center-honors-trump-with-name-addition-to-jfk-memorial-768x432.jpg" width="505" height="284.1" /> While Donald Trump has long treated ratings as a personal scorecard, his turn as host of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors delivered a result he has conspicuously avoided addressing: the lowest viewership in the history of the broadcast. While its clear that the often-addled Trump should not keep his day job, he certainly shouldn’t consider hosting awards programs as an avocation! CBS 19 News noted that Programming Insider reported that preliminary Nielsen data found that the show on CBS “drew its smallest audience ever … averaging an estimated 2.65 million viewers. To put that in perspective: the 2024 broadcast averaged 4.1 million viewers, which itself had already marked a historical low. Do the math, and this year’s telecast represents a 35% year-over-year decline — a staggering drop for one of broadcast TV’s most traditionally reliable specials.” Even during past controversies, political boycotts, and years of steady erosion in television audiences, no previous Kennedy Center Honors broadcast had fallen to a viewership low this severe. The ratings collapse followed Trump’s own effort to hype the event. In a Truth Social post earlier in the day, he wrote that he was hosting “at the request of the Board, and just about everybody else in America,” inviting viewers to judge his “Master of Ceremony” abilities and joking that he might leave the presidency to host full time if the response was strong enough. Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center building on December 19, 2025, just one day after the Trump-controlled board of trustees voted on December 18, 2025 to rename the institution to “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Workers affixed large lettering with Trump’s name to the exterior sign on the center that Friday following the controversial board vote. The move has drawn legal and public backlash because the center was originally established by Congress in 1964 as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy, and federal law designates it solely under Kennedy’s name—which critics say means only an act of Congress could legitimately change it. This year’s honorees were: • George Strait (country music star) • Gloria Gaynor (singer, known for “I Will Survive”) • KISS (legendary rock band — Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley) • Michael Crawford (stage and screen actor, including Phantom of the Opera) • Sylvester Stallone (actor and filmmaker) Since the broadcast, Trump has not acknowledged the historically low ratings or conceded that the event underperformed. Instead, his post-telecast comments have focused on attacking media critics and entertainment figures, continuing a familiar pattern in which unfavorable numbers are ignored while blame is redirected elsewhere. For a president who routinely cites television audiences as proof of popularity, the silence is telling. On a night meant to celebrate American culture, the only number that mattered to Trump was the one he chose not to mention. The post Trump’s Hosting of Kennedy Center Honors Tanks first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.
In December, documents were released asserting two radically different political perspectives. They could not be more different. On December 4, under the President of the United States’ Seal, the White House published the administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy, expressing the government’s current evaluation of the global challenges facing it. The next day, December 5, the […] The post A Tale of Colliding World Views first appeared on Dissident Voice.
In December, documents were released asserting two radically different political perspectives. They could not be more different. On December 4, under the President of the United States’ Seal, the White House published the administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy, expressing the government’s current evaluation of the global challenges facing it. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-164081" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/KKE-286x300.png" alt="" width="286" height="300" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/KKE-286x300.png 286w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/KKE-978x1024.png 978w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/KKE-768x804.png 768w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/KKE.png 1145w" sizes="(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px" />The next day, December 5, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) publicly announced its forthcoming 22nd Congress, followed by the publication of its Theses of the Central Committee — the product of long preparatory discussions by the KKE’s members– constituting an assessment of the state of the world and the Party’s approach to it. A comparison of the two documents presents a violent clash of class outlooks. The US National Security Strategy The US ruling class — in its current incarnation — intends to maintain or re-establish US economic domination and grease the wheels for US corporations to succeed internationally. In this regard, the Trump administration is no different than earlier administrations, except — perhaps — being more transparent in this goal. More specifically, extracting policy from the section on the Western Hemisphere, the strategy includes: Militarizing the seas and the oceans. Previous administrations portrayed military force as an instrument of guaranteeing free “access” to trade. This administration, under the “America First” ideology explicitly uses military force to promote US economic success, foregoing the charade of promoting free trade for all. Accessing strategic resources. In the document’s laundered language, the goal is “to identify strategic points and resources… with a view to their protection and joint development with regional partners.” More candidly, US policy makers in this administration project power to privilege US corporations in resource-rich countries like Bolivia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Making it hard for other countries to compete. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence—from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.” The strategy endorsed by the document uses economic leverage to deny success to others. Helping US corporations to dominate. “[W]e will reform our own system to expedite approvals and licensing—again, to make ourselves the partner of first choice. The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world of sovereign countries and free economies or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by [other] countries…” Specifically and adamantly, “[e]very U.S. Government official that interacts with… countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.” Accepting that “[t]he United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses.” Of course, this policy only reiterates what every US administration for more than a hundred years has sought since the intervention in Cuba and the Philippines: a free hand for US economic exploitation. While these goals are extracted from Trump’s new Monroe Doctrine for the Western Hemisphere, they are barely disguised as policy for the rest of the world. However, they represent considerable continuity with the foreign policy of earlier administrations, though shorn of any pretense to global fairness. Commentators have been surprised with the Trump administration’s focus on the Western Hemisphere over the often-bitter hostility towards the People’s Republic of China. Surely, that simply acknowledges the formidable economic and military power of the PRC. US policy makers of Trump’s world have been forced to recognize that — no matter how much they would like otherwise — the US is in no position to bully the PRC. Therefore, they accept that they can only adjust or modify their economic relationship. Competing with the PRC — the US’s most formidable rival — consists, instead, in bullying those who do business with their rival. The administration is explicit on how to “compete” for the allegiance of their Chinese rivals’ economic collaborators: “China’s state-led and state-backed companies excel in building physical and digital infrastructure, and China has recycled perhaps $1.3 trillion of its trade surpluses into loans to its trading partners. America and its allies have not yet formulated, much less executed, a joint plan for the so-called ‘Global South,’ but together possess tremendous resources. Europe, Japan, South Korea, and others hold net foreign assets of $7 trillion. International financial institutions, including the multilateral development banks, possess combined assets of $1.5 trillion. While mission creep has undermined some of these institutions’ effectiveness, this administration is dedicated to using its leadership position to implement reforms that ensure they serve American interests.” [my emphasis] Thus, the document reveals the carrot to the US stick. Almost in passing, by merely observing the European Union’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities, the Trump administration demonstrates that it considers the EU to be another rival, albeit a rival retaining some important historical ties — neither a protectorate, nor currently a competitor of great concern. The US National Security Strategy paper offers the latest insight into the thinking now directing the still-greatest power in the imperialist system. It is a blue print for the security of US business interests and not of the security and well-being of the people. The KKE Theses of the Central Committee How does the Greek Communist Party view the current state of the world? The KKE is one of the few Marxist organizations relatively untarnished by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It conceded little to the mass retreat from Leninist principles. It refused to flirt with the widespread ideological marriage of markets and socialism. It held fast to the centrality of class in the analysis of the contemporary world. Where much of today’s left rails against an ever-changing, seemingly unrelated basket of grievances, the KKE defends the classical Marxist understanding that the central, determinative contradiction remains the contradiction between capital and labor, nationally and internationally. Certainly, that should make Greek Communist thinking of interest to all those who question the strategic aims of the leaders of the most powerful state in the capitalist system. KKE sees a class-divided world moving toward relative and absolute impoverishment of working people, long-term unemployment, and an unfavorable balance of power between capital and labor. Technological innovation is skewed dramatically in support of the interests of capital. Pursuit of profit continues to dangerously degrade the environment. As a result of the weakness of labor in confronting capital, the capitalist system is suffering from an overaccumulation of capital. Hyper-exploitation has produced a mass of capital, seeking — with greater and greater difficulty — to find (safe) profitable investment opportunities (one might well view the orgy of investment in AI as an attempt to create such an opportunity). KKE understands the recessionary pressures experienced in Europe, Japan, and Asia as the effects of this crisis of the return on investment. Efforts to manage this crisis — Keynesian or otherwise — have failed. Specifically, the liberal project of green technology (e.g., the Green New Deal) and the Central Bank project (e.g., interest-rate manipulation, qualitative easing) were unsuccessful in restoring a solid foundation for the rate of profit. Further, the capitalist powers have invested in the war economy, both in response to inter-imperialist contradictions and to absorb capital. Militarism serves to destroy and devalue capital through the never-ending conflicts arising from imperialist rivalries. They caution that this military buildup increases sharply the risk of even larger wars, possibly world wars. The KKE stresses competition between existing nations — great powers, alliances, and emerging blocs — fueling the existing wars, flashpoints, and severe clashes endangering our world. They contend that: The USA, which still holds the leading position, is trying to halt the shift in the balance of power in China’s favour. International financial institutions have already downgraded the US credit rating. This trend is reflected in the decline of the US share and the significant increase of China’s share in Gross World Product (global GDP) between 2000 and 2025, in the significant difference in growth rates between the USA and China, the large US trade deficit in bilateral trade with China and the EU, and the sharp rise in US public debt. Within the global imperialist system, both the PRC and Russia present challenges to US hegemony, and US nationalist, protectionist policies are also “… sharpening contradictions within the Euro-Atlantic camp and causing a deterioration in relations between the USA and the EU, Canada and Australia. They are exacerbating intra-bourgeois contradictions within the USA, which are also reflected in developments within the bourgeois political system. They are increasing the likelihood of the decline of the dollar as an international currency. They have a negative impact on international trade and reinforce the downward trend in the international capitalist economy.” Of the major powers, the KKE sees the European Union as losing ground “relative to the USA and China”, which is feeding the existing turn to the right in many Eurozone countries. The war in Ukraine is the result of today’s Great Power rivalries — it is an imperialist war. The KKE asserts: In the three-and-a-half years of this war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have lost their lives, mainly young people of the working class and the poor popular strata. Approximately twenty-five million people have fled their homes. Homes and public infrastructure have been destroyed on a massive scale. Amidst the ruins, capitalist states and monopolies are competing for the “reconstruction” of Ukraine, viewing it as an “investment opportunity.” This will cost hundreds of billions of euros, a burden that the people will be made to bear… The outbreak of contradictions and realignments within imperialist alliances as imperialist conflict and competition unfold is neither paradoxical nor unprecedented, but a typical feature of imperialist wars. It can lead to former adversaries becoming allies, and former allies becoming adversaries. Similarly, the KKE views the war in the Middle East as an imperialist war: The Israeli war machine supported by the USA and the EU, launched a massive operation in the Gaza Strip, using the Hamas attack as a pretext. This operation resulted in the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of innocent people, including unarmed civilians, young children, women and elderly people….The imperialist nature of the war in the Middle East and the bourgeois character of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority do not invalidate the just struggle of the Palestinian people and other peoples in the region, who resist and fight against foreign occupation and other imperialist plans. Through this struggle, they can create the conditions necessary to free themselves once and for all from the system of exploitation and war. For those who may be interested, the current assessment bears remarkable consistency and continuity with the Theses for the 20th Congress developed nearly a decade ago. Serious-minded people seeking an understanding of the perilous, contentious, and confusing world in which we are living should welcome the revealing contrast between the two perspectives outlined here. One outlook only recognizes the interests of a minority of advantage-seeking, privileged individuals and soulless corporations, while the other recognizes the common fate and pressing needs of the majority of the world’s people who are found within a well-defined social class. One doesn’t have to agree with all of the conclusions shared by the Greek Communists, but one must acknowledge that they are drawn from an effort to create a world far distant from the one arrogantly defended in the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Moreover, the KKE unabashedly supports a class line — on the working peoples’ side of the barricades. It argues that exploitation is the crucial social relation that decides whether employment, equality, living standards, health care, education, security, or peace are won or lost. Moreover, KKE unequivocally sides with the exploited. Finding our way free from the Trumpian world and those conditions that produced it will require a clear and deep analysis. The KKE Theses provide a solid foundation of both clarity and depth. The post A Tale of Colliding World Views first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.
Illiberal democracy is an oxymoron #shorts
“The Blue Road to Trump Hell”: Norm Solomon on “How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy”
A new report from the grassroots organization RootsAction aims to do what a promised “autopsy” from the Democratic National Committee ultimately did not: publicly reckon with the failures of the Democrats’ 2024 presidential c...
A new report from the grassroots organization RootsAction aims to do what a promised “autopsy” from the Democratic National Committee ultimately did not: publicly reckon with the failures of the Democrats’ 2024 presidential campaign. While the Democratic Party’s official postmortem assessment was pulled from public release earlier this month, RootsAction’s “Democratic Autopsy” looks at how factors like “service to corporate power, hostility to the progressive wing of the party, out-of-control militarism [and] disconnection from the base of the working class” contributed to declining support for the party’s platform and candidates. “If you don’t examine real history, then you’re in a cycle that repeats the same problems,” says Norman Solomon, director of RootsAction, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss his organization’s findings. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“Mayor for the Masses”: Can the Democratic Socialist Movement That Elected Mamdani Keep Its Momentum?
New York City is preparing to welcome its Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA), into office. Ahead of his highly anticipated inauguration, we sit down wit...
New York City is preparing to welcome its Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA), into office. Ahead of his highly anticipated inauguration, we sit down with NYC-DSA’s co-chair Grace Mausser to discuss the goals of the incoming administration and next steps for the volunteer-powered campaign apparatus that helped propel Mamdani to City Hall. “Just getting a mayor into office, while impressive and very exciting, is not enough,” says Mausser. “The reason we rallied behind Zohran is because he is committed to building our project.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“One More Step to Push Out Principled Humanitarian Actors”: NRC on Israel Ban on Aid Groups in Gaza
Israel is set to suspend the operating licenses of Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and dozens of other humanitarian aid groups in Gaza and the West Bank over alleged ties to Hamas, preventing international aid workers from entering Gaza and car...
Israel is set to suspend the operating licenses of Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and dozens of other humanitarian aid groups in Gaza and the West Bank over alleged ties to Hamas, preventing international aid workers from entering Gaza and carrying out critical, lifesaving operations. Citing the groups’ supposed support for the “delegitimization of Israel,” the move is “arbitrary and highly politicized,” explains Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the impacted groups. “This is just one more step to push out principled humanitarian actors, particularly those that speak out on behalf of the people who we’re there to serve, call for accountability for rights violations and violations of international law.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
U.S. Strikes Against Venezuela: Trump “Wants the Oil” as Grassroots Resist “Economic Asphyxiation”
As the Trump administration escalates its military campaign against Venezuela, we speak to Venezuelan journalist Andreína Chávez about the latest developments. Responding to the U.S. military’s drone strikes on small boats and seizures o...
As the Trump administration escalates its military campaign against Venezuela, we speak to Venezuelan journalist Andreína Chávez about the latest developments. Responding to the U.S. military’s drone strikes on small boats and seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, Chávez says U.S. claims of pursuing fentanyl traffickers lack evidence and are “pretext” for an attempt “to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy” and wrest control of the country’s state-owned oil reserves. In the face of U.S. aggression, says Chávez, “Venezuelan communes and Venezuelan popular organizations in general have responded to Trump’s claims that he owns the Venezuelan oil with a very strong response, saying that they’re going to defend sovereignty, that they’re going to defend Venezuela’s self-determination.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Israel Bans More Than Two Dozen Aid Agencies From Operating in Gaza, Saudi Arabia Carries Out Strikes on Yemen’s Port City of Mukalla, Russia Launches Overnight Drone Attack in the Ukrainian Port City of Odesa, Mass Protests in Iran Spread to Universities, Two Oil Tankers Reportedly Arrive in Venezuela Despite the Trump Administration’s Blockade, U.S. Sanctions 10 People and Firms from Iran and Venezuela, Protests Led by Bolivian Miners Enter Second Week, Honduran Presidential Runner-Up Salvador Nasralla Challenges Results of Election, Florida Executes Record 19 People on Death Row in 2025, Unsealed Court Order Reveals DOJ Officials Pushed for Kilmar Ábrego García’s Indictment, Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Ending Deportation Protections for Immigrants From South Sudan, Trump Admin Announced It’s Freezing Child Care Payments to Minnesota, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani to Be Sworn In as Mayor by New York Attorney General Letitia James
Israel Bans More Than Two Dozen Aid Agencies From Operating in Gaza Saudi Arabia Carries Out Strikes on Yemen's Port City of Mukalla Russia Launches Overnight Drone Attack in the Ukrainian Port City of Odesa Mass Protests in Iran Spread to Universities Two Oil Tankers Reportedly Arrive in Venezuela Despite the Trump Administration's Blockade U.S. Sanctions 10 People and Firms from Iran and Venezuela Protests Led by Bolivian Miners Enter Second Week Honduran Presidential Runner-Up Salvador Nasralla Challenges Results of Election Florida Executes Record 19 People on Death Row in 2025 Unsealed Court Order Reveals DOJ Officials Pushed for Kilmar Ábrego García's Indictment Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Ending Deportation Protections for Immigrants From South Sudan Trump Admin Announced It's Freezing Child Care Payments to Minnesota Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani to Be Sworn In as Mayor by New York Attorney General Letitia James This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Democracy Now! Wednesday, December 31, 2025 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Vessels of Revolution: Akinsanya Kambon on Art & Liberation [re-air episode cut]
Trump Signs Defense Bill Prohibiting China-Based Engineers in Pentagon IT Work
The post Trump Signs Defense Bill Prohibiting China-Based Engineers in Pentagon IT Work appeared first on ProPublica.
President Donald Trump signed into law this month a measure that prohibits anyone based in China and other adversarial countries from accessing the Pentagon’s cloud computing systems. The ban, which is tucked inside the $900 billion defense policy law, was enacted in response to a ProPublica investigation this year that exposed how Microsoft used China-based engineers to service the Defense Department’s computer systems for nearly a decade — a practice that left some of the country’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary. U.S.-based supervisors, known as “digital escorts,” were supposed to serve as a check on these foreign employees, but we found they often lacked the expertise needed to effectively supervise engineers with far more advanced technical skills. In the wake of the reporting, leading members of Congress called on the Defense Department to strengthen its security requirements while blasting Microsoft for what some Republicans called “a national betrayal.” Cybersecurity and intelligence experts have told ProPublica that the arrangement posed major risks to national security, given that laws in China grant the country’s officials broad authority to collect data. Microsoft pledged in July to stop using China-based engineers to service Pentagon cloud systems after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly condemned the practice. “Foreign engineers — from any country, including of course China — should NEVER be allowed to maintain or access DoD systems,” Hegseth wrote on X. In September, the Pentagon updated its cybersecurity requirements for tech contractors, banning IT vendors from using China-based personnel to work on Defense Department computer systems. The new law effectively codifies that change, requiring Hegseth to prohibit individuals from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from having direct or indirect access to Defense Department cloud computing systems. Microsoft declined to comment on the new law. Following the earlier changes, a spokesperson said the company would “work with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols in light of the new directives.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican who serves on the House Armed Service Committee, celebrated the development, saying it “closes contractor loopholes … following the discovery that companies like Microsoft exploited” them. Sen. Tom Cotton, the GOP chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence who has been critical of the tech giant, also heralded the legislation, saying it “includes much-needed efforts to protect our nation’s critical infrastructure, which is threatened by Communist China and other foreign adversaries.” The legislation also bolsters congressional oversight of the Pentagon’s cybersecurity practices, mandating that the secretary brief the congressional defense committees on the changes no later than June 1, 2026. After that, such briefings will take place annually for the next three years, including updates on the “effectiveness of controls, security incidents, and recommendations for legislative or administrative action.” Read More A Little-Known Microsoft Program Could Expose the Defense Department to Chinese Hackers As ProPublica reported, Microsoft initially developed the digital escort program as a work-around to a Defense Department requirement that people handling sensitive data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. The company has maintained that it disclosed the program to the Pentagon and that escorts were provided “specific training on protecting sensitive data” and preventing harm. But top Pentagon officials have said they were unaware of Microsoft’s program until ProPublica’s reporting. A copy of the security plan that the company submitted to the Defense Department in 2025 showed Microsoft left out key details of the escort program, making no reference to its China-based operations or foreign engineers at all. This summer, Hegseth announced that the department had opened an investigation into whether any of Microsoft’s China-based engineers had compromised national security. He also ordered a new third-party audit of the company’s digital-escort program. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the status of those inquiries. The post Trump Signs Defense Bill Prohibiting China-Based Engineers in Pentagon IT Work appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Renee Dudley.
Spyware and Murder: The NSO Group, Governments, and Khashoggi
The efforts to hold the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accountable for the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate in October 2018 continue. In his complex connubial life, the slain scribbler can now count, not only on efforts made by fiancée Hatice Cengiz in 2020 but his widow Hanan Elatr Khashoggi […] The post Spyware and Murder: The NSO Group, Governments, and Khashoggi first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The efforts to hold the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accountable for the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate in October 2018 continue. In his complex connubial life, the slain scribbler can now count, not only on efforts made by fiancée Hatice Cengiz in 2020 but his widow Hanan Elatr Khashoggi in seeking curial scrutiny on why he was do remorselessly dispatched by a death squad authorised by the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Unfortunately, whether focusing on the culpability of the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, or that of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, their efforts have yielded lean returns. The October 2020 lawsuit filed by Hatice Cengiz and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) was dismissed in December 2022 by US District Judge John Bates for reasons of head of state immunity. The judge nonetheless registered his “uneasiness” at the decision by the Kingdom to make the crown prince prime minister, along with “credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder”. The move had the stench of convenient expediency. “A contextualized look at the Royal Order thus suggests that it was not motivated by a desire for bin Salman to be the head of government, but instead to shield him from potential liability in this case.” Prior to the decision, the Biden administration had also intervened on its own accord in the case, suggesting the court heed arguments of sovereign immunity. The State Department also affirmed the position that the US had “consistently, and across administrations, applied these principles to heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers while they are in office.” In 2023, Hanan Elatr filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of Virginia against the NSO Group alleging the intentional targeting of her devices, thereby causing “immense harm, both through the tragic loss of her husband and through her own loss of safety, privacy, and autonomy.” At the time, Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert explained that his outfit had learned that the spyware Pegasus had been installed on her phone as she was being interrogated in Dubai “and the phone communicated several times with a server that is part of the NSO infrastructure”. In May this year, the US District Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit upheld the lower court ruling that there was no “personal jurisdiction” in the matter for Hanan to assert. The reason here was that NSO had not appeared “to have directed electronic activity into Virginia”. If there had been “any express aiming of conduct towards Virginia, it was at the direction of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, not NSO.” This was to be contrasted with the 2019 targeting by the same company of WhatsApp’s California-based servers with the Pegasus spyware “through those servers to facilitate the sort of surveillance Pegasus offers to its clients”. (1,400 users had fallen victim to the exercise.) This was the sort of quibbling that gives the law a bad name, leading Hanan to make the chilling point that the NSO Group had irrefutably infiltrated her devices, spied on her and her husband and “tracked him down to his death.” Hanan is now seeking redress in France for the data stolen from the two phones that were infected by Pegasus in April 2018 while being interrogated in the UAE. “It would be unthinkable not to establish a link between this interception (of information) and the actions that led to the murder” of Khashoggi, attorneys William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth said in a joint statement. Her case has also piqued the interest of Virginian Congressman Eugene Vindman who, in November, urged President Donald Trump via letter to release the transcript of a 2019 call to Prince Mohammed. In this, he was not alone, keeping company with other 37 lawmakers. “The US Intelligence Community,” the letter states, “concluded that the Saudi Crown Prince personally ordered Khashoggi’s murder. In a direct rebuke of our dedicated national security civil servants, your recent statements suggest that you place greater trust in the Crown Prince’s claims than in the assessments of our intelligence agencies.” The jurisprudence on holding spyware producers to account is burgeoning, if slowly. Meta’s victory in December 2024 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against the NSO Group’s targeting of WhatsApp was significant enough to lead spokesperson Emily Westcott to praise the ruling as placing such companies “on notice that their illegal actions will not be tolerated.” In May 2025, a jury in California found that $167.3 million in punitive damages and $414,719 in compensatory damages should be awarded to Meta. NSO had resoundingly failed to exempt its activities from legal accountability in asserting sovereign immunity, their argument being that they had acted as an agent of a foreign power. This was conclusively rejected by the US Supreme Court in January 2023. While those linked to Khashoggi may not have been successful securing remedies for his murder from governments using Pegasus to target those it deems undesirable, they can at least be given some cold comfort that the NSO Group’s reputation has fallen into an investment purgatory. The nature of such an industry, however, is that murky reputations are no guarantee to the extinction of these companies. Even now, a group of US investors led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds have acquired the company, effectively taking it out of Israeli hands. Those in the dream factory are not above producing nightmares on occasion. The post Spyware and Murder: The NSO Group, Governments, and Khashoggi first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
What has happened to the Mauser strikers — and what could have been different? Teamsters Mobilize believes that these are essential questions that have to be asked by everyone within the Teamsters union and the broader labor movement. There is a concerning trend within the Teamsters union; a local or regional strike will pop off, More The post What Happened at Mauser? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-200x200.jpeg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1068" height="566" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395145" class="wp-image-395145 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="360" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-680x360.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-768x407.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-500x265.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike-600x318.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mauserstrike.jpeg 1068w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo: Mauser Teamsters’ Facebook page. What has happened to the Mauser strikers — and what could have been different? Teamsters Mobilize believes that these are essential questions that have to be asked by everyone within the Teamsters union and the broader labor movement. There is a concerning trend within the Teamsters union; a local or regional strike will pop off, Teamsters social media will shout it out, and then either they will claim victory without going into too many specifics of the settlement, or it will be buried and never mentioned again. Mauser is getting the same treatment — the Teamsters website and social media has not said a peep for months about the heroic endurance of the strikers. This is particularly concerning because the strikers have made contractual protections against immigration persecution the key issue in their ongoing struggle. The lack of discussion is simply unacceptable; every strike is a lesson for the working class, which demands both the widest possible mobilization during the strike, and the clearest analysis of events afterwards. Before examining the narrative, it is important to note that as recently as Tuesday, December 16, the Mauser strikers were confronted on the picket line by Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and a group of armed agents1, in a blatant and thuggish attempt at intimidation which calls to mind the long and infamous history of police repression against working class activity in this country. While the circumstances of this unwelcome visit are not immediately clear, the Teamsters’ own representative hinted2that this might be a result of direct collaboration between the company and federal agents. Without a doubt, the unpleasant events of December 16 confirm, if more proof was needed, that the ruling class’s current anti-immigrant offensive has the overt, conscious goal of breaking the ability of the working class to resist its own exploitation. The response of important sections of the organized working class, like the Teamsters and their leaders, must be judged through this lens. In that spirit, let’s examine the current situation and how it developed. The last major development in the strike itself was the company’s announcement in mid-October that they would be closing the plant by the end of November, which they have now done. While companies will often spread rumors about closing struck facilities in an attempt to weaken the resolve of the workers, Mauser has proven that, in their case, this is no idle threat. In Seattle just this year, a small Mauser shop organized with the Teamsters was already locked out and then shuttered entirely. This should have been the canary in the coal mine for the entire union, signaling that the company was intent on establishing an entirely open shop and driving the Teamsters out of their operations. Sean O’Brien said so himself when he spoke at a rally for the locked-out Seattle workers in April, bellowing “when a multinational bully like Mauser tries to break our union and crush working people, the Teamsters don’t stand by — we fight back with everything we’ve got”. Yet, in the run-up to the negotiations at the Little Village location in Chicago, local union officials claimed that they had no intention of striking the facility3 and that they were relying on the company to bargain “in good faith”4. International leadership, for their part, said absolutely nothing — perhaps praying that the company would buy into the same fantasy that they did, about the organized workers and their bosses sharing the same interests. Nevertheless, the workers did take the initiative to strike when the company put forward an insulting contract offer (possibly calculated to provoke a strike) and refused to budge on the key demand of immigrant worker protections. Since then, the workers have showed exemplary solidarity, refusing to scab and unanimously rejecting the company’s latest mediocre offer in mid-August. It is worth pausing here to emphasize the importance of the immigrant protection demand that has been raised by the Mauser workers. The demand is simply this; that the new contract include language whereby the company promises to refuse access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who attempt to enter their property without a warrant. As simple as that may sound, the implications of this demand are explosive. To our knowledge, this represents the first attempt to use strike action, and the organized strength of the working class, to counter President Trump’s renewed and ruthless anti-immigrant offensive. If the Mauser workers can win this language on paper and give it teeth through militant action, they will have taught the entire class a lesson — it is possible to win (limited, but real) relief from ICE terror by using the strike weapon. With 2.2 million unionized immigrant workers in this country5, many of whom are vulnerable to this new offensive and many of whom are situated in important industries like food production, such a victory might prove to be the spark which ignites an inferno of resistance. Just as important as the raising of the demand itself is the outstanding attitude of the native-born and documented Mauser workers, who have so far stood in lockstep with their coworkers and refused to allow the immigration question to split the strike down the middle. This is a recognition of the simple fact that, as long as one section of the workers is held down by the threat of brutal police repression, it is impossible for any other worker to make significant gains. This is as true for the entire working class, as it is for one small shop in Chicago. So if the Mauser strike is victorious, here too will be another lesson; native-born workers must take up and address the specific problems of immigrant workers as if they were their own, as the only possible method of creating the ironclad unity necessary to confront and reverse the savage attacks of the ruling class. With that said, let’s return to the conduct of the strike itself. Despite the questionable pre-strike view of the company’s intentions, when it comes to the actual direction of the strike it is difficult to fault Local 705. From the outside it would appear that they have backed their members more or less to the hilt; popularizing the struggle, extending picket lines at several Mauser facilities organized under the Teamsters, and most importantly refusing to fold on the immigrant protections question. Yet, the workers and their Local are placed in an increasingly untenable position. Only a small minority of the total Mauser workforce in the US is organized under the Teamsters, and they are scattered all over the country and over Mauser’s supply chain. These are clearly difficult conditions in which to win a strike. On the other hand, there are very recent examples of important Teamsters strikes being won in not-dissimilar circumstances. For instance, the Teamsters recently declared victory over Republic Services, a waste company that is less than 25% unionized, after a months-long struggle originating in O’Brien’s Local 25 which ended up seeing over 2,000 workers nationwide hit the picket lines. So, perhaps more important than the tough objective conditions is the type of leadership that is being provided to the strike — which brings us around to the conduct of the International. In the Republic Services strike, the initial walkout in Boston was followed almost immediately by concurrent local strikes in Illinois, Washington, California and Georgia. This was further supplemented by picket line extensions in Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio and multiple locations throughout the initial strikers’ states. This mobilization was achieved through close coordination between locals and careful planning, all facilitated by the International. By contrast, the Teamsters have thus far failed to call out a single Mauser worker on strike other than those that are already striking the Little Village facility. Although the International was quick to crow about picket line extensions in Minnesota and Los Angeles6, it is unclear how long these workers remained off the job or what kind of damage it did to the company, if any. In any case, the peculiar nature of a “picket line extension” is that workers at the facility where the picket line extension is happening are legally barred from joining the picket that closes their facility — they are essentially paid to stay in their house. This can be impactful of course, but it is fundamentally different from a true solidarity strike where the causes of workers at different sites are united into one struggle for improved conditions. Even more damning is that, as Luiz Leon reported in August7, there is another organized Mauser facility in Chicago, under Teamsters Local 743. This facility has remained at work the entire time that their brothers just down the road have been fighting for the life of their union. Local 743’s president, Deborah Simmons, has been happy to make speeches on the Little Village picket lines8, but has not taken the one practical step which could help those workers win their strike. It is bad enough that these workers are isolated from each other in different locals, working under different contracts — this is typical self-defeating Teamsters localism, worthy of contempt at any time. But to not unify their struggles in an hour of desperate need is the highest betrayal of the principle of working class solidarity. And yet, this could only happen because the International is allowing it to happen. The Mauser strikers are receiving second-class treatment from their International, and far from “bringing the full strength of this union to the fight”9 their strike is being allowed to wither. To explain this, we have to look at the main sticking point in contract negotiations — protective language for immigrant workers. The ruling class has a strong and enduring interest in terrorizing migrant workers, to prevent them from organizing and to use them as a tool against the native-born workers. Sean O’Brien has made clear his support of this goal by repeatedly expressing chauvinistic contempt for immigrant workers10 and actively giving aid and political cover to vicious anti-immigrant, ruling class politicians11. The truth is that O’Brien has secured his comfortable position as Teamsters general president through accommodation and alliance with members of the ruling class, both at the corporate and political levels. Therefore he thinks, in many ways correctly, that their interests are the same as his — never mind the interests of the members or the broader working class. Does it seem likely that his International would back up a strike over immigrant rights language? Or are they neglecting the strike on purpose, perhaps even pressuring the Local and their members to cave on this key demand? Local 705 is a staunch O’Brien local, and their leader Juan Campos is part of the OZ slate and an International Vice-President at Large. So, it is unlikely that the truth of the matter will ever be conclusively revealed. But, if true, the fact that this betrayal would occur in one of the most important O’Brien-allied locals in the entire union reveals a great deal about the character of the so-called “alliance at the top” between “reformers” and O’Brien, as well as the “model local” strategy which is pursued doggedly by TDU12. The great hope of this strategy is that through alliances with whatever reactionary union leader opportunistically needs their support, “reformists” will be able to carve out a space in the union where they can showcase the correctness of their ideas, and build support for “reform” throughout the whole organization. This is how TDU conceives of their relationship to O’Brien, and why they were willing to enter into an alliance with him at the cost of their (flawed, but real) critical role towards leadership. O’Brien’s general presidency was supposed to take the boot off the neck of ‘progressive’ locals like 705, 804, 90, 251 and others, to allow them to practice clean TDU-style unionism in peace. What we are seeing in the Mauser strike is how delusional this strategy is. As inconvenient as it is to proponents of the “model local” strategy, the actual practical struggle of the Teamsters members will not and cannot remain purely local affairs, which can be concluded neatly and used as shining examples in Teamster Voice. Even the smallest struggle represents one section of the working class, which is systematically exploited and oppressed by the ruling class, both through the corporations and through its bought-and-paid-for government apparatus. We can see this clearly in the Mauser strike. The bargaining unit itself is tiny, a drop in the bucket compared to enormous Teamster shops like UPS CACH or Worldport. But almost as soon as the strikers walked out, it was obvious that it would be necessary to mobilize workers far beyond the Little Village plant, and indeed far beyond Chicago, in order to win the strike. Not only that, the struggle immediately became an example to the whole U.S. working class. Depending on the outcome of the strike, it could either inspire similar efforts and raise the struggle to new heights, or it could scare many potential militants away and lead to the fire of revolt being stamped out. In order to win these struggles, the entire membership must be systematically prepared, both practically for wide and intense struggle and ideologically in terms of their understanding of class society — in this case, particularly the need for unity and mutual protection between immigrant and native-born workers. There can be no question of carrying out such an enormous task in one small section of one Local. The Little Village strikers already hold an advanced position on immigrant rights protections — it is the other workers in the Teamsters which need to be educated and mobilized on this basis. This is necessarily something that must be carried out throughout the entire union (and beyond!). It falls on the highest body within the Teamsters, the International, to carry this out. As we can see, they have failed to do so. And within the “model local” strategy which promotes a ‘live and let live’ attitude towards the reactionary bureaucrats in the Teamsters, they will be let off the hook for it! The exact details of the shameful betrayal of the Mauser strikers will remain a secret, something talked about at the bar by in-the-know staffers and stewards. Worse, without knowledge of the way that the struggle was kneecapped, the rest of the working class will be left with the false impression that strikes for immigrant worker protections cannot succeed in the current climate. Without fighting the reactionaries all the way up to the top, the “model locals” in this union will find their struggles sabotaged, isolated and ultimately defeated — no matter how cozy they think their relationship with “friendly” reactionaries is. As armed federal agents roll up on Teamster picket lines and attempt to deliver a knockout blow to a long and hard-fought strike, the fighting workers in this union need more than puff pieces describing their resilience (and right now, they are not even receiving that from the International!). They need leadership which views their fight as one battle in a war between international classes that will always be opposed to each other. They need real analysis of the structural problems in the union which keep workers isolated from other Teamsters and other members of the working class. And when they don’t get this, the criticism and fight has to go to the very heart of this union. Only in this way, in front of and with the increasing participation of the entire membership and the broader working class, can the union be truly transformed. While the final outcome of the Mauser strike is still uncertain, we know that any result other than victory will not fall on the shoulders of the brave workers who hit the pavement this summer. It will fall on the reactionary Teamsters leadership and those who give them cover. So long as our mis-leaders escape criticism and so long as members are not made aware of the depth and breadth of their sell-outs, the Teamsters union will continue to lose strikes and stagnate. Let every worker with knowledge of these misdeeds join us in spreading that knowledge far and wide. Let us join these small streams of rebellion together until they make a torrent, which will wash our union of class-collaborators and turn it into the powerful, independent working class weapon that it needs to be. The post What Happened at Mauser? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Chloe Palmer – Joe Allen.
On Thursday, December 25th, 2025, during Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians, 168 students graduated from medical school, in Gaza. Wearing their white coats, they stood in front of the ruined façade of what was formerly Gaza’s largest hospital, the Al-Shifa Medical Complex. As a backdrop, the destroyed building realistically conveys perils the graduates faced while earning their medical degrees. Throughout the last two years of their studies, they risked assassination, injury, arrest, imprisonment, and torture, as well as attacks on their own family members. More The post A Moment of Hope in Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="484" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-885x630.png 885w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-768x547.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-1536x1093.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-2048x1457.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-500x356.png 500w, 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loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2195" height="1562" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM.png 2195w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-885x630.png 885w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-768x547.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-1536x1093.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-2048x1457.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-500x356.png 500w, 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-2048x1457.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-500x356.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-600x427.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2195px) 100vw, 2195px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2195" height="1562" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM.png 2195w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-885x630.png 885w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-768x547.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-1536x1093.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-2048x1457.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-500x356.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-600x427.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2195px) 100vw, 2195px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="885" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-885x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-885x630.png 885w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-768x547.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-1536x1093.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-2048x1457.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-500x356.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-600x427.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 885px) 100vw, 885px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395275" class="size-medium wp-image-395275" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png" alt="" width="680" height="484" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-680x484.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-885x630.png 885w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-768x547.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-1536x1093.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-2048x1457.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-500x356.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.06.28-PM-600x427.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Screen Shot from Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) Facebook video On Thursday, December 25th, 2025, during Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians, 168 students graduated from medical school, in Gaza. Wearing their white coats, they stood in front of the ruined façade of what was formerly Gaza’s largest hospital, the Al-Shifa Medical Complex. As a backdrop, the destroyed building realistically conveys perils the graduates faced while earning their medical degrees. Throughout the last two years of their studies, they risked assassination, injury, arrest, imprisonment, and torture, as well as attacks on their own family members. Israel has waged a systematic campaign to destroy Gaza’s health care delivery and to kill or imprison health care professionals. From October of 2023 to October of 2025, The World Health Organization documented687 Israeli attacks on Gazan health care facilities and 211 attacks on ambulances. These attacks killed 985 people. In the same time period, Israel detained over 306 health care workers. Health Care Workers Watch – Palestine, a nongovernmental organization, reports that 95 Palestinian health care workers are still in prison, eighty of whom are from Gaza. Prisoners who have been released from detention report that doctors are singled out for particularly brutal treatment. Among the 80 Gazan health care workers who are still detained is the former director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. On December 27, 2025, Dr. Abu Safiya began his second year of imprisonment. For over a year, prior to his incarceration, the Israeli military had subjected the Kamal Adwan hospital to repeated sieges and attacks. Dr. Abu Safiya and his staff, refusing to desert their patients, managed to increase the number of available beds in the hospital as theirs became one of the few hospitals still operating in northern Gaza. On October 25, 2024, Israel raided the hospital, bombing its buildings, detaining many patients, and arresting all hospital staff, including Dr. Abu Safiya who was interrogated and released. On that same day, an Israeli drone attacked one of the hospital buildings and killed Dr. Abu Safiya’s twenty-year-old son, Ibrahim. Dr. Abu Safiya buried his son on the hospital grounds and still refused to abandon the patients. “The Israeli army does not know what it wants,” Dr. Abu Safiya told a reporter with The Electronic Intifada. “They detained me for a few hours and interrogated me about whether there were fighters inside the hospital, and demanded that I evacuate the hospital completely, but I refused and assured them that there were only patients inside the hospital. But fifty-seven of the hospital’s medical staff were arrested, (…) So we are suffering from a severe shortage of doctors, especially surgeons. Right now, we only have pediatricians — it is a huge challenge to work under these circumstances. I refused to leave the hospital and sacrifice my patients, so the army punished me by killing my son. I saw him die at the entrance gate — it was a great shock. I found a grave for him near one of the hospital’s walls, so that he could stay close to me.” On December 27, 2024, when Israeli forces threatened to level the whole facility, Dr. Abu Safiya agreed to leave the hospital which was, by then, largely inoperable. An iconic video shows him, clad in his white coat, walking through the rubble toward two Israeli tanks. He was held incommunicado, and then taken to the Sde Teiman prison, in the Negev desert, where he was interrogated and beaten before being transferred to the Ofer prison. There, he is held in solitary confinement. Only his lawyer has been allowed to visit him. She expresses rising alarm over his weight loss, inadequate health care, and frequent beatings. Amnesty International says he has been forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily held without charge. Even though no charges have been brought against him, an Israeli court has extended his detention multiple times. On October 16, 2025, Israel’s Be’er Sheva District Court added an additional six months to his detention. Who are the criminals? Israel and its partner, the United States, egregiously flaunt international law, committing numerous war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Dr. Abu Safiya endures daily punishments in return for his courageous dedication to serving victims of war. In a better world, in a better future, we can hope that Palestinians graduating from medical school could assemble for an address delivered by Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Together, they could uphold “the Humanity Cohort,” as the Gazan doctors who graduated in December 2025 call themselves, and safely commemoratethe courageous health care workers who risked and lost their lives to care for patients during an Israeli genocide that is still ongoing. Confident that health care is never a crime, they could cite their fallen colleagues’ historic and extraordinary adherence to the UN’s core mission, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The post A Moment of Hope in Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kathy Kelly.
Out of the Greenhouse and Into the Madhouse: the Year in Climate Politics
2025 will go down as the second or third hottest year on record. The last decade has been the hottest decade in human history. Driven by drought and extreme winds, a massive fire burned its way across the LA Basin, incinerating more than 10,000 homes. The estimated damage ranges from $76 billion to $133 billion. Total losses to businesses and workers in income and wages totaled at least $297. The year saw two of the largest, most rapidly intensifying hurricanes in the history of the Atlantic Ocean. Floods in central Texas killed at least 137 people, while massive flooding driven by twin cyclones that tore across Sumatra and the southern Philippines killed at least 1,800 people and left more than a million people homeless. We are in the midst of the largest mass coral bleaching event in history, affecting 83% of the world’s extant coral reefs. The melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is accelerating. Its surface is fracturing, causing massive ice falls and rockslides that are warping the southern continent’s geology. A total collapse of the ice sheet, which now seems certain, would raise global sea levels by 12 feet. The Arctic Ocean is now expected to be “ice-free” in the summer by 2030, twenty years earlier than predicted just a few years ago. The Atlantic Current is slowing down and may be on the verge of collapse, which would likely destabilize rainfall patterns for much of the planet. Wildfires in Canada now burn year-round. There were 24,000 heat-related deaths in Europe this summer from June to August alone. Deaths from extreme heat in the US have increased by more than 50% since 2000. More The post Out of the Greenhouse and Into the Madhouse: the Year in Climate Politics appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-680x453.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-680x453.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-945x630.jpeg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-500x333.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-600x400.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="453" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-500x333.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-600x400.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 6000px) 100vw, 6000px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-945x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-945x630.jpeg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-680x453.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-500x333.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-600x400.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395156" class="wp-image-395156 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-680x453.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-680x453.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-945x630.jpeg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-500x333.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_1978-600x400.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Mill, Westport, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. 2025 will go down as the second or third hottest year on record. The last decade has been the hottest decade in human history. Driven by drought and extreme winds, a massive fire burned its way across the LA Basin, incinerating more than 10,000 homes. The estimated damage ranges from $76 billion to $133 billion. Total losses to businesses and workers in income and wages totaled at least $297. The year saw two of the largest, most rapidly intensifying hurricanes in the history of the Atlantic Ocean. Floods in central Texas killed at least 137 people, while massive flooding driven by twin cyclones that tore across Sumatra and the southern Philippines killed at least 1,800 people and left more than a million people homeless. We are in the midst of the largest mass coral bleaching event in history, affecting 83% of the world’s extant coral reefs. The melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is accelerating. Its surface is fracturing, causing massive ice falls and rockslides that are warping the southern continent’s geology. A total collapse of the ice sheet, which now seems certain, would raise global sea levels by 12 feet. The Arctic Ocean is now expected to be “ice-free” in the summer by 2030, twenty years earlier than predicted just a few years ago. The Atlantic Current is slowing down and may be on the verge of collapse, which would likely destabilize rainfall patterns for much of the planet. Wildfires in Canada now burn year-round. There were 24,000 heat-related deaths in Europe this summer from June to August alone. Deaths from extreme heat in the US have increased by more than 50% since 2000. None of these catastrophic events has left the slightest impact on Trump, who has ordered his administration to slash nearly every restraint on the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. Oil drilling has been expanded on federal lands (including the high Arctic) and waters. The dying industry of coal mining has been put on life support with new subsidies and exemptions from environmental regulations, while coal-generating power plants slated for closure have been forced to keep operating. Large-scale renewable energy projects, in the planned for years, have been cancelled and tax credits and incentives for small-scale solar have been gutted. Energy-hogging data centers have been fast-tracked and freed from regulatory constraints. Prior to Trump’s re-inauguration, Bethany Kozma — who now heads RFK’s Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Affairs— vowed that the administration “will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere” in government. And they’ve largely followed through gutting NOAA’s Office of Atmospheric Research; the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, National Center for Atmospheric Research, U.S. Global Change Research program and NASA’s Earth Science program. Climate research stations have been shuttered. References to climate change have been removed from federal websites, documents, databases and signage on federal lands, offices and parks. And it’s not just Trump. The supposed global protectors of the climate had their annual meeting in Bélem, Brazil this year and likely generated more CO2 coming and going from the confab than they saved during the sessions. That’s in part because they came and went without even mentioning fossil fuels in their final document. These actions go beyond denial and amount to incitement of the wrath of the climate gods. Their vengeance will be a terrible thing to behold. We’ve gone from trying to survive in a global greenhouse into a madhouse.–JSC January <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-349780 size-large" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-807x630.png" sizes="(max-width: 807px) 100vw, 807px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-807x630.png 807w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-680x531.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-768x600.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-1536x1200.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-500x391.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades-600x469.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pacpalisades.png 1882w" alt="" width="807" height="630" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-349780" /> Pacific Palisades fire from a flight leaving LAX. (Screengrab from video posted to X.) “The climate crisis reveals that our civilization has never really been organized around science, contrary to the usual Enlightenment narrative. It is organized around capital. Science is embraced when it serves the interests of capital and is often ignored when it does not.” – Jason Hickle There’s nothing so terrifying as a nightmare come to life. The Santa Ana winds have haunted the dreams of southern Angelinos for decades. Like the Chinooks of the Rockies and the Mistrals of the Rhone Valley, these winds play on the mind. They tell you they’re coming for you. They whisper the dangers they bring with them. Van Gogh believed the mistral inflamed his madness. Another kind of madness seems to be inflicting LA, the madness of boundless consumption. Some listen to the warnings of the wind. Some don’t. Those who listen are driven mad by those who don’t. In the chaparrals of southern California, the warning of the Santa Anas has always been: fire. Fires that race down hillsides and canyons faster than any Tesla can drive. Fires that leap roads, highways, malls. Fires that ride on the wind. This is not new. The Santa Ana winds come with the territory–that territory being the desert basins behind the coastal mountains and canyons. They are katabatic winds that rush downhill, dry and fierce, as they pour through the Cajon, San Gorgonio, and Soledad passes. Geography makes them. Climate change and a rapacious real estate industry that has remained deaf to their message have turned them into killers. Historically, the Santa Anas (ponder the resonance of that name in our time of mass xenophobia) are autumn winds, warm winds that carry the dust of the Mojave. Now, Santa Anas can erupt any time of year. That’s climate change, for you. Yet a threat that is omnipresent often seems somehow less ominous, making it more likely to catch you off guard. Even so, LA wasn’t entirely taken by surprise this week. They had two days to get ready. The Santa Anas create the conditions for catastrophic fires on their own. They are fire-making weather events that dry out already parched landscapes, lowering the humidity and raising the temperature as they blow through. On November 13, 2008, 50-mile-per-hour Santa Ana winds whipped up a bonfire started by college students into an inferno that spread across neighborhoods in Montecito and Santa Barbara. The Tea Fire burned for three days, destroying 210 homes. Then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger described the charred landscape as “looking like Hell.” The next day, the still-roaring winds, gusting to 80—mph, supercharged a fire in the Santa Clarita Valley that ravaged the town of Sylmar. The Sayre fire burned for a week and destroyed more than 600 buildings, including 480 mobile homes. We don’t know how this week’s fires originated—cigarette, campfire, truck spark, downed power line, or arson. But the Hollywood Hills, Santa Monica, and San Gabriel Mountains were already primed to burn. Chapparal is born in fire and thrives in it. In their natural state, the chappal landscapes of southern California experience low-intensity fires once every 20 to 50 years. After a couple of relatively wet years, the southern California coast has now flipped back into drought conditions. It hasn’t experienced any measurable rainfall in eight months. Climate change has made southern California drier, increasing the frequency and intensity of the region’s natural fire regime. Even fully functioning fire hydrants will never replace the amount of moisture climate change has stolen from the ecosystem. They talk about the “urban-wildland” interface. In So Cal, that interface is under relentless siege as new luxury homes, condos, and “mixed-use” buildings creep inexorably up the hillsides and canyons, undeterred by the rugged geography, faultlines, or flammability. The boundaries between the natural and the manufactured have been shredded, both on the ground and in the atmosphere. The buffer zones are gone and now nothing is standing between you and the wind. Yes, you were warned. But no number of red flags could really fortify you for what was coming; no amount of preparation at this late stage could save you from hundred-mile-per-hour winds from a hurricane of fire. Even palaces burn. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-349781 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn-680x637.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn-680x637.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn-673x630.png 673w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn-768x719.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn-500x468.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn-600x562.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/palaceburn.png 1220w" alt="" width="680" height="637" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-349781" /> Pacific Palisades fire. (Screengrab from video posted to X.) +++ + You don’t have to be versed in Mike Davis’s The Ecology of Fear to understand that the people who always pay the heaviest price for these kinds of cataclysms in So. Cal–even in elite zip codes like Pac Palisades–aren’t Hollywood moguls or hedge funders, but LA’s mostly brown and black working poor… + In 2019, Eric Garcetti, then the mayor of Los Angeles, told David Wallace-Wells: “There’s no number of helicopters or trucks that we can buy, no number of firefighters that we can have, no amount of brush that we can clear that will stop this. The only thing that will stop this is when the Earth, probably long after we’re gone, relaxes into a more predictable weather state.” + An initial estimate from AccuWeather Inc. puts the total cost of the LA fires at between $52 billion and $57 billion, making it the most expensive fire event in history. + In July, State Farm, one of the biggest insurers in California, canceled 1600 homeowner policies in Pacific Palisades. A year earlier, the same insurance company had dropped more than 2,000 policies in the nearby neighborhoods of Brentwood, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and Monte Nido, all of which have now been ravaged by devastating wildfires. But the big insurers who have canceled policies for homeowners and businesses in climate-vulnerable states continue to insure the fossil fuel industries that make people’s homes uninsurable. + 19 of the 20 largest fires in California history have ignited since 2000… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-349779" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n-680x526.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n-680x526.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n-814x630.jpg 814w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n-768x594.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n-500x387.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n-600x464.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/472996041_10237883857495982_7923436519109819267_n.jpg 1052w" alt="" width="680" height="526" />+ Environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne, author of Fire in America: “If we keep fighting a war with fire, three things are going to happen. We’re going to spend a lot of money, we’re going to take a lot of casualties, and we’re going to lose.” + Mike Davis: ‘The loss of more than 90 percent of Southern California’s agricultural buffer zone is the principal if seldom mentioned reason wildfires increasingly incinerate such spectacular swathes of luxury real estate.” + It’s worth noting that one of the reasons California likes to keep its prisons as full as possible is that inmates make up around 30% of the state’s firefighting force. For risking their lives on the firelines, prisoners are paid between 16¢ to 74¢ an hour (maxxing out at $5.80 to $10.24 a day) and rewarded with a bologna sandwich and an apple for lunch on the job. + When there’s a mass shooting, the response from MAGA is “thoughts and prayers.” When there’s a climate-driven cataclysm, the response is: “Drill, baby, drill, rake, baby, rake, and log, baby, log.” The LA fires will be used as Trump’s Reichstag fire against environmental regulations. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-349766" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40%E2%80%AFPM-680x461.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-680x461.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-930x630.png 930w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-768x520.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-1536x1040.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-2048x1387.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-500x339.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-2.20.40 PM-600x406.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="461" />+ He’s deliriously wrong about everything in this post, except for the incompetence of Gavin Newsom, a preening servant of the real estate and energy industries. + President Empathy struts his stuff one more time… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-349776" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden-680x520.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden-680x520.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden-824x630.jpg 824w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden-768x587.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden-500x382.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden-600x459.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/biden.jpg 976w" alt="" width="680" height="520" />+ If Biden keeps this up, he may be destined to end his presidency less popular than Trump was after Jan. 6, 2021. + Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire: “In this story of the outside world and the inside world with a fire between, the outside world of little screwups recedes now for a few hours to be taken over by the inside world of blowups, this time by a colossal blowup but shaped by little screwups that fitted together tighter and tighter until all became one and the same thing–the fateful blowup.” + In 2000, the global warming trend predicted the world would hit 1.5C warming in 2041. It happened in 2024. + According to a new study by Aurora Energy Research, rescinding the Inflation Reduction Act’s technology-neutral clean energy tax credits could increase Americans’ electricity bills by 10%. Some states, like Texas, could see increases of more than 20%. + Last year, the European Union imported more Russian LNG than ever. + The Federal Trade Commission announced that crude oil producers XCL Resources Holdings, LLC (XCL), Verdun Oil Company II LLC (Verdun), and EP Energy LLC (EP) will pay a record $5.6 million civil penalty for illegal coordination that led to a crude oil supply shortage. Before merging, the crude oil companies started working together, limiting the oil supply when the US faced shortages and inflated prices. + As more green power plants have gone online, German gas imports dropped by 11% in 2024. + After the first week of congestion pricing in NYC, the commute times into Manhattan were cut in half…. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-351643" class="wp-image-351643 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22%E2%80%AFPM-680x866.png" alt="" width="680" height="866" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM-680x866.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM-495x630.png 495w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM-768x978.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM-1206x1536.png 1206w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM-500x637.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM-600x764.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-3.29.22 PM.png 1242w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Drone image of Pacific Palisades. Number of destroyed or severely damaged buildings in LA (so far): 20,000 Population of LA County: 10 million Number of destroyed or severely damaged buildings in Gaza (so far): 80,000 Population of Gaza: 2.1 million + In only five days, the Pacific Palisades fire destroyed more structures (> 12,500) than any fire in California history, except the Camp Fire of 2018, which burned for 18 days. + In the 1980s, the US experienced around three weather-related disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damages. Now, the average is around 18 a year. (NOAA) + More than 1000 incarcerated people are out fighting LA’s fires, but their families aren’t allowed to contact them to see if they’re safe. + Jason Oppenheim, owner of the celebrity real estate firm featured on Selling Sunset, told the BBC that his clients are being price gouged in post-fire LA. One landlord was asking $13,000/month, but when his client went to rent the home, the landlord demanded $23,000. Welcome to the club…Meanwhile, California State Attorney General Rob Bonta said that his office has received numerous reports of hotels and rental properties in southern California increasing their prices by more than 10%, which violates the state’s anti-price gouging law. According to the LA Times, the asking price for single-family homes in the Los Angeles area are being listed for nearly 20% higher since the wildfires started. + Florida’s state residual insurance plan is on the hook for $525 billion in losses, twice the amount in 2022, while California’s state insurer faces $290 billion in liabilities, a sixfold increase from 2018. Thirty-six states now have residual insurance plans, but 21 of the states don’t explain how they will pay when the liabilities overwhelm their assets. + A report by researchers at the University of Colorado and the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates that three-fourths of homeowners may not have enough insurance to fully cover losses after a disaster. + Shed a few tears for the investment bankers of So Cal, one of whom shelled out $27 million to buy a now incinerated mansion on ‘Billionaire’s Beach.’ He told Fortune that he only expects $3 million from insurance. He’ll probably write the loss off on his taxes for the next decade, assuming he’s paying any. + The New York Post reported on Wednesday that Los Angeles landlords have increased rents by as much as 124% after the wildfires. + Here’s a spreadsheet tracking rental price-gouging by landlords in LA County… + Potential insurance exposure to the Los Angeles fires is $458 billion. The state’s FAIR insurance program only has $700 million cash on hand to pay claims. + From Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism: Out of approximately 700 homes destroyed in the 2020 Santa Cruz Mountains Lightning Complex Fire, only 95 have been rebuilt and occupied 4 years later, with only 158 more in construction. Nearly two-thirds are not being rebuilt. + The top five least affordable metro areas in the US are all in California. According to Redfin, someone living in LA Country who makes the median income in 2024 would need to spend 77.6% of their earnings on monthly housing costs if they bought a median-priced home. How long can this go on? + Octavia Butler wrote about a climate-change-ignited wildfire in her path-breaking novel, the Parable of the Sower. The cemetery in the historic black community in Altadena where Butler is buried was burned in the LA fires. + A new paper by Zeke Hausfather published in Dialogues on Climate Change exploring climate outcomes under current policies finds that the planet is likely headed toward 2.7C warming by 2100 (with uncertainties ranging from 1.9C to 3.7C), which, if it pans out, is a little better than the 4C warming many of us feared. + More than 11 million Californians now live in high-risk wildfire zones, including large areas of Los Angeles County, San Diego, and the wine country of Napa and Sonoma. + $2,000: cost per hour of private firefighting teams employed by wealthy homeowners in southern California. + If you’re looking for a book to help explain the political ecology behind the LA fires and other climate-driven cataclysms, try this one by a couple of writers you might be familiar with: The Big Heat: Earth on the Brink… + As he prepared to go out the door, Biden took time this week to sign an Executive Order cutting regulations for “energy sources” (nuclear, among them) for AI data centers, which are expected to consume around 12% of U.S. electricity by 2028. + From an FT story on the coming collapse of the Atlantic Circulation Current: “Data uncertainty is substantial. But uncertainty is not our friend. Uncertainty could mean the tipping point is passed early.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-351587" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent-680x367.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="367" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent-680x367.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent-1168x630.jpg 1168w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent-768x414.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent-500x270.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent-600x324.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ftatoanticcurrent.jpg 1368w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> +++ + In Ventura County, farmworkers are harvesting strawberries in the dense, toxic smoke from the still-spreading Hughes Fire. Employers are required to provide them with respirator masks when the Air Quality Index hits 150. Many don’t. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-352310" class="wp-image-352310 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers-680x549.png" alt="" width="680" height="549" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers-680x549.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers-780x630.png 780w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers-768x620.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers-500x404.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers-600x485.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/venturafarmworkers.png 1226w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image: United Farm Workers. + In one 24-hour Arctic blast, Pensacola, Florida, was buried under 8.7 inches of snow, more snow in one day than 8.0 inches the Gulf Coast City had experienced in the previous 124 years combined. + Climate scientist Daniel Swain on the LA fires: “I don’t see this as a failure of firefighting. I see it as an indication of what you can achieve when conditions are this extreme.” + A third of Alaska’s vast tundra, once one of the Earth’s greatest carbon sinks, is now a carbon emitteras the permafrost melts, releasing tons of carbon dioxide and methane gas. February + Number of fire alerts in LA County during the first three weeks of 2024: 183 The average number of fire alerts in LA County in the first three weeks of the year from 2012 through 2024: 1.5 <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-352868" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-680x675.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-680x675.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-635x630.jpeg 635w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-768x762.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-500x496.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-600x595.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary-100x100.jpeg 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lafirestjanuary.jpeg 1170w" alt="" width="680" height="675" /> + So, maybe the problem isn’t the Delta Smelt? + Maybe part of the problem was private equity’s increasing stranglehold on the fire truck industry, which left more than half the fire trucks in Los Angeles out of service as the fires raged through the Palisades and Altadena. + The once giant Ogallala Aquifer, the largest groundwater source in the nation, dropped by more than a foot last year in western Kansas. + A new study published in Environmental Research under the ungainly title, Quantifying the Acceleration of Multidecadal Global Sea Surface Warming Driven by Earth’s Energy Imbalance, warns that: “Policy makers and wider society should be aware that the rate of global warming over recent decades is a poor guide to the faster change that is likely over the decades to come, underscoring the urgency of deep reductions in fossil-fuel burning.” + The rate of ocean warming has more than quadrupled since 1985, which is pretty clear evidence that global warming is rapidly accelerating. + Outside of China, the oil sheikhdoms of the Middle East are the world’s fastest-growing markets for solar power. What do they know the USA doesn’t? +++ + California is considering a new law that would permit victims of climate-driven disasters to sue fossil fuel companies for damages. Under existing law, utilities, such as PG&E, can (and have) been held liable if their equipment, such as transformers or power lines, starts wildfires. This move comes as So Cal Edison admitted its power lines (and not the Delta Smelt) may have been responsible for igniting the Eaton Fire that raging through Altadena. + Citing climate and environmental concerns, Gustavo Petro ordered the state-run oil company Ecopetrol to cancel a joint venture with Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) that was expected to produce around 90,000 barrels of oil per day, citing environmental concerns.” + NYC’s congestion pricing plan now enjoys the support of 66% of the drivers who pay the toll the most frequently. + The planet just experienced its warmest January on record… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-354374" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R-680x503.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R-680x503.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R-852x630.png 852w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R-768x568.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R-500x370.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R-600x444.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GjnpxPXXwAEr63R.png 974w" alt="" width="680" height="503" /> + At least 55 million Americans are expected to migrate within the country in the next decade, most of them fleeing the environmental and health consequences of climate change, including more than 5 million this year alone. + Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “The US should stop the closure of coal-fired power plants,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, adding that the fuel source would be “essential to the nation’s power system for decades to come.” Why? Power-hungry AI data centers that need the electricity to steal all of the future, except those involved in the mining of coal. + In 2004, it took the world a year to install a gigawatt of solar power. In 2023, it took only a day. Americans, however, can’t get too excited about this remarkable achievement given that Trump has “paused” the permitting of solar projects, even on private lands, effectively paralyzing the development of new renewable energy plans across the country for at least the next two months. + EPA director Lee Zeldin said he will try to “claw back” some $20 billion in funding for climate projects awarded under the Biden administration. + Trump on gut regulations for powering AI data centers: “We’re going to let the people that are buying the electricity make their own electric plants, electric generation plants… We’re calling it a national emergency. And that’s exactly what it is.” As long as those plants don’t generate electricity through solar, geothermal, wind or hydro power.” + Natural ecosystems have seen a 47% decrease against their estimated baselines as of 2019. Global forest area: –32 % Natural Ecosystems (extent and condition: -47% Coral reefs: -50% Wetlands: -85% + Werner Herzog should remake Fitzcarraldo as a climate change thriller, but instead of lugging a steamship over the mountains, try the even more surreal-but-real task of pulling it up the dried-out riverbeds of the Amazon… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-354364 size-full" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dryingamazon.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dryingamazon.jpeg 678w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dryingamazon-500x333.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dryingamazon-600x400.jpeg 600w" alt="" width="678" height="452" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-354364" /> Photo:Divulgação observatório do clima. +New research shows that carbon capture technology is more costly (and less effective at reducing CO2 levels) than switching to renewables: “If you spend $1 on carbon capture instead of on wind, water, & solar, you are increasing CO2, air pollution, energy requirements, energy costs, pipelines, and total social costs.” + For the first time in 2024, China’s clean energy technologies contributed more than 10 percent of its GDP, with sales of $1.9 trillion. On the other hand, China constructed 94.5 gigawatts (GW) of new coal plants in 2024, the most in the last 10 years. + Peatlands store more carbon than all the world’s forest biomass combined. But they are rapidly being drained and developed around the world and, according to new research published in Conservation Letters, only 17% enjoy any legal protection. + A Carbon Brief analysis reveals that 182 of the 193 countries that signed the Paris Accords (nearly 95%) missed the UN deadline to submit new climate pledges for 2035. Countries missing the deadline represent 83% of global emissions and nearly 80% of the world’s economy. March + What comes first this time around, a Dust Bowl or a Depression? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-356490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow-680x581.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow-680x581.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow-737x630.png 737w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow-768x656.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow-500x427.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow-600x513.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/dallasdustbow.png 1376w" alt="" width="680" height="581" /> + Laurie Laybourn, director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative, on the failure to take decisive action to reduce carbon emissions: “It’s only really now that the penny is dropping that we didn’t prevent a global-scale climate crisis. We’re now in a global-scale climate crisis.” + From a new study in Nature Food: At 1.5C warming scenario, more than half of the 30 crops examined would experience a decrease in the extent of their global potential cropland. Wheat, barley, soya beans, lentils and potatoes would suffer the most significant declines. A 2C warming scenario shows more precipitous declines in suitable areas for the 30 crops with some crops surpassing 50%. At 3C warming, all of the 30 crops studied would have their suitable cropland area reduced. + Over 1,000 people came out this week to protest the firings of NOAA scientists in Colorado: “We used to attract people even with our lower pay because we had a good mission and it was a mission valued by the public,” said Nancy McLean, a retired NOAA manager. + Increasing tree mortality, attributable primarily to climate change, has resulted in Colorado’s forests now emit more carbon than they absorb. +++ + Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth: “The Defense Department doesn’t do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.” The US military emits more than 59 million tons of carbon a year, a carbon footprint that’s larger than many industrialized nations. + Last year, atmospheric C02 levels reached an 800,000-year high, leading to at least 151 “unprecedented” extreme weather events in 2024. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-358109 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mauna_Loa_Solar_Observatory-680x453.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mauna_Loa_Solar_Observatory-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mauna_Loa_Solar_Observatory-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mauna_Loa_Solar_Observatory-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mauna_Loa_Solar_Observatory-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mauna_Loa_Solar_Observatory.jpg 900w" alt="" width="680" height="453" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-358109" /> Two domed solar sensors at the Mauna Loa Observatory, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Public Doman. + The Trump administration plans to pull the plug on the Mauna Loa Observatory, one of the world’s most crucial monitoring stations for atmospheric CO2. + The global average increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration in 2024 not only set a record at 3.7%, but represented a 25% increase over the previous record. + According to an IPSOS poll, climate activism continues to decline even as concerns about climate change increase. + A new report by the Boston Consulting Group and Cambridge University (Too Hot to Think Straight, Too Cold to Panic) predicts that by 2100, 13 major climate tipping points will be reached: Greenland ice sheet collapse (1.5C) West Antarctic ice sheet collapse (1.5C) Extinction of tropical coral reefs (1.5C) Abrupt thawing of permafrost (1.5C) Barents Sea ice loss (1.6C) North Atlantic subpolar gyre collapse (1.8C) Tibetan Plateau snowmelt (2.0C) West African monsoon shift (2.8C) East Antarctic subglacial basins collapse (3.0C) Boreal forest southern dieback (4.0C) Gulf Stream disruption (4.0C) Boreal forest northern retreat (4.0C). + At the onset of tornado season in the center lanes of tornado alley, the National Weather Service will be without weather balloons. Maybe the Chinese could loan them a couple (as long as the Air Force promises not to shoot them down this time)… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-358270 size-large" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons-918x630.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 918px) 100vw, 918px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons-918x630.jpg 918w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons-680x467.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons-768x527.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons-500x343.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons-600x412.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/weatherballoons.jpg 1376w" alt="" width="918" height="630" /> + A recent study on congestion pricing in NYC (The Short-Run Effect of Congestion Pricing in New York City) documents increased commuter speeds and decreased emissions. The study found “no significant difference between neighborhoods with different incomes. + The Department of Energy estimates AI data centers could consume up to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028, up from just 4.4% in 2023. + While South Africa continues to generate 82% of its electricity from fossil fuels (mainly coal), Kenya has made a radical transition. It now generates 88% of its electricity from geothermal, wind, hydro, biofuels, and solar. + Javier Blas, energy columnist at Bloomberg News: “A senior executive of an American oil company told me, ‘We thought that Chris Wright, the energy secretary, was “our guy,” someone from the industry. And here in Houston we just realized that Mr. Wright is Trump’s guy. He’s not our guy. He’s going to do what the White House is telling us to do. And if that means $50 oil and bankruptcies in the oil patch, so be it.’” + The deglaciation of Glacier National Park is nearly complete: “In 1850, the area that is now Glacier National Park had approximately 80 glaciers; as of 2015, there were 26—all shrinking. In the last decade, 13 of those have broken apart and can no longer technically be considered glaciers.” + <a href="https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/we-dont-have-a-climate-crisis-were-the-crisis-environmentalist-paul-hawken-on-why-honoring-life-is-the-best-thing-we-can-do-against-climate-change?utm_term=CBB463DD-28F7-40D4-BB4F-865B99748EDE&lrh=9d1a0112b72ae09936ffdfa3c2066907a14895e83d983bb7ee6ca6781e7e3a4f&utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A69-A2E8-62503D85375D&utm_medium=email&utm_content=CC54FF4B-832F-4425-9C9B-02914649A6B5&utm_source=SmartBrief">Paul Hawkins: “When people say we’re going to “fix” the climate … to me, it’s just so emblematic of this profound disconnection between self and other. We don’t have a climate crisis; the climate cannot have a crisis. We are the crisis”. + The Chinese EV maker BYD announced this week that its new line of cars can be fully charged in about the same time it takes to refill a gas-engine vehicle at the pump. It takes about 8 hours to fully charge a Tesla at home and up to 30 minutes to fully charge a Tesla at a “super-charging” station on the road…if you can find one. + Sandeep Vaheesan, author of Democracy in Power: “China pursues an abundance of tech while the United States opts for an abundance of tech billionaires.” + Climate change is causing increased emissions, which are quickening climate change, which is….well, you get it. The record increase in global emissions last year was attributable to record heatwaves in India and China, which increased the use of coal to power air conditioning. + It’s March and wildfires are burning out of control across the Carolinas and New Jersey. + I repeat: It’s March and … <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358769" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires-680x488.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires-680x488.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires-879x630.jpg 879w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires-768x551.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires-500x358.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires-600x430.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/koreanfires.jpg 1392w" alt="" width="680" height="488" /> April + At least 50,000 clean energy jobs have been killed off or delayed by the Trump administration in the last two months. More than $56 billion in clean energy investments have been defunded or halted since February. + “Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be affected in some way by receding glaciers and dwindling snowfall in mountain regions, driven by the climate crisis, according to a Unesco report.” + Planetary Death Wish 2025: Trump has signed an executive order calling for the use of coal to power AI data centers. + More than 470 tornadoes have been reported across the U.S. so far this year, nearly double the historical average for the year to date. According to AccuWeather, extreme weather and natural disasters in America have caused a staggering $344 billion to $382 billion in total damage and economic loss so far this year. But let’s restart the coal plants to power AI data centers! + Hank Green: “A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die. Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200k/year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.” + As predicted, the Keystone XL pipeline ruptured in North Dakota. Rescind that judgment against Greenpeace! + The global growth rate in CO2 emissions was 3.5 PPM, causing NOAA to extend its y-axis by 1 ppm for the first time. The significance of the graph is still understated, since it’s charting the rate of increase not the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which would continue to grow even if the rate of increase fell flat or even decreased. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-361028" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/globalincrease-680x408.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/globalincrease-680x408.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/globalincrease-768x461.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/globalincrease-500x300.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/globalincrease-600x360.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/globalincrease.png 1000w" alt="" width="680" height="408" /> + According to Berkeley Earth’s dataset, March 2025 tied with March 2016 and March 2024 as the warmest on record. It was 1.55°C above preindustrial (1850-1900) levels. + Imagine living in a place that cared even a little bit about your health and well-being… + A new study in Science estimates that as many as 1.4 billion people live in areas with soil dangerously polluted by heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel, and lead. + “History shows again and again, how Nature proves the folly of men…” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-362102" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-680x868.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-680x868.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-494x630.jpg 494w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-768x980.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-1203x1536.jpg 1203w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-500x638.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n-600x766.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/494350945_10163525947406518_2874505483034319974_n.jpg 1368w" alt="" width="680" height="868" /> + The first quarter of 2025 was the second warmest on record, just a fraction behind last year’s mark. An ominous portent, given that 2024 was super-charged by a strong El Nino event, while 2025 started off with weak La Nina conditions. + According to a new study by researchers at Dartmouth College published last week in “Nature”, emissions from 111 fossil fuel companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, the study finds. These five generated the most harm. The top culprits…. Saudi Aramco: $2.05 trillion Gazprom: $2 trillion Chevron: $1.98 trillion ExxonMobil: $1.91 trillion BP: $1.45 trillion May + Bloomberg News reports that Chinese purchases of American oil are down 90% year-over-year, while Chinese purchases of Canadian oil are up +700% year-over-year. + As hurricane and wildfire season opens, the National Weather Service has been blinded by staff cuts ordered by DOGE and now faces 155 “critical” vacancies. At least 30 National Weather Service offices are currently without a chief meteorologist, including those who issue forecasts for New York City, Cleveland, and Houston. Dr. Robert Rodhe, Berkeley Earth: “Severe staffing shortages at the National Weather Service will lead to missing data, worse forecasts, and late or missing warnings of extreme weather. Sooner or later, people are going to die as a direct result of this.” + Meanwhile, David Richardson, the newly appointed head of FEMA, admitted in private meetings that with two weeks to go until hurricane season, the agency doesn’t yet have a fully formed disaster-response plan, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. + After record temperatures in 2024, many climate scientists predicted that this year would be cooler. In fact, the planet seems to be heading for a second consecutive year with temperatures breaching the 1.5°C climate goal. + New research indicates that “the warming trend has been accelerating from a rate of 0.15 – 0.2 C° per decade during 1980-2000, to more than twice that rate most recently.” + China’s CO2 emissions are declining for the first time in decades and are now a full one percent below their 2024 peak. + Maybe just “Drill, baby” and not “Drill, baby, drill”? According to Kaes Van’t Hof, CEO of Diamondback Energy, U.S. oil production has peaked and will start to decline due to the drop in oil prices. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-365501" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc-680x558.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc-680x558.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc-767x630.jpeg 767w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc-768x631.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc-500x411.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc-600x493.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GraFFimbAAEjigc.jpeg 984w" alt="" width="680" height="558" /> + On Monday, the city of Shabankareh in Iran hit 52.1°C, the earliest any town has ever topped 125°F…We’re making large swaths of the planet unlivable for humans and other forms of life, in our own lifetimes. What a thing to witness. + Over his first 100 days in office, Trump has approved more than 145 measures to roll back or eliminate pollution rules and promote fossil fuels, more than the entire number of rollbacks during his first term. + In the first quarter of 2025, China added 60GW of solar power, more than half of it as rooftop installations. This is more than the total installed solar capacity in Spain and France combined–all in only three months. In 2010, the US and Europe were the largest solar and wind power manufacturers. By 2024, China had installed six times more wind and solar power than all of Europe and eight times more than the US. + By gutting the incentives for renewable energy, the Trump tax bill passed by the House will likely: +Cost more than 830,000 jobs + hike energy bills + increase carbon emissions by an additional 230 million tons by 2035, roughly the annual emissions of Spain + A new report on sea level rise published in Nature: Communications warns that millions globally will be forced from their homes by advancing waters and extreme tides even if warming remains below 1.5 °C. “We’re starting to see some of the worst-case scenarios play out almost in front of us. At current warming of 1.2 °C, sea level rise is accelerating at rates that, if they continue, would become almost unmanageable before the end of this century.” But the world is on track for 2.5C-2.9C of global heating, which results in the collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets–a scenario that would lead to a catastrophic 12 metres of sea level rise. + Rep. Yassamin Ansari: “I sit on the Natural Resources Committee, where we witnessed the most anti-environment legislation go through. It includes massive giveaways to the oil and gas industry. I also discovered that the chairman, for the first time in his career, had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of oil and gas stocks. So we’re seeing incredible amounts of corruption.” + Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo: “Should we really have wind and solar subsidies in this bill? What if it’s not windy? What if it’s not sunny?” June + Greta Thunberg, defying Lindsey Graham’s call for Israel to attack the unarmed peace activists on the Freedom Flotilla, standing “unbowed” on the bow of the Madleen, as it sails to Gaza: “We can swim very well.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-366877" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-680x850.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-680x850.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-504x630.jpeg 504w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-768x960.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-1229x1536.jpeg 1229w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-500x625.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant-600x750.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/gretdefiant.jpeg 1440w" alt="" width="680" height="850" /> + Juan González: “Greta, could you talk about how you see the issue of Palestinian freedom connecting or intersecting with the issue that you’re best known for, which is climate change activism?” + Greta Thunberg: “For me, there is no way of distinguishing the two. We cannot have climate justice without social justice. The reason why I am a climate activist is not because I want to protect trees. I’m a climate activist because I care about human and planetary well-being. And those are extremely interlinked. For example, when we see the genocide in Gaza, of course, there are some very obvious links–that ecocide, environmental destruction, is a very common method used in war and to oppress people.” + Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawai’i’s Big Island peaked for the year at 430.5 ppm, 3.6 ppm higher than last year and the second largest May-May increase in the 67-year Mauna Loa record. In 2023, the CO2 peaked at 424 ppm. Just wait until you see next year’s numbers! <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367681" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-680x491.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-680x491.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-872x630.png 872w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-768x555.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-1536x1109.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-500x361.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa-600x433.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/maunaloa.png 1720w" alt="" width="680" height="491" /> + A new study in Canada by researchers at McGill University found that methane leaks from dormant oil and gas wells are at least seven times worse than previously thought. In a rational world, these companies would get the corporate death penalty and the executives a SuperMax cell. But that’s not the world we live in. + Just wait until September, when Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Oregon and California are burning, Switzerland! <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367648" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n-680x820.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n-680x820.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n-523x630.jpg 523w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n-768x926.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n-500x603.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n-600x723.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/505745408_10163723205186518_6510120248672360878_n.jpg 982w" alt="" width="680" height="820" /> + In the last week, the burned area from the Canadian fires has grown by 760,000 hectares – that’s more scorched land than for most entire years! Currently, 2025 is sitting in 12th place for the largest burned area in Canadian history, and it’s only June. + Plus, Canada’s in for a long, hot summer… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-367649" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada-680x656.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada-680x656.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada-653x630.jpeg 653w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada-768x741.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada-500x482.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada-600x579.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/summercanada.jpeg 1010w" alt="" width="680" height="656" /> + Even though the days are getting longer, the outlook is getting darker and darker: This week Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its plans to to repeal outright greenhouse gas standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants, based in part on the specious claim that power plant emissions do not contribute “significantly” to climate change. In fact, coal- and gas-fired power plants are the largest stationary source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and the United States is the second-largest contributor of annual heat-trapping emissions on the planet. + Since the Paris Climate Accords in 2015, international banks have financed fossil fuels by $7.9 trillion, including loaning $869 billion to fossil fuel firms in 2024 (the hottest year ever) alone. + The Trump administration has slated 25 climate databases for removal: “The databases include historic earthquake recordings, satellite readings of cloud radiative properties, and a tool for studying billion-dollar disasters.” + In the last 12 months, the US has spent nearly $1 trillion on disaster recovery and other climate-related needs, which is more than 3% of the US’s GDP. + A new study suggests that if the Atlantic Current collapses, it will trigger extreme winters in northern Europe, with temperatures in Norway falling to -40 °C and in London to -20 °C. + With dry grasses, parched forests, scorching temperatures, and little rainfall, the fire outlook for California this summer is extreme…“In the last 10 years, the total number of acres burned by significant wildfires has varied from year to year. In 2020, when dry lightning sparked an outbreak of wildfires across Northern California, more than 4.3 million acres burned, but in 2022 and 2023, only about 300,000 acres burned each year. On average, about 1.4 million acres burn a year.” July FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-371134 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-680x398.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-680x398.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-1077x630.png 1077w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-768x449.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-1536x899.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-2048x1199.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-500x293.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/guadeluperiver-600x351.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="398" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-371134" /> Still from aerial footage of the Texas floods aired by CNN. While offering his “thoughts and prayers” for the families of those drowned in the Texas floods, JD Vance referred to the killer torrents that swept away more than 100 people, including dozens of children, as “an incomprehensible tragedy.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-371072" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n-680x516.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n-680x516.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n-830x630.jpg 830w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n-768x583.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n-500x380.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n-600x455.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/516379046_10163877965221518_6947236685819429181_n.jpg 1179w" alt="" width="680" height="516" />“Incomprehensible?” Only if you ignore the fact that the Girls Camp was allowed to be built and continue operating in one of the most flood-prone valleys in the US, that the climate crisis is making these floods much more frequent and then in order to give more tax breaks to billionaires you gutted the staff of the National Weather Service that could have given these vulnerable children warning of the imminent danger that would claim their lives …If you don’t ignore these facts, this tragedy was both entirely predictable and avoidable. Trump put his own self-exculpating spin on the floods, saying they were impossible to foresee: “Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it.” In fact, almost anyone who knew the slightest thing about the area known as “Flood Alley” saw it coming. Because it had already come, more than once. Previous recent floods had killed 10 people in 1987, 31 people in 1998 and 26 people in 2015. The denuded hill country of central Texas contains some of the most flood-prone valleys in the United States. The Guadeloupe River was so flood-prone that the Kerr County sheriff had recommended installing a flash flood warning system back in 2016. And the Obama administration agreed to the request, only to have the Texas Division of Environmental Management refuse the offer. Climate change has made the extreme rainfall episodes that have plagued this region of Texas for decades even more frequent and more lethal. In central Texas, the intensity of extreme rainfall events has increased by 19% since 1985. Climate change has made the extreme rainfall episodes that have plagued this region of Texas for decades even more frequent and more lethal. In central Texas, the intensity of extreme rainfall events has increased by 19% since 1985. “Generally, extreme rainfall is intensifying at a rate of 7 percent with each degree Celsius of atmospheric warming. But recent studies indicate that so-called record-shattering events are increasing at double that rate,” Dr. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA told the New York Times. On July 3, remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, which had whacked the gulf coast of Mexico earlier in the week, settled over central Texas, eventually dumping four months of rainfall on the Texas Hill Country (about 1.8 trillion gallon) in the next three days. That afternoon, the depleted ranks of the National Weather Service issued its first alert, warning of flash floods in the Guadalupe River valley, predicting rainfall totals of more than 6 inches in 12 hours. The predictions were made by a seriously understaffed NWS office in San Antonio, which lacked both a chief meteorologist and a warning coordination meteorologist. It’s not just the NWS that finds itself overworked and understaff as the warming climate unleashes stronger and stronger storms. The slashes to NOAA’s budget and staffing are going to dangerously degrade accurate and timely predictions of the threats posed by tropical storms, cyclones and hurricanes. According to Dr. Frank Marks, a 45-year hurricane veteran, the staff needed to fly NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft is down by 50% this year. This initial forecast proved to be a fatal underestimation and the emergency alert, urging residents to evacuate to higher ground (though how high that ground was and whether it was high enough remains unclear) didn’t come out until 4:30 in the morning. By 6:AM, it was too late, the river was already flowing at record flood levels. More than 20 inches of rain would fall on the Guadalupe Valley watershed in the next three days, causing the river to surge from 3.5 feet to 34.29 feet in less than an hour and a half, sweeping away houses, bridges, barns, roads, farm animals and at least 120 people (173 remain missing), including as many as 27 young girls and counselors at Camp Mystic, the summer camp for evangelical girls. Most of the cabins at the camp, run for years by Conservative Christians, were located in flood zones, some in areas label “extreme risk.” In 2019, the owners of the camp completed a multi-million dollar renovation. But instead of moving the most vulnerable cabins out of the flood zone, it built more cabins inside it. Anna Serra-Lobet, a flood risk researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, told the New York Times that allowing these cabins to be built in extreme risk “floodways” was “like pitching a tent in a highway. It’s going to happen, sooner or later. A car is going to come or a flood is going to come.” Texas Governor Gregg Abbott didn’t waste much time in urging a socialist response to the disaster, as he begged Trump for immediate help. The emergency aid wasn’t quick in coming, however. Indeed, FEMA’s response to the Texas floods was crippled by cost controls imposed on the agency by DHS head Kristi Noem, who didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began. Still Abbott rejected calls for an investigation into the lack of warnings and the bungled rescue operations, calling it “words of losers.” He presumably wasn’t talking about those who “lost” their lives and loved ones, though who knows given the hair-chested rhetoric he customarily deploys. Days went by, as the death toll continued to mount, without a single word from Trump and Noem’s pick to head FEMA, David Richardson, prompting a FEMA staffer to denounce Richardson for showing “a lack of regard in disaster response, and a lack of care for communities that suffer through these disasters.” As for Noem, she fired contract workers at FEMA emergency centers a day after the flooding started, leaving thousands of calls for help unanswered in the middle of the crisis… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-371270" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb-680x777.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb-680x777.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb-551x630.jpeg 551w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb-768x878.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb-500x572.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb-600x686.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GvngXSrWUAAKYzb.jpeg 1160w" alt="" width="680" height="777" />At his press conference in Texas, Trump said that anyone who criticized the response to the floods was a “bad person.” So, Heckuva job, Puppy Slayer! +++ + Five years from now, we’ll long for the cool June of 2025… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-371115" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM-680x537.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM-680x537.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM-798x630.png 798w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM-768x606.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM-500x395.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM-600x474.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.24.49-PM.png 1398w" alt="" width="680" height="537" /> + Rep. Tim Burchett: “God put coal in the ground, let’s use it… There’s a reason as Trump told me that there’s no windmills in China.” + Paul Musgrave: “The China challenge isn’t what American policymakers think it is. It’s not primarily about security threats or unfair trade practices—it’s about Chinese companies making better products for less money, and winning hearts and minds in the process.” + China now dominates the global market share across every major sector of clean energy technology. + Wind and solar power together generated a quarter (26%) of the China’s electricity in April 2025. Wind power accounted for 13.6% of generation while solar contributed 12.4%. + Bill McKibben: “It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.” Largely thanks to China. + According to new research published in Nature Geoscience, climate change is making heatwaves hotter and longer in duration: “Each increment of regional time-averaged warming increases the characteristic duration scale of long heatwaves more than the previous increment.” + French “heatwaves” since 1947… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-371005" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n-680x374.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n-680x374.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n-1147x630.jpg 1147w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n-768x422.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n-500x275.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n-600x330.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/517136556_10163905065561518_3104656307464850071_n.jpg 1214w" alt="" width="680" height="374" /> + Public concern about climate change is declining even as extreme weather events are on the rise: “The nonprofit also found the share of people concerned about climate change has fallen over the past year, dipping from 68% to 60%. Support for the UK’s target to hit net zero emissions by 2050 fell even further, plunging from 62% to 46%.” + The UK has missed its tree planting targets by more than 36,000 hectares, an area about the size of the Isle of Wight. + A report published in the New Scientist finds that “offsetting the estimated 182 billion tons of carbon held in the reserves of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies would require covering more land with trees than the entirety of North and Central America. +++ + In the last two years, wildfires have burned more acres in northeast British Columbia than in the previous 60 years combined and nearly a third of the remaining forests could burn by year’s end. Lori Daniels, a forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia.”This region of the province is in a multi-year drought. It has been in a drought condition for six or seven years now.” + The US has experienced more than double the number of flash floods (4356) this year than average (1861). + In response to appeals from Camp Mystic and the state of Texas in 2013, FEMA removed dozens of buildings at the camp from the 100-year flood hazard map for Kerr County. + The top three wettest hourly rainfalls amounts in New York City have all happened in the last four years. The 2.07 inches that fell on NYC on Monday night between 6:51 PM and 7:51 PM was the second most ever recorded, ranking only behind the drenching doled out by Hurricane Ida in 2021. The remarkable aspect of this deluge is that it happened without a tropical storm. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-371816" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall-680x382.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall-680x382.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall-1122x630.png 1122w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall-768x431.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall-500x281.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall-600x337.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/nycrainfall.png 1186w" alt="" width="680" height="382" /> + Indonesia announced plans to transition to 100% renewables by 2035 instead of 2040, largely through solar. + Last month, solar was the leading source of electric power in Europe for the first time. + Share of global off-shore wind power installations… China: 50.3% Europe: 44.2% Rest of Asia Pacific: 5.3% USA: 0.2% + The top 13 fastest warming countries in the world are all in Europe… 1 Norway +3.47°C 2 Belarus +2.45° 3 Lithuania +2.35° 4 Russia +2.34° 5 Austria +2.31° 5 Slovenia +2.31° 7 Latvia +2.31° 8 Ukraine +2.29° 9 Czechia +2.28° 9 Estonia +2.28° 9 Switzerland +2.28° 12 Poland +2.25° 12 Moldova +2.25° + According to a report in the New York Times, data center construction “has exacerbated water shortages across the world.” How long before a Supreme Court decision ruling that data are people, too. + The International Court of Justice finally rendered its advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change. Charging that “existential problem of planetary proportions,” the court ruled that government actions driving climate change violate international and members states are legally required to cut their emissions and compensate vulnerable nations for the harm they have caused. August <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-372805" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-680x383.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-680x383.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-1120x630.jpeg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-500x281.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome-600x338.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/heatdome.jpeg 1920w" alt="" width="680" height="383" /> + Jeff Bearadelli: I don’t think you can understate just how impressive this heat dome is. It covers 2/3 of the nation, in which 80% of the country’s population over the 7-day heatwave period will hit 90+ for a high temperature (~260 million people). The peak intensity of the heat dome was record-breaking for the SE US in late July. It peaked at 3.7 standard deviations, based on statistics from the past climate records we have, which means this heat dome is rare, if not virtually impossible, in our former climate of the 1900s. But human-caused climate change now makes these extreme heat domes much more likely. From the climate scientists at World Weather Attribution: ‘Every heatwave in the world is now made stronger and more likely to happen because of human-caused climate change.’ + According to the energy statistics group Ageb, German hard coal-fired power generation increased by 23.3% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. + A new study from the UK finds that being hit by an SUV (as compared to a regular car) “considerably” increases the risk of death for children, and even more so for young children. + Marine heat waves in 2023 covered at least 96% of the Earth’s oceans and lasted four times longer than normal. The heat waves of 2024 were just as bad. + The 2025 fire season in Canada is already the third worst in history and will almost certainly become the second worst. A study from 2018 found that over the last six decades, the fire season in Canada is starting one week earlier and ending one week later. The fire season is likely even longer now. + India is on track to meet its <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-27/america-is-slipping-behind-india-s-clean-power-boom?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1MzY5NDE4NywiZXhwIjoxNzU0Mjk4OTg3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUMDJRODdHUEZIUUgwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIwQzg4NkY0NTI0NzY0RUE0OEY2QTk4RTk1NDc5RTI2NSJ9.VXYsaT-gPedc6rBPBciN00RGrC4AQVnzQ-uI6N2sM0Y&leadSource=uverify%20wall">2030 renewable targets and will exceed the US in the deployment of new wind and solar generators this year. + Trump in Scotland this week: “And the other thing I say to Europe: we will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. They’re killing us. They’re killing the beauty of our scenery. Our beautiful plains. I’m not talking about airplanes… they won’t let you bury the propellers.” + Under its most conservative estimates, the Department of Energy says the US needs to build 5,000 miles of new transmission lines a year to transport renewable power across state lines. In 2024, the entire US built 322 miles of them. + Only 474 out of more than 90,000 oil slicks from ships around the world were reported to authorities over a five-year period–that’s less than 0.5 percent. Carrie O’Reilly, marine ecologist at Florida State: “Even trace quantities of oil are damaging to planktonic organisms, which form the base of the marine food web”. + Bruno Maçães: “Stunning to look at Europe today: if China sells us ultra cheap solar panels, effectively subsiding our energy transition, that’s the threat of autocracy. If the US uses coercion and blackmail to sink our economies, that’s working together.” + Trump has almost completely deregulated the fossil fuel industry in the US, but his pals on Wall Street don’t seem to be buying it. The financing of new oil, gas and coal projects by the six largest banks has dropped by 25% percent, as compared to the last year of the Biden administration. Morgan-Stanely’s financing of fossil fuels fell by 54%. + A new study published in Science finds that breathing polluted air increases the risk of osteoporosis. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-375584" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n-680x486.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n-680x486.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n-882x630.jpg 882w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n-768x548.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n-500x357.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n-600x428.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/536146555_10164151861506518_1755983781061903837_n.jpg 1140w" alt="" width="680" height="486" /> Meteorologist Jeff Beradelli on the explosive growth of Hurricane Erin: Hurricane Erin achieved something most storms do not this weekend. “Extreme Rapid Intensification”. Did climate change play a part? Science says, yes. In 12 hours winds increased by ~65 mph. Only 3 other storms have done that and Erin was the earliest & only August storm to do so. Also, there was a 78 mb drop in 24 hours, a feat only achieved by 2 other storms since 1980, and those were both in October (Milton & Wilma). Erin was the 5th earliest cat 5 on record. The image below shows that water temps in the vicinity of the Rapid Intensification (RI) were almost 2F above normal, hot waters made much more likely by climate change. In fact, studies show episodes of Rapid Intensification (esp. extreme RI) have increased significantly over the past few decades as waters have warmed. RI has increased by almost 5 mph per decade over the past 40 years. That means that a storm – which in the 1980s – had a RI of 40 mph in 24 hours, would likely have an RI of 60 mph in 24 hours now (on average). That makes storms much more destructive (if they landfall of course) It’s not coincidence, it’s climate change. Now, worth mentioning you need a whole lot more than hot water for a cat 5 & RI – all factors must line up – but if they do, hotter than normal water makes it much more possible. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-375588" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/eringrowth-680x209.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/eringrowth-680x209.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/eringrowth-768x236.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/eringrowth-500x154.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/eringrowth-600x184.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/eringrowth.jpeg 869w" alt="" width="680" height="209" /> + Meteorologist John Morales: “The rapid intensification threshold is 35 mph in 24 hours. For extreme rapid intensification, it’s 58 mph in 24 hours. Erin saw an 85 mph gain in max windspeed in 24 hrs. By barometric pressure, it is a top-20 strongest Atlantic hurricane.” + From a disturbing new report in Nature on the “abrupt changes” going on down in the Antarctic: “A regime shift has reduced Antarctic sea-ice extent far below its natural variability of past centuries, and in some respects is more abrupt, non-linear and potentially irreversible than Arctic sea-ice loss.” “The tipping point for unstoppable ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be exceeded even under best-case CO2emission reduction pathways, potentially initiating global tipping cascades.” + What AI data centers have done to your electricity bill: prices in the US are up 38% in the last 5 years, after being stable for the previous 5 years. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-375583" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/aidatacosts-680x441.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/aidatacosts-680x441.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/aidatacosts-500x324.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/aidatacosts-600x389.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/aidatacosts.jpeg 694w" alt="" width="680" height="441" /> + A study in Nature found glaciers in the Alps and Pyrenees mountains of Europe have lost about 40% of their mass since 2000. 2022 and 2023 set new records for percentage of ice loss. + The Mediterreanean is becoming a tropical sea. With water temperatures of 32C, these warming water have encouraged hundreds of species native to the Red Sea, such as the lionfish, to invade the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. The consequences to the sea’s ecosystems could be devastating. Heatmap: “From 2020 to 2023, the average American breathed in concentrations of smoke-related PM2.5 that were between 2.6 and 6.7 times higher than the 2006 to 2019 average.” + Former NOAA scientist Holden Harris, whose doctorate was funded by the National Science Foundation, on life after being fired by the Trump Administration: “Today, among my four part-time and consulting jobs, I sell frozen chocolate bananas on the beach in Jacksonville Beach. That cannot be the best return on taxpayer investment.” September <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-376508" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-680x454.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-680x454.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-944x630.png 944w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-768x513.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-1536x1025.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-2048x1367.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-500x334.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-3.14.48-PM-600x401.png 600w" alt="" width="680" height="454" /> + On Tuesday, California was hit by more than 10,000 lightning strikes in less than 24-hours, igniting wildfires up and down the state. + China currently has 339 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity under construction, that’s nearly two-thirds of the world’s existing capacity. +There’s a reason for this… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-376511" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills-680x699.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills-680x699.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills-613x630.jpg 613w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills-768x789.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills-500x514.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills-600x617.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/utilitybills.jpg 1080w" alt="" width="680" height="699" /> + The data center for Zuckerberg’s Meta, now under construction outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, will consume more power than all of the homes in the Cowboy State. + Trump’s Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, got brutally fact-checked on Elon Musk’s own platform this week for his inane deprecations about solar energy… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-376519" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM-680x551.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM-680x551.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM-777x630.png 777w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM-768x623.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM-500x405.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM-600x486.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-03-at-4.45.07-PM.png 1078w" alt="" width="680" height="551" /> + Nicholas Fulghum, Senior Energy and Climate Data Analyst at Ember Energy: “Covering the planet in solar panels would produce around 150-200 million TWh of electricity a year. That is 1,000x more than the global primary energy consumption of ~180,000 TWh. There’s wrong and then there’s @SecretaryWright wrong, who is LEADING THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.” + There are two options here: Wright destroyed a lot of brain cells when he drank fracking fluid to prove it was “safe.” Or he’s just lying. Probably both. + A bracing new report in Nature warns that the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon may be exhausted much sooner than thought: “Researchers report that Earth can safely store around 1,460 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO₂) — a number much lower than the 10,000–40,000 GtCO₂ often cited in previous studies.” + According to OXFAM, the deepening drought in East Africa is worse than the one that devastated the region in 2011, when huge herds of cattle, sheep and goats were completely wiped out and 750,000 people perished from starvation and lack of water. Herder Mahmoud Ciroobey from Kalsheikh in Somaliland: This drought is slowly killing everything. First, it “swept away” the land and the pastures; then it “swept away” the animals, which first became weaker and weaker and eventually died. Soon, it is going to “sweep away” people. People are sick with flu, diarrhoea, and measles. If they don’t get food, clean water, and medicines, they will die like their animals. + Decade after decade, the dry season in the Amazon rainforest has been getting longer and drier. A new study published in Nature Communicationsfound that about 75 percent of the decrease in rainfall is directly linked to deforestation. In the first six months of 2025, Brazilian officials reported a 27 percent increase in tree loss nationwide over the same period last year. + The air quality in Squamish, British Columbia (30 miles north of Vancouver) hit 800 on Wednesday. An AQI between 200 and 300 is considered “very unhealthy. An AQI above 300 is considered “hazardous.” An AQI of 800 is almost unbreathable. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-376627" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-680x747.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-680x747.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-573x630.png 573w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-768x844.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-1398x1536.png 1398w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-500x549.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM-600x659.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-04-at-1.18.11-PM.png 1480w" alt="" width="680" height="747" /> + Air pollution generated by the oil and gas industry causes more than 90,000 premature deaths across the US each year and results in hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood asthma and more than 10,000 incidents of premature birth annually, according to a new study by researchers at University College London and the Stockholm Environment Institute. Moreover, the report found that the burden falls disproportionately on the poor and communities of color. + + Realtor Climate Risk Report: “More than one in four U.S. homes—amounting to $12.7 trillion in real estate—faces at least one type of severe or extreme climate risk, like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.” + Trump’s EPA is preparing to stop collecting toxic emissions data from air polluters, which is going to end up killing a lot more people a year than mass shooters, even here in the home of mass shooters. + Last year, Burgum’s home state of North Dakota produced 35% of its energy from wind power. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-377275" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n-680x544.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n-680x544.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n-788x630.jpg 788w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n-768x614.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n-500x400.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n-600x480.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/545709701_10164243613911518_3204303931187347239_n.jpg 1226w" alt="" width="680" height="544" /> + Apparently, they’ve forgotten all about how to store energy and the batteries containing the rare earth minerals they’re arm-twisting countries across to acquire? + Even as Trump is doing everything he can to shut it down, congestion pricing in NYC has succeeded in reducing vehicle traffic into Manhattan by 12%, meaning almost 18 million fewer vehicles trips since it went into effect. + Trump at the UN General Assembly: Climate change it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion. Climate change, no matter what happens, you’re involved in that. No more global warming, no more global cooling. All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that cost their country’s fortunes and given those same countries, no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. + The Trump administration has ordered the National Park Service to begin removing signage about slavery, climate change and the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. “This is an outrageous assault on our free speech and ability to educate each other,” charged Rep. Chellie Pingree, the Democrat from Maine. “It’s just bonkers to me that the federal government is imposing these kinds of restraints, that we’re taking away valuable information from our citizens who visit this park, and that we are trying to dumb everyone down and pretend real weather events don’t happen by not letting you read a simple sign.” October + This month, Trump’s team launched a coordinated assault on renewable energy. + Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Fox: “We’re announcing today expanded programs to help the American coal industry. We’re helping it because for years it has been under assault. It was out of fashion with the chardonnay set in San Francisco, Boulder, Colorado, and New York City … coal just makes the world go round.” + Bailing out a dying industry that has killed and sickened 10s of thousands of workers and the atmosphere… + Coal power peaked in the US in 2007. Wind and solar power overtook it in 2024. + EPA director Lee Zeldin on why renewable energy is bad: “Those battery storage sites cost a whole lot of money, and they then catch on fire and these local municipalities, fire departments, they aren’t prepared for those massive fires that end up resulting and those environmental impacts.” + Interior Secretary Doug Burgum: “There was just a report out — all of these European wind companies, they’ve had a wind drought … All of those European companies are reporting earnings below expectations because the wind didn’t blow as hard this summer as they expected it to do.” + A new study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that: “A broad shift to electric vehicles — which are quieter than traditional vehicles — could yield noise reduction benefits of $77.3 billion, concentrated among low-income families in dense urban areas.” + Bloomberg News reports that “wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.” + Only 38% of the California homes lost to fire in the last ten years have been rebuilt. +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-382918" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM-680x429.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM-680x429.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM-999x630.png 999w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM-768x484.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM-500x315.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM-600x378.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-4.02.42-PM.png 1186w" alt="" width="680" height="429" /> + Since the year 2000, nearly 78% of the planet has set new records for all-time maximum monthly temperatures. At least 38% were set in the last five years alone. + The Energy Department has added “emissions” and “climate change” to its banned words list. Too bad George Carlin isn’t around to expound upon the 1,723 words you can’t say in the Trump Administration… + Chinese electric vehicles, which are priced thousands of dollars less than US and European models, now account for more than half of all global EV sales, + Carbon offsets are a corporate scam that hasn’t worked and never will work. Stephen Lezak, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Smith School: We must stop expecting carbon offsetting to work at scale. We have assessed 25 years of evidence and almost everything up until this point has failed. + The latest evidence that the ocean ecosystems are dying: Since June, around 400 marine mammals have washed up sick or dead on California’s Central Coast since June from leptospirosis, toxic algal blooms and a collapsing food chain. These numbers, records though they are, are almost certainly a vast undercount, since most of the deaths go unnoticed. + Despite spiking demand, Nevada has seen the lowest electric utility price increases in the nation over the last twenty years (just +1.4%), owing largely to its massive investment in solar power. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-384303" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-680x351.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-680x351.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-1200x620.jpeg 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-768x397.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-1536x793.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-2048x1057.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-500x258.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/G3Keo7hXwAAFR1H-600x310.jpeg 600w" alt="" width="680" height="351" /> + A new report submitted to the UK government by its climate advisors warns that “heatwaves will occur in at least four out of every five years in England by 2050, and time spent in drought will double. The number of days of peak wildfire conditions in July will nearly triple for the UK…with some peak river flows increasing by 40%.” + With his customary perverse sense of timing, Trump posted this rubbish on the same day one of the most powerful hurricanes in the history of the Atlantic Ocean trashed Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba, killing dozens, perhaps hundreds, and took direct aim at the Bahamas… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-387092" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/climatechange-680x287.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/climatechange-680x287.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/climatechange-768x324.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/climatechange-500x211.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/climatechange-600x253.jpeg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/climatechange.jpeg 1179w" alt="" width="680" height="287" /> + Luke de Noronha on Hurricane Melissa’s ferocious landfall in Jamaica: ‘Shana texted me: ‘I can hear trees breaking and zinc flying. The wind sounds like it’s talking.’ On the videos people sent, it sounded more like screeching. Chris: ‘An almond tree broke in half next door. It was three storeys high.’” + Amitav Ghosh on Earth after the climate apocalypse: “The notion of anticipatory ruination has implications that extend far beyond Bangladesh: in a sense, it has now become a plan for the future of the entire planet.” + As Trump calls for a halt to solar installations, Texas has forged ahead. In the last five years, electricity demand on the Texas grid (ERCOT) has grown by 20 percent. But emissions have fallen by 7% over the same period. Why? Because according to the Energy Information Agency, nearly all of the demand has been met by renewables: wind, batteries and, especially, solar. + According to a survey by the University of Chicago, only 52% of Americans believe in human-caused climate change, a drop from 55% in 2017. Belief among Democrats has fallen 5 points since then, while belief among Republicans has grown by 9 points and, among Independents, by 16 points. (42 percent of young Republicans now believe in anthropogenic warming, logging only slightly behind the rest of the country.) + North Dakota is the only state in the US that has seen its electricity prices fall since 2019. Could that be because in the last six years, the Flickertail State has seen: – Solar generation increased by 425% – Wind generation increased by 34% – Coal generation fell by 8% + Carbon reduction plans submitted to the UN by more than 60 countries would reduce global emissions by a mere 10 percent, far below the goals set in the Paris Climate Accords or needed to slow runaway climate change. + A Lawrence Livermore / Berkeley study estimates that about 40 percent of California’s electricity price increase over the last five years was due to wildfire-related costs. November +++ <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-388346" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-680x682.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-680x682.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-628x630.jpg 628w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-768x771.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-500x502.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-600x602.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers-100x100.jpg 100w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/andeanglaciers.jpg 1206w" alt="" width="680" height="682" /> + Obviously, not “our” people, so no cause for alarm… + Since 1997, there’s been a 2.7% decline in annual rainfall in the US, while extreme flooding events have dramatically increased, according to new research from AccuWeather. + According to a study by researchers at the World Inequality Lab, the wealthiest 1 percent of the global population accounts for 15% of all emissions attributed to consumers, but when their carbon footprint is measured by the assets they own, their share jumps up to about 40 percent. + A new paper published in Energy Research and Social Science found that the 2022 energy crisis drove record global profits for fossil fuel companies: “We estimate that globally, the net income in publicly-listed oil and gas companies alone reached $916 billion in 2022, with the US the biggest beneficiary, with claims on $301 billion, more than US investments of $267 billion investment in low-carbon energy economy that year.” Half of profits went to the top 1 percent, mainly through stock ownership. + CNBC: I could see a Democratic president declaring a climate emergency to tax countries with high CO2 emissions. Does that concern you at all what Democrats might do with this type of tariff power? Scott Bessent: I would question whether there’s a climate emergency. It’s all been proven wrong. + Elon Musk, disputing Trump’s assertion that solar energy is “a scam to make your country fail”: “Just with solar alone, China can, in 18 months, produce enough solar panels to power all the electricity of the United States.” + Though fossil fuels still dominate, the percentage of the planet’s energy derived from fossil fuels edged down again in 2024 and is now at the lowest level since the 1960s. + Battery capacity by power grid in the US: CAISO (California): 14,609 MW ERCOT (Texas): 10,982 MW PJM (Mid-Atlantic): 441 MW + Since April 13, 2025, Nepal has recorded 4,597 weather/climate-related disaster incidents nationwide. A total of 335 people have died, 41 are missing, and 1,264 have been injured, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. + Lyndi Stone, a principal corporate counsel for Microsoft, on the problem with siting data centers: Nobody really wants a data center in their backyard, I don’t want a data center in my backyard…. Data centers, once they’re operational, don’t bring a lot of jobs. +++ + Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement will rise around 1.1% in 2025, reaching a record 38.1 billion tonnes of CO2, according to the latest figures from the Global Carbon Project. + A new study published in<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3#:~:text=The%2520globally%2520representative%2520data%2520reveal%2520strong%2520support%2520for%2520climate%2520action%2520around%2520the%2520world.%2520First%252C%2520a%2520large%2520majority%2520of%2520individuals%E2%80%9469%2525%E2%80%94state%2520they%2520would%2520be%2520willing%2520to%2520contribute%25201%2525%2520of%2520their%2520household%2520income%2520every%2520month%2520to%2520fight%2520global%2520warming%2520(Fig.%25201a)"> Nature finds broad support globally for decisive action to combat climate change: “Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action.” + In the last 13 years, electric vehicle sales in Norway have gone from less than 5% to 95% of all cars and trucks sold in the country. + Today, almost 3/4 of EU electricity generation comes from non-fossil energy sources. + Solar now accounts for around 90 percent of all new energy growth, globally. Global solar grew by 498 TWh (+31%) in Q1-Q3 2025, compared to 2024, “the largest increase ever over a nine-month period.” Global solar output in the first three quarters of 2025 already eclipsed the total output in all of 2024. + China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 months. + The draft text coming out of COP30 in Belém dropped a provision calling for a global plan to move away from fossil fuels. In fact, the elides all mentions of fossil fuels. What’s the point? + The amount of carbon dioxide emitted getting to and from the climate summits is now officially more than the amount of carbon dioxide reduced by the summits. + This is the 29th year in a row that Greenland has lost more ice than it gained. For the past four years, rainfall has been recorded at Greenland’s northernmost point. + Trump on climate change at Saudi/US Investment conference: ” I’m all for climate change… It’s climate change that’s destroying the world, remember? The world was supposed to have been gone two years ago. The world was gonna burn up, but it actually got much cooler. It’s a little conspiracy. We have to investigate them immediately. They probably are being investigated.” +South Africa’s solar panel imports increased by 60% in the last 12 months, led by South Africa and followed by 20 other countries. Meanwhile, India has now hit its goal of 50% clean energy, five years ahead of the target date. + In 2008, climate models predicted the world would pass 1.5 °C of warming in 2048. Today, the best estimate is 2029. + After pushback from the real estate industry, “Zillow “quietly removed” climate risk estimates from over one million listings… <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-392477" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds-680x351.png" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds-680x351.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds-1200x619.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds-768x396.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds-500x258.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds-600x310.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zillowfolds.png 1260w" alt="" width="680" height="351" /> + Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro, the genocide defender many Democratic Party elites want to run for president in 2028, pulled his state out of a climate pactmany other Blue states, including Virginia, under new governor Abigail Stanberger, have joined… + The Guardian on the rapid depletion of the planet’s groundwater: “Groundwater poverty has become one of the major issues in climate change, with cities throughout the world sinking through a combination of frequent droughts, heavy stormwater running off without replenishing the underwater storage and megacities drawing too much Artesian water. It is a problem which immediately affects large centres of population, eventually making them uninhabitable. And now huge swathes of southern Europe, home to millions of people for thousands of years, are under severe and immediate threat.” + Solar power generation in Texas is up 40 percent over last year. + According to a piece in Forbes, it seems like Trump’s campaign to halt the transition to renewable energy sources are failing: In the third quarter, USA spending on clean energy and transportation jumped 8% from a year ago to $75 billion, the highest quarterly amount ever. And so far this year, such investments are running 6% ahead of the first three quarters of 2024. December <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395058" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-680x348.png" alt="" width="680" height="348" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-680x348.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-1200x615.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-768x393.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-1536x787.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-500x256.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM-600x307.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-6.22.08-PM.png 1890w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> + The mass coral bleaching event that began in 2023 has become the largest event ever recorded. It is the fourth mass coral bleaching event ever recorded and the second to occur in the last 10 years. Since January, 2023, at least 83.7% of the world’s coral reef areas have been damaged by bleaching-level heat stress, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last week. + According to a new paper published in Nature Communications, peak glacier extinction will occur in the next 15 to 30 years: “Here, using three global glacier models, we project a sharp rise in the number of glaciers disappearing worldwide, peaking between 2041 and 2055 with up to ~4,000 glaciers vanishing annually.” + The massive flooding in Sumatra may have been a death knell for the world’s endangered great ape, the Tapanuli orangutan. Primatologists are calling the flooding an “extinction-level disturbance” for the species, which has fewer than 800 individuals left. Large areas of habitat have been destroyed and ape conservation groups estimate that as much as 11% (35 or more individuals) of the orangutan’s entire population may have been lost. + The Trump administration is pulling the plug on one of the world’s leading climate research stations, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Known as the “Global Mothership” for climate and weather forecasting, Ross Vought, Trump’s hatchet man at OMB, says the Center needs to be eliminated because its research and forecasts spread “climate alarmism.” This is the climate equivalent of Trump trying to tell people that their food and energy prices have gone down, not up. + In New York City, congestion pricing has led to a 22 percent decline in particulate pollution, a study finds. + More than 1,800 people died and some 1.2 million were chased from their when two overlapping tropical cyclones – Ditwah and Senyar – hit Sumatra region of Indonesia and Peninsular Malaysia at the same time, generating deadly floods, mudflows and landslides. The storms developed over North Indian Ocean waters that were 0.2°C warmer than the historical 1991-2020 average. It is one of the most lethal weather-related disasters in recent history and recent research by the World Weather Attribution group corroborates the theory that climate change is making these deadly cyclones more frequent, the winds stronger and the rainfall more intense. + According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said this year is “virtually certain” to finish as either the second- or third-warmest year since records began around 1850: The global average temperature anomaly for January to November 2025 stands at 0.60°C above the 1991–2020 average, or 1.48°C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial reference. These anomalies are identical to those recorded for the full year 2023, currently the second warmest year. + The last 10 years have been the 10 hottest years on record. The post Out of the Greenhouse and Into the Madhouse: the Year in Climate Politics appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.
The Case for Expelling Israel from Eurovision
The term ‘hypocrisy’ is the most convenient term, but certainly not the most apt to describe the inclusion of Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. We must search for other terms that could possibly explain why a country that has just committed one of the most horrific genocides in modern history is celebrated as More The post The Case for Expelling Israel from Eurovision appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395319" class="wp-image-395319 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/aj_aaaab-UuGGxuBfYic-unsplash-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by aj_aaaab. The term ‘hypocrisy’ is the most convenient term, but certainly not the most apt to describe the inclusion of Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. We must search for other terms that could possibly explain why a country that has just committed one of the most horrific genocides in modern history is celebrated as a hub for culture, art, and music. ‘Complicity’ is a possible alternative, though still not enough to fully explain the West’s insistence on whitewashing the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. Many of those protesting Israel’s inclusion in the competition, which typically attracts tens of millions of viewers worldwide, rightly note that Russia was expelled within 36 hours after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In fact, the Russian example does not stop at Eurovision. Thousands of such sanctions have been slapped against Moscow in every possible field, from politics to the economy to sports, culture, and more. Even now, thousands of sanctions later, European officials are still mulling over or carrying out yet more sanctions. Europe is never satisfied when it comes to punishing Russia or any country that orbits outside its political sphere. But is Israel a European country? Answering this question requires that we deeply appreciate the profound and sinister relationship between Israel and the West in general, and Israel and Europe in particular. Israel is a European offspring, the hideous creation of Western imperialism and colonialism. It is settler-colonialism in its ugliest manifestation, where the natives are not even allowed to serve the role of the inferior, the collective servant of Westerners and their fraudulently superior culture. In the Israeli settler-colonial model, Palestinians are to be eliminated, as exemplified by David Ben-Gurion, the primary architect of the Zionist project in Palestine and the first prime minister of Israel, when he stated that “the Arabs must go (or “we must expel the Arabs”), but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.” But let’s assume, for the sake of the argument, that the West has been fooled by Israel’s repeated claims of democracy, equality, and civilization. What justification does Europe have now as it continues to embrace Israel in every possible field, including that of culture and music? We still do not fully grasp the number of Palestinians massacred by Israeli hands and Western weapon technology, simply because thousands of Palestinian bodies remain trapped under the rubble of their own homes, schools and hospitals. The most modest estimation tells us that over 71,000 people have been killed and over 171,000 have been wounded. These numbers do not include the many thousands who remain missing or those killed by famine, curable diseases, polluted waters, and the like. The West knows all of this, not only because, like the rest of us, they have been watching the world’s first livestream genocide, but because they own the very satellites that provided the information to Israel, the murder weapon that Israel used, and the political shield they collectively created to protect Tel Aviv. Even those Europeans critical of Israel have not gone far enough, considering that some of them, like top Spanish officials, have already acknowledged that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Yet, no political ties have been fully severed, no total economic sanctions have been imposed, nothing of the sort. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) continues to argue that “the Contest should remain a neutral space and must not be instrumentalized”. This is the same pathetic argument that the world football federation, FIFA, has used repeatedly to shield Israel while punishing Russian athletes purely based on the fact that they are Russian. Europe’s die-hard support for Israel is not mere hypocrisy motivated by immediate financial interests or simply because, in their twisted view, Palestinian lives are of no value. Europe’s ruling elites believe that Israel is one of them; that Israel’s victories and setbacks are their own success and failure. Even when they reprimand Israel, they do so lovingly, gently, as a father reprimanding his own son for behaving against the interests of the family. This maxim, however, does not apply to European societies. Millions of Italians, Irish, French, Spanish, Belgians, and even Germans and Austrians, among other nations, are livid about what Israel has done to the Palestinians, and some are angry that it was their own tax money that facilitated the genocide of Gazans. These people are now raising their voices against the EBU and all other complicit European institutions, saying that enough is enough. It is now up to them to ensure that their voices are heard as a last stance against the intentional degrading of European democracy. The EBU has declared on December 17 that the booing from the crowd, directed at Israel’s performance, will not be censored or drowned out, in what was meant as a concession. What a pitiful attempt at weaning the people into silence. But European civil society will not accept this, as their boos will and must drown Europe’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. It is time for the booing to increase, not only to delegitimize those who use music to whitewash the Gaza genocide but to hold accountable those who made the genocide possible in the first place, from Brussels to London to Paris, and now in Vienna. The post The Case for Expelling Israel from Eurovision appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud - Romana Rubeo.
Did Mark Zuckerberg Throw $77 Billion in Our Money Into the Toilet?
Meta recently announced that it was sharply cutting back its Metaverse division so that it could put more money into its AI projects. This is after its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, spent around $77 billion to build up his Metaverse, which apparently never really caught on with users. On the one hand, this can be seen More The post Did Mark Zuckerberg Throw $77 Billion in Our Money Into the Toilet? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img decoding="async" width="680" height="490" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" class="aligncenter 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1758px) 100vw, 1758px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1758" height="1266" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1758px) 100vw, 1758px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1758" height="1266" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1758px) 100vw, 1758px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="875" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 875px) 100vw, 875px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395278" class="size-medium wp-image-395278" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png" alt="" width="680" height="490" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-680x490.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-875x630.png 875w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-768x553.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-1536x1106.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-500x360.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM-600x432.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-3.11.19-PM.png 1758w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Annie Spratt Meta recently announced that it was sharply cutting back its Metaverse division so that it could put more money into its AI projects. This is after its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, spent around $77 billion to build up his Metaverse, which apparently never really caught on with users. On the one hand, this can be seen as just a mistaken investment decision of the sort companies make all the time, just an especially large one. And it was Facebook’s money in the sense that investors chose to buy up Facebook stock (now Meta) and/or lend it money through bonds or loans. That story is all true, but there is a public good aspect to investment that it is important to recognize. Ostensibly, we become wealthier as a country in large part because U.S. corporations invest in areas that increase productivity and thereby lead to economic growth. (We also get economic growth when governments build infrastructure, support research, and people gain education.) It is easy to point to investments that fit this wealth-creating bill. The investments by Apple in developing home computers and smartphones are two obvious examples. Or, going back a century, the investment by Ford in developing low-cost mass-produced cars. Both led to huge benefits to society. This is the argument for the benefits of capitalism. The quest for profit provides incentive for companies to innovate and develop ways to produce better and/or cheaper products. But the flip side to this story is that when companies make stupid investment decisions, as it seems Zuckerberg did with the $77 billion he threw into Meta, it is not just a loss on their books, but also a cost to society. When Zuckerberg invested $77 billion in Meta he was pulling software engineers away from other tasks that might have been more productive. The same is true of all the other people who worked on the planning and implementation of his Meta vision. These were all people who could have otherwise been productively employed. There were also physical resources used to advance Zuckerberg’s Meta plans. Computers, office space, electricity, and other physical resources were tied up in the $77 billion that Zuckerberg spent trying to make Meta into a profitable project. All these resources could have been better used elsewhere. (Maybe the resources to build office space could have instead been used to build affordable housing in the expensive Bay Area.) Anyhow, Mark Zuckerberg’s wasted $77 billion becomes more interesting in the context of the hundreds of billions that Meta, Google, Open AI, and other major tech companies are throwing into AI. The impact of this spending is being very clearly felt throughout the economy. AI has been a major source of growth in the economy, as these companies have snatched up many of the country’s and world’s top software engineers. They are also putting huge demands on the nation’s electricity grid as the data centers they are constructing are massive energy hogs. This is also pushing back efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the multitrillion-dollar stock valuations of the major tech companies are driving demand in the economy through the wealth effect. The spending of wealthy stockholders explains most of the growth in consumption in 2025. The obvious question that needs to be asked in this context is whether Mark Zuckerberg has gotten a lot smarter in the five years since he decided to throw $77 billion in the garbage with Meta? There are some reasons for thinking that he may not be any sharper today than he was back in 2020. We are likely to learn the answer in 2026. This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog. The post Did Mark Zuckerberg Throw $77 Billion in Our Money Into the Toilet? appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.
Operation Domino: Italy’s War on Palestinian Charity and the Criminalization of Survival
In a chilling escalation of state repression, the Italian government has launched a full-scale judicial assault on the Palestinian solidarity movement. The targets are no longer just individual voices of dissent; they are the very infrastructure of Palestinian survival. This week, under the codename Operation Domino, the Guardia di Finanza and DIGOS orchestrated a theatrical More The post Operation Domino: Italy’s War on Palestinian Charity and the Criminalization of Survival appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, 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wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, 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srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1599" height="1066" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1599px) 100vw, 1599px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395292" class="size-medium wp-image-395292" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-680x453.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-945x630.jpg 945w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM-600x400.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/September_2025_Italy_general_strike_for_Gaza_RSM.jpg 1599w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Ukrain4Pal – CC BY 4.0 In a chilling escalation of state repression, the Italian government has launched a full-scale judicial assault on the Palestinian solidarity movement. The targets are no longer just individual voices of dissent; they are the very infrastructure of Palestinian survival. This week, under the codename Operation Domino, the Guardia di Finanza and DIGOS orchestrated a theatrical raid across Italy. The operation saw 9 people arrested and 25 individuals targeted in a sweeping investigation, with searches conducted in Genova, Milan, Rome, and other major cities. Crucially, this investigation was conducted under the auspices of the Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA). This detail is not a technicality; it is a political statement. By placing humanitarian activists under the jurisdiction of Anti-Mafia prosecutors, the state is deliberately attempting to equate the moral imperative of saving lives with the criminal enterprise of organized crime. At the center of this persecution is Mohammad Hannoun, the architect and leader of the Association of Palestinians in Italy. For decades, Hannoun has been a reference point for the community, organizing aid for a people being starved to death by an occupying army. The state seized approximately €1 million in cash, and flaunted this in the press to paint a picture of corrupt criminality. But let us strip away the sensationalism. In a besieged concentration camp where the banking system has been obliterated by Israeli airstrikes, cash is often the only way to move aid. By criminalizing these transfers, Italy is not stopping terrorism; it is stopping bread, water, and medicine. The “Hamas” Pretext: Following the Zionist Playbook The core accusation driving Operation Domino is that these funds were financing Hamas. This is a deliberate, cynical manipulation of reality designed to criminalize all aid to Gaza. The West knows perfectly well that Hamas was and is the governing body of Gaza. They run the municipalities, the emergency services, and the social welfare networks. It is structurally impossible to send humanitarian aid to Gaza without interacting with the governance structure of the territory. By defining any financial interaction with the governing body of Gaza as “terrorism,” the West has knowingly and willingly adopted the Zionist playbook: equate the entire civilian population with the armed resistance, and then starve them both. A Dossier Built on Lies and Mossad Intel Let us be clear about the origins of this investigation. This was not independent police work; it was a hit job ordered by Tel Aviv. Operation Domino was spearheaded with the “full cooperation” of Israeli intelligence services, including Mossad. The 300-page dossier accusing these groups of funding military activities dissolves under scrutiny. It is a cut-and-paste job of Zionist propaganda, mimicking the exact strategy Israel used to try and destroy UNRWA: fabricate accusations to cut off the lifeline of humanitarian aid. Italy, acting as a loyal colonial subcontractor, has eagerly adopted this lie, effectively criminalizing charity to protect the starvation tactics of its ally. Panic in the Palaces of Power Why launch Operation Domino now? The answer lies in the streets. The Meloni government is terrified of the mass movement that has erupted across the peninsula. In recent months, literally millions of Italians have flooded the piazzas. From the General Strikes led by the Genovese port workers to the student occupations of the licei, the Italian public has overwhelmingly rejected their government’s complicity in colonial genocide. The rhetoric emanating from Rome reveals this panic. Matteo Salvini, the Deputy Prime Minister, has called for the total suppression of pro-Palestine marches, labeling them “hate rallies” and demanding zero tolerance for dissent. By branding Hannoun and his associates as “terror financiers,” the government aims to delegitimize this entire movement, painting millions of peaceful protesters as terrorist sympathizers. Crosetto’s Threat: The Mask Slips The motivation behind this crackdown is fear. This was laid bare recently by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto at the Brother’s of Italy, Atreju festival. In a heated exchange with journalist Marco Travaglio, Crosetto issued a threat that should chill every citizen to the bone: “Anyone that has accused the Italian government of complicity in Genocide should pay for the rest of their lives.” This is the language of an authoritarian enforcer. It confirms that the persecution of Hannoun, the constant and continuing smears against Francesca Albanese, and the attacks on the Global Sumud Flotilla are part of a desperate attempt to silence those exposing the government’s crimes. Criminal Complicity: From Leonardo to the ICC Crosetto’s panic is well-founded. The Italian government is currently facing a formal complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for complicity in genocide. The complaint names Giorgia Meloni, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Crosetto and Roberto Cingolani — the CEO of the defense giant Leonardo. While persecuting activists for sending food to Gaza, the Italian state continues to send weapons components to Tel Aviv via Leonardo. The hypocrisy is blinding: Benjamin Netanyahu, an indicted war criminal wanted for incitement to genocide, flies through Italian airspace unscathed, while Palestinian human rights defenders have their bank accounts frozen by the Anti-Mafia squad. The West’s Descent into Darkness This is not just an Italian phenomenon; it is a Western Rampage of Repression. From the freezing of Palestine Action’s assets in the UK to the McCarthyite purges in the US, the West has surrendered its moral standing. They have allowed the situation in Gaza to be defined by Donald Trump —a sleazy real estate shark turned wannabe dictator— and Benjamin Netanyahu — an indicted war criminal desperate to cling to power. In their world, dismantling one of the most violent and destructive colonial projects in history is a crime, but funding it is a virtue. The Intimidation Has Failed Operation Domino was designed to topple the movement, but the pieces are refusing to fall. The persecution of Mohammad Hannoun has not intimidated the people; it has clarified the stakes. They are trying to crush a movement that refuses to let the world look away. But this strategy will fail. You can freeze bank accounts, but you cannot freeze the conscience of a generation. On one side stands the Rome-Tel Aviv axis of genocide; on the other stands the global movement for justice. Crosetto wants us to “pay for the rest of our lives,” but it is they who will eventually pay the price of history’s judgment. The post Operation Domino: Italy’s War on Palestinian Charity and the Criminalization of Survival appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael Leonardi.
Policymakers Must Address Earnings Instability
Current policy debates are often focused on static income or employment status, such as being employed or unemployed, and annual income changes. However, the growing issue of earnings stability is largely overlooked in these discussions. On December 17, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) reintroduced the Schedules That More The post Policymakers Must Address Earnings Instability appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4000px) 100vw, 4000px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="4000" height="3000" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-scaled.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-scaled.jpeg 4000w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4000px) 100vw, 4000px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-840x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395143" class="wp-image-395143 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-680x510.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/P1010661-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Small fiber mill in southern Oregon, where posted wages start at less than $20 an hour. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Current policy debates are often focused on static income or employment status, such as being employed or unemployed, and annual income changes. However, the growing issue of earnings stability is largely overlooked in these discussions. On December 17, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) reintroduced the Schedules That Work Act and Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights (SB 3550 & HR 6786). These are critical federal measures to explicitly address these issues, ensuring predictability and stability for low-wage workers’ economic life. As the labor market slows, the economic wellbeing of wage workers depends not just on how much they earn, but also on whether they can count on steady pay in the weeks and months ahead. Many workers — particularly in industries like retail and food services, hospitality, and personal care— often encounter changes in their working hours as employers continue to pass on the costs of disrupted business, which is the biggest driver of today’s income instability. Expanded unemployment insurance provisions during a layoff made being out-of-work relatively manageable for many workers; however, many of these policies were temporary. Changes in work hours are often temporary and do not make a worker eligible for unemployment insurance. As a result, workers facing volatile or frequent hour cuts and declining incomes often fall outside the scope of protections. Not all involuntary volatility has the same consequences. Treating volatility as a single phenomenon can obscure the fundamentally different work scheduling trajectories that workers experience, each with distinct implications for wellbeing. For instance, upward work-hour trajectories that do not include significant reductions, even if volatile, may be associated with positive outcomes and greater resilience. In contrast, a consistent month-to-month decline in hours, or frequent fluctuations with periods of large hours shock, is likely to undermine financial security in ways that consistently stable or upward trajectories do not. Workers who experience relatively mild fluctuations, without substantial drops or gains, may be better positioned to offset the financial and psychological costs of uncertainty. Measuring Work-Hour Volatility Consistent with prior research, I calculated the hours instability index using the standard deviation of arc percentage change. This index measures the extent of fluctuations in a worker’s hours over a four-month period. A higher index value reflects greater volatility. Workers are classified into four mutually exclusive categories based on their experience: (1) hours spike only, defined as at least a 20 percent increase in month-to-month hours; (2) hours dip only, defined as at least a 20 percent decrease from one month to the next; (3) both hours spike and dip; and (4) stable hours throughout. For most time periods, the instability index for individuals experiencing a steady decline in work hours is nearly three times higher than for those with only an increase in hours (see figure below). Workers who face both significant drops and surges in monthly hours have about twice the index compared to those with only increased hours. As expected, individuals with consistently stable work hours, despite minor fluctuations, show a lower and relatively steady instability index. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395141" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq-680x573.png" alt="" width="680" height="573" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq-680x573.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq-748x630.png 748w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq-768x647.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq-500x421.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq-600x506.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2yGjq.png 1220w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Why does this matter? Over the next decade, three of the five occupations with the most job growth (as projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) are paid disproportionately low wages, are overwhelmingly occupied by workers of color, women, and often do not require a college degree. Volatility will be an enduring feature of the labor market. There are two policy pathways that could potentially ease stress over unstable work hours and incomes. First, local, state or federal policy measures could support workers in low-wage jobs with frequently unpredictable scheduling. Currently, several cities — such as San Francisco, Emeryville, Seattle, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Evanston, Berkeley, and Los Angeles — and one state (Oregon) have passed scheduling laws. At least ten states have considered the legislation. Second, a monthly child allowance is another option for policymakers concerned about those with children — particularly unmarried parents in low-wage jobs — and wanting to offset some financial stress caused by work-hour insecurity. This first appeared on CEPR. The post Policymakers Must Address Earnings Instability appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julia Yixia Cai.
I Sat Next To Brigitte Bardot On The Bus In Nice
Okay, no. I did NOT sit next to the late French actress, Brigette Bardot. But it very easily could have been her. I was there on holiday with a group which included my partner, family and friends. After an excursion we took to a monastery in the back country, we decided to take a local More The post I Sat Next To Brigitte Bardot On The Bus In Nice appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="482" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="200" height="200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-200x200.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-200x200.jpg 200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="908" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="888" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 888px) 100vw, 888px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395294" class="size-medium wp-image-395294" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="482" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-680x482.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-888x630.jpg 888w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-768x545.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-500x355.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964-600x426.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Brigitte_Bardot_em_visita_ao_Brasil_1964.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Arquivo Nacional – Public Domain Okay, no. I did NOT sit next to the late French actress, Brigette Bardot. But it very easily could have been her. I was there on holiday with a group which included my partner, family and friends. After an excursion we took to a monastery in the back country, we decided to take a local bus back down to the city. As it was crowded, I took a seat in the back and I happened to sit next to an elegant, elderly white French lady. In my mind’s memory, she resembled Lauren Bacall as she appeared in her late 70’s. Stylish, poised, cultured and monied, the latter being something of the distant past since she was condemned to taking a bus with all of us rubes and sunblock slathered tourists. She spoke impeccable French. And, for some reason, she took a shine to me. Even after I told her in my egregious French that I was not fluent in any way, she began a conversation with me that spanned the hour and a half ride down through the lush hills of the south of France. She spoke of her childhood. The post-war struggles and sacrifices. Something about living in a one room flat in Marseille with either her lover or a really close friend. Honestly, I was having great difficulty translating the details. I covered for that by giving the wry smile many French often do as if to say we know what you are saying. Essentially, “ah, mais oui.” As the bus neared Nice, more passengers got on and off respectively. And many of them, based on clothing and language, seemed to be of either an Asian, Sub-Saharan African or Middle-Eastern culture. And this is when I noticed the change. The lovely white French lady sitting next to me, the same one who had been telling me stories about her life in France, changed. Her demeanor. Her cadence. Her eyes. Even with my poor French, I could hear the disdain. These people were “not French” according to her. And they were allegedly ruining French culture. “France devient un mauvais pays à cause d’eux,” or something like that. And I knew where this conversation was going. For the remaining journey on that bus I had to listen to her mock and dehumanize any non-white passenger that came aboard. As she spoke, I remembered how the French brutalized Algeria. How thousands were tortured and killed during the occupation. French colonialism has often been romanticized to a degree unlike British and other European colonial projects. But it was no less horrendous than any of them. And in her I saw the face of French imperialism. Pretty, elegant, condescending and cruel. When we finally reached our destination, she bid me au revoir and I stepped out onto the crowded promenade along the Mediterranean in Nice. I was grateful that journey was finally over. But I have thought about her in recent days since hearing about the death of the French actress, Brigette Bardot. Bardot was known for her animal advocacy and activism. But she is also infamous for her loathsome fascist politics. She was friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen and other far-right nationalists. In fact, her husband was one of Le Pen’s top advisors. And she was convicted and fined at least six times for inciting racial hatred. In addition to her Islamophobia and racism, Bardot dehumanized queer people, calling them “fairground freaks,” and mocked the women who came forward to expose the abuse they experienced by powerful men in the Hollywood film industry. Unlike the lady I sat next to on that bus in Nice, Bardot had enormous influence. And she used that influence every chance she could to peddle in social hatred. Now that she is dead, she is being lionized in social media as a champion of sexual liberation and a tireless advocate for animal rights. In much the same way as Charlie Kirk, her own legacy is being sanitized by those who choose to see her as “complicated” rather than an odious person who dehumanized marginalized people throughout her long life. None of this is to say that we should expect anyone to be flawless. Far from it. We are all human and we all say or do things that harm others, whether intentionally or not. But this is about lifelong patterns. About making it a point (whether in books or public engagement) to double down on social hatred, racism, bigotry and fascist ideology. There is a difference between being human and making your life a billboard of hatred. I didn’t sit next to Brigitte Bardot on that bus in Nice several years ago. But she could have easily been her based solely on the bigotry, the racism and the poised French elegance that thinly masked it all. The post I Sat Next To Brigitte Bardot On The Bus In Nice appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kenn Maurice.
What’s at Stake in Trump’s Executive Order Aiming to Curb State-Level AI Regulation
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Dec. 11, 2025, that aims to supersede state-level artificial intelligence laws that the administration views as a hindrance to innovation in AI. State laws regulating AI are increasing in number, particularly in response to the rise of generative AI systems such as ChatGPT that produce text and More The post What’s at Stake in Trump’s Executive Order Aiming to Curb State-Level AI Regulation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png 2518w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png 924w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-768x523.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-1536x1047.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-2048x1396.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2518px) 100vw, 2518px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2518" height="1716" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png 2518w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png 924w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-768x523.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-1536x1047.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-2048x1396.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2518px) 100vw, 2518px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2518" height="1716" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png 2518w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png 924w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-768x523.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-1536x1047.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-2048x1396.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2518px) 100vw, 2518px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2518" height="1716" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM.png 2518w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png 924w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-768x523.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-1536x1047.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-2048x1396.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2518px) 100vw, 2518px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="924" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png 924w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-768x523.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-1536x1047.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-2048x1396.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-359819" class="size-medium wp-image-359819" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png" alt="" width="680" height="463" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-680x463.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-924x630.png 924w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-768x523.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-1536x1047.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-2048x1396.png 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-500x341.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-06-at-4.56.45-PM-600x409.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photo by Cash Macanaya President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Dec. 11, 2025, that aims to supersede state-level artificial intelligence laws that the administration views as a hindrance to innovation in AI. State laws regulating AI are increasing in number, particularly in response to the rise of generative AI systems such as ChatGPT that produce text and images. Thirty-eight states enacted laws in 2025 regulating AI in one way or another. They range from prohibiting stalking via AI-powered robots to barring AI systems that can manipulate people’s behavior. The executive order declares that it is the policy of the United States to produce a “minimally burdensome” national framework for AI. The order calls on the U.S. attorney general to create an AI litigation task force to challenge state AI laws that are inconsistent with the policy. It also orders the secretary of commerce to identify “onerous” state AI laws that conflict with the policy and to withhold funding under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program to states with those laws. The executive order exempts state AI laws related to child safety. Executive orders are directives to federal agencies on how to implement existing laws. The AI executive order directs federal departments and agencies to take actions that the administration claims fall under their legal authorities. Big tech companies have lobbied for the federal government to override state AI regulations. The companies have argued that the burden of following multiple state regulations hinders innovation. Proponents of the state laws tend to frame them as attempts to balance public safety with economic benefit. Prominent examples are laws in California, Colorado, Texas and Utah. Here are some of the major state laws regulating AI that could be targeted under the executive order: Algorithmic discrimination Colorado’s Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence is the first comprehensive state law in the U.S. that aims to regulate AI systems used in employment, housing, credit, education and health care decisions. However, enforcement of the law has been delayed while the state legislature considers its ramifications. The focus of the Colorado AI act is predictive artificial intelligence systems, which make decisions, not newer generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, which create content. The Colorado law aims to protect people from algorithmic discrimination. The law requires organizations using these “high-risk systems” to make impact assessments of the technology, notify consumers whether predictive AI will be used in consequential decisions about them, and make public the types of systems they use and how they plan to manage the risks of algorithmic discrimination. A similar Illinois law scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, amends the Illinois Human Rights Act to make it a civil rights violation for employers to use AI tools that result in discrimination. On the ‘frontier’ California’s Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act specifies guardrails on the development of the most powerful AI models. These models, called foundation or frontier models, are any AI model that is trained on extremely large and varied datasets and that can be adapted to a wide range of tasks without additional training. They include the models underpinning OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI chatbots. The California law applies only to the world’s largest AI models – ones that cost at least US$100 million and require at least 1026 – or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – floating point operations of computing power to train. Floating point operations are arithmetic that allows computers to calculate large numbers. <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/708451/original/file-20251212-56-gizujd.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="a scatter plot with colored dots" /> Today’s most powerful AI models required far more computing power to train than previous models. The vertical axis is floating point operations, a measure of computing power. Robi Rahman, David Owen and Josh You (2024), ‘Tracking large-scale AI models.’ Published online at epoch.ai., CC BY Machine learning models can produce unreliable, unpredictable and unexplainable outcomes. This poses challenges to regulating the technology. Their internal workings are invisible to users and sometimes even their creators, leading them to be called black boxes. The Foundation Model Transparency Index shows that these large models can be quite opaque. The risks from such large AI models include malicious use, malfunctions and systemic risks. These models could potentially pose catastrophic risks to society. For example, someone could use an AI model to create a weapon that results in mass casualties, or instruct one to orchestrate a cyberattack causing billions of dollars in damages. The California law requires developers of frontier AI models to describe how they incorporate national and international standards and industry-consensus best practices. It also requires them to provide a summary of any assessment of catastrophic risk. The law also directs the state’s Office of Emergency Services to set up a mechanism for anyone to report a critical safety incident and to confidentially submit summaries of any assessments of the potential for catastrophic risk. Disclosures and liability Texas enacted the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act, which imposes restrictions on the development and deployment of AI systems for purposes such as behavioral manipulation. The safe harbor provisions – protections against liability – in the Texas AI act are meant to provide incentives for businesses to document compliance with responsible AI governance frameworks such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. What is novel about the Texas law is that it stipulates the creation of a “sandbox” – an isolated environment where software can be safely tested – for developers to test the behavior of an AI system. The Utah Artificial Intelligence Policy Act imposes disclosure requirements on organizations using generative AI tools with their customers. Such laws ensure that a company using generative AI tools bears the ultimate responsibility for resulting consumer liabilities and harms and cannot shift the blame to the AI. This law is the first in the nation to stipulate consumer protections and require companies to prominently disclose when a consumer is interacting with generative AI system. Other moves States are also taking other legal and political steps to protect their citizens from the potential harms of AI. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he opposes federal efforts to override state AI regulations. He has also proposed a Florida AI bill of rights to address “obvious dangers” of the technology. Meanwhile, the attorneys general of 38 states and the attorneys general of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands called on AI companies, including Anthropic, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity AI and xAI, to fix sycophantic and delusional outputs from generative AI systems. These are outputs that can lead users to become overly trusting of the AI systems or even delusional. It’s not clear what effect the executive order will have, and observers have said it is illegal because only Congress can supersede state laws. The order’s final provision directs federal officials to propose legislation to do so. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/266668/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post What’s at Stake in Trump’s Executive Order Aiming to Curb State-Level AI Regulation appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Anjana Susarla.
In Donald Trump’s bizarre concept of the world, he is campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize but what he really should receive is an equivalent of the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards presented as a parody of the Academy Awards to those movies least deserving of Oscars. Here are some of his qualifications for the first More The post The Award Donald Trump Deserves appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
In Donald Trump’s bizarre concept of the world, he is campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize but what he really should receive is an equivalent of the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards presented as a parody of the Academy Awards to those movies least deserving of Oscars. Here are some of his qualifications for the first annual Warmonger Prize during just the first year of his second term. After threatening to go into Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing,” Trump celebrated Christmas by ordering a bombing strike on Nigeria. A social media post by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened “more to come.” As of this writing at least 107 civilians have been killed in 30 US strikes on Venezuelan speedboats in international waters. Trump has claimed, without presenting any evidence, that these boats were carrying drugs destined for the United States, which justified these strikes as self-defense in an “armed conflict.” How speedboats, apparently destined for nearby countries, could present an imminent danger to the United States, more than a thousand miles away, is hard to imagine. Nor has Congress authorized military action under the War Powers Act. When one strike left two survivors clinging to their boat’s wreckage, they were killed in a second strike even though they hardly presented a danger, imminent or otherwise, to the United States or anyone. In an earlier strike, two survivors were repatriated to Colombia where they were freed without prosecution. Apparently, they were not a danger to the United States. Usually, alleged low level drug dealers are apprehended for interrogation about higher ups and possible prosecution and not killed as there is no death penalty for drug dealing. Trump escalated his undeclared war against Venezuela with a CIA drone strike on a port facility inside Venezuela. Despite the administration not requesting congressional consent, it is likely that this is the first of a series of attacks on land in Venezuela. In June the United State bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran using more than 125 aircraft and bunker busting bombs. The UN Secretary General called this “a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge.” After his December 29 meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Trump suggested that if Iran continued its nuclear program, he would support Israeli military strikes. In mid-December, the United States military launched 70 strikes against alleged ISIS targets in Syria. Here too it seems likely that there will be more such attacks in the future. President Trump’s “One Beautiful Bill” proposed a $156 billion increase in defense spending. If he gives an acceptance speech for the Warmonger Prize, Trump can thank not only the House and Senate majorities but also his presidential predecessors for their support of bloated of military spending. In September, Trump issued an executive order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. However, only Congress has the power to do this. There are, sadly, many other serious contenders for this award including Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin but, if readers think that this is a joke, the real joke would be if anyone considers him for the Nobel Prize. The post The Award Donald Trump Deserves appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bruce Altschuler.
Religious conservatives waged a 50-year battle to deny the rights of gay and lesbian people, especially the right to marry. As the dominate force in the GOP, they coerced traditional Republicans to formally oppose same sex marriage, and make it a national political issue in the 1990’s. They also oppose the Equality Act which would More The post Trans – the New Anti-Gay Crusade appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395311" class="wp-image-395311 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-680x456.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="456" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-680x456.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-939x630.jpg 939w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-768x516.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-1536x1031.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-2048x1375.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-500x336.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/delia-giandeini-Q8urQ8ow7CU-unsplash-1-600x403.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Delia Giandeini. Religious conservatives waged a 50-year battle to deny the rights of gay and lesbian people, especially the right to marry. As the dominate force in the GOP, they coerced traditional Republicans to formally oppose same sex marriage, and make it a national political issue in the 1990’s. They also oppose the Equality Act which would extend federal protections to LGBTQ people nationwide. And at the state level, Republican legislators, as in Florida, passed “don’t say gay” laws targeting LBGTQ people. But after the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which legalized same sex marriage, voters came to accept same sex unions and by 2025 Republican opposition to marriage equality declined to 41%. Disappointed, but undeterred, religious conservatives refocused their crusade to concentrate on people stressed by gender dysphoria, especially children, and so the historical anti-gay movement continued, supplanting or redirecting that animus. Medical science has shown that, like same sex attraction, gender dysphoria is a natural variation of human sexuality. Over seven percentof the population identifies as gay, lesbian, or trans. Surely such diversity must have been intended. Yet religious conservatives are unable to reconcile faith with that reality. And, unable to defend their beliefs with rational arguments, they resort to the tactics and strategies they developed to deny the rights of gay and lesbian Americans. One tactic is the strawman argument whereby they misrepresent, exaggerate, and distort a liberal position to create a version they can easily attack while dodging the underlying issue. The distortion also provides a means to scorn and ridicule those they perceive as opponents. Consider for example their claims that liberals want children to transition and boys to compete in girls’ sports. Scorning people who held those views might be justifiable, but neither charge is true. No one advocates for children to change their sex. But educators and medical practitioners, bound by ethical standards, cannot ignore gender dysphoria. They must respond with sensitivity, even when politicians demand otherwise. And regarding sports competition, we have recognized throughout history that, as a rule, men have an unfair advantage. Justice demanded separate categories for men and women sports. This partition recognized the clear biological differences that impact athletic performance. By establishing distinct categories, the system ensured that competition would be fair and that opportunities would be equally available to all participants, regardless of sex. In 1972, Title Nine legislation supported this division by ensuring equal opportunity and resources for male and female athletes. The legislation’s intent was not to deny or ignore the existence of biological differences, but rather to affirm them and provide a structure that promoted equality and prevented discrimination based on sex. In 1972 no one anticipated that gender dysphoria would become an issue. But a few, very few, transgender girls seek to compete in women’s sports using Title Nine protections to support their petitions. Like the conflict between science and religion this question of cross-sex competition is not new. Intersex competition in sports has been an issue in the Olympic Games since the 1930’s. The International Olympic Committee and other sports bodies have experimented with various methods of sex verification, including physical exams, chromosome tests, hormone level assessments, and DNA tests, but have not found a single, definitive test for competition. Gender dysphoria is primarily a psychological/emotional phenomenon resulting from a mismatch between gender identity and assigned sex, while intersex conditions are physical/biological variations in sex characteristics. Both pose the same question; how can the sex of athletes be determined in the context of fair play? The fruitless 95-year effort by the International Olympic Committee shows that there are no easy answers. Still, a few individuals on the extreme left believe social justice requires the elimination of the male-female partition in competitive sports. But given that less than three percent of the population identify as trans or intersex, how would that serve the common good? Much more concerning is the position of the conservative Christian right who question the very legitimacy of gender dysphoria and condemn those who recognize and support this minority group. They rehash the arguments they used to question the legitimacy of homosexuality, and gay marriage. In states where Republican theocrats control their legislature, they write laws that regulate gender dysphoria treatment and public-school curriculum, to ensure alignment with their Christian views rather than evidence-based fact. This is a repeat of their anti-gay stance to deny same sex marriage. But matters of gender identity are for parents, doctors, and teachers to decide, not politicians. The Christian fundamentalists are hopelessly out of step with modern times. What is more important, they endanger our future. Their resistance to scientific inquiry and fact-based decision making inhibits progress in the same way fear and ignorance obstructed progress before the Enlightenment. Dispensationalists, like Speaker Mike Johnson, who believe that we live in the end-times, are not concerned. But the rest of us must be. The end times have been wrongly predicted dozens, if not hundreds, of times in the past. The word for thinking this time will be different is insanity. The Christian right needs to wake up. Science and education are not our enemies, but our hope. And just as they have softened their stance on marriage equality, they should soften their stance on gender dysphoria, not only because of medical science, but because it is the Christ-like and compassionate thing to do. And Christ’s message, “love thy neighbor,” was an appeal for diversity and inclusion. The post Trans – the New Anti-Gay Crusade appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bob Topper.
We close out this year from hell with a grounded kind of hope, not wishful thinking. Ushering us into a better new year is a montage of organizers, journalists, and activists reminding us that history isn't finished, and that power has always been built from the ground up. We end with a simple reminder: convert hope into power through solidarity, defiance, and showing up, again and again. Be relentless, like water eroding rock. That is how we win. As we face the year ahead together, what's giving you hope right now? Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit! Show Notes: Erica Smiley — "Building Real Democracy Starts on the Shop Floor" (8/26/2025) Katherine Stewart — "Money, Lies and God" (3/5/2025) Gil Duran — "Nerd Reich" (3/11/2025) Carter Sherman — "Brett Kavanaugh is Ruining People's Sex Lives" (7/1/2025) Sandi Bachom — "Nazi Hunting" (3/25/2025) Mona Eltahawy — "Smash the Patriarchy with Rage and Risk" (8/12/2025) Irin Carmon — "Unbearable: The War on Women" (10/28/2025) Kate Manne — "Naming the Rot: Kate Man Exposes the Lies Holding up the Patriarchy" (8/5/2025) Leah Litman — "Lawless" (5/20/2025) Shawn Werner (Sister District) — "The Midterms Start Now: Virginia is a Belweather" (9/23/2025) Ahmed Gatnash — "Power, Profits and Protest: Trump, Russia and the Middle East" (9/16/2025) Andrea Chalupa — "Nature Always Wins" (5/6/2025)
We close out this year from hell with a grounded kind of hope, not wishful thinking. Ushering us into a better new year is a montage of organizers, journalists, and activists reminding us that history isn't finished, and that power has always been built from the ground up. We end with a simple reminder: convert hope into power through solidarity, defiance, and showing up, again and again. Be relentless, like water eroding rock. That is how we win. As we face the year ahead together, what's giving you hope right now? Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit! Show Notes: Erica Smiley — "Building Real Democracy Starts on the Shop Floor" (8/26/2025) Katherine Stewart — "Money, Lies and God" (3/5/2025) Gil Duran — "Nerd Reich" (3/11/2025) Carter Sherman — "Brett Kavanaugh is Ruining People's Sex Lives" (7/1/2025) Sandi Bachom — "Nazi Hunting" (3/25/2025) Mona Eltahawy — "Smash the Patriarchy with Rage and Risk" (8/12/2025) Irin Carmon — "Unbearable: The War on Women" (10/28/2025) Kate Manne — "Naming the Rot: Kate Man Exposes the Lies Holding up the Patriarchy" (8/5/2025) Leah Litman — "Lawless" (5/20/2025) Shawn Werner (Sister District) — "The Midterms Start Now: Virginia is a Belweather" (9/23/2025) Ahmed Gatnash — "Power, Profits and Protest: Trump, Russia and the Middle East" (9/16/2025) Andrea Chalupa — "Nature Always Wins" (5/6/2025) This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
Dark Alliance: Is key US ally Daniel Noboa linked to S. American drug trade?
Dark Alliance: Top US ally Noboa linked to S. American drug trade
Bari Weiss Israelifies CBS on behalf of billionaire masters
Why did Bari Weiss censor 60 Minutes CECOT segment?
An excerpt from We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat.
An excerpt from We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Julian Brave NoiseCat.
The 1994 Zapatista Uprising: Resisting NAFTA and corporate capitalism
<img width="1024" height="671" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C671&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="" data-attachment-id="339844" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/1994-zapatista-mexico-uprising-resisting-nafta-corporate-capitalism/mexico-chiapas-ezln" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1677&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1677" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) guerilleros stand, on January 03, 1994 in Altamira, Chiapas. Chiapas Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rebels launched a rebellion in January 1994 to end what they call government oppression of indigenous people. (Photo by GERARDO MAGALLON / AFP) (Photo by GERARDO MAGALLON/AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"2013 AFP","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"MEXICO-CHIAPAS-EZLN","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="MEXICO-CHIAPAS-EZLN" data-image-description=" Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) guerilleros stand, on January 03, 1994 in Altamira, Chiapas. Chiapas EZLN rebels launched a rebellion in January 1994 to end government oppression of Indigenous people. Photo by Gerardo Magallon / AFP via Getty Images " data-image-caption=" Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) guerilleros stand, on January 03, 1994 in Altamira, Chiapas. Chiapas EZLN rebels launched a rebellion in January 1994 to end government oppression of Indigenous people. Photo by Gerardo Magallon / AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C197&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C511&ssl=1"> The Zapatistas rose up on January 1, 1994, just over three decades ago. They remain an inspiration for social movements, communities, and individuals seeking change around the world. This is episode 83 of Stories of Resistance.
<img width="1024" height="671" src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C671&ssl=1" class="attachment-rss-image-size size-rss-image-size wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C197&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C671&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C503&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1006&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1342&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C786&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1310&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C511&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C262&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w, https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C671&ssl=1&w=370 370w" sizes="(max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw / 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw / 12)), 100vw" data-attachment-id="339844" data-permalink="https://therealnews.com/1994-zapatista-mexico-uprising-resisting-nafta-corporate-capitalism/mexico-chiapas-ezln" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1677&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2560,1677" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) guerilleros stand, on January 03, 1994 in Altamira, Chiapas. Chiapas Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rebels launched a rebellion in January 1994 to end what they call government oppression of indigenous people. (Photo by GERARDO MAGALLON / AFP) (Photo by GERARDO MAGALLON/AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"2013 AFP","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"MEXICO-CHIAPAS-EZLN","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="MEXICO-CHIAPAS-EZLN" data-image-description=" Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) guerilleros stand, on January 03, 1994 in Altamira, Chiapas. Chiapas EZLN rebels launched a rebellion in January 1994 to end government oppression of Indigenous people. Photo by Gerardo Magallon / AFP via Getty Images " data-image-caption=" Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) guerilleros stand, on January 03, 1994 in Altamira, Chiapas. Chiapas EZLN rebels launched a rebellion in January 1994 to end government oppression of Indigenous people. Photo by Gerardo Magallon / AFP via Getty Images " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C197&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-453718481-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C511&ssl=1" /> On January 1, 1994, Indigenous peoples from Chiapas, Mexico, rose up. They took control of city halls in towns across the state. They took the state capital San Cristobal de las Casas. And they held them for days, despite a violent response from Mexico’s military. This was not just any movement confined to the mountainous jungles of Mexico. It was an Indigenous uprising against injustice. An uprising against neoliberalism. An uprising against globalization and free trade agreements, and it would have deep reverberations. Inspiring people, not just in Mexico, but around the world. BIG NEWS! This podcast has won Gold in this year’s Signal Awards for best history podcast! It’s a huge honor. Thank you so much to everyone who voted and supported. Sign up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen. And please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. A little help goes a long way. The Real News’s legendary host Marc Steiner has also won a Gold Signal Award for best episode host. You can listen and subscribe to the Marc Steiner Show here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox’s reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, videos, and interviews. Written and produced by Michael Fox. Resources: First Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle Zapatista: a Big Noise Film Mexico: Ezln Leader Subcomandante Marcos Interview Chiapas and the Zapatistas – Mexico’s Brutal Land Dispute Documental: El Fuego y la Palabra (EZLN, México) Transcript MICHAEL FOX [NARRATOR]: On January 1st, 1994, something remarkable happened in Chiapas, Mexico. Indigenous peoples from Mexico’s mountainous, southeastern-most state rose up. They took control of city halls in towns across the state. The took the state capital San Cristobal de las Casas. And they held them… for days, despite a violent response from Mexico’s military. And this was not just any movement confined to the mountainous jungles of Mexico. It was an Indigenous uprising against injustice. An uprising against neoliberalism. An uprising against globalization and free trade agreements, and it would have deep reverberations… Inspiring people, not just in Mexico, but around the world. See… January 1, 1994 was not just the day of the Zapatista uprising. It was also the day that NAFTA — The North America Free Trade Agreement — would go into effect. That was not a coincidence. They chose that day because NAFTA was already destined to push privatizations, eliminate rural jobs and rip the land from as many as 2 million small farmers over the coming years. NAFTA’s free market agenda was created to deepen neoliberalism in favor big, powerful, and largely U.S. corporations. And they knew it. “Today, we say, Basta — ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”, the Zapatista leader Subcommandante Marcos said in the first Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle. “We are a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, then during the War of Independence against Spain led by insurgents, then to avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism.” “To the People of Mexico,” We, the men and women, full and free, are conscious that the war that we have declared is our last resort, but also a just one. The dictators are applying an undeclared genocidal war against our people for many years. Therefore we ask for your participation, your decision to support this plan that struggles for work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. We declare that we will not stop fighting until the basic demands of our people have been met by forming a government of our country that is free and democratic.” The EZLN, or Zapatista National Liberation Front, held cities for almost two weeks, but the Mexican military responded with widespread violence — an unrelenting assault, killing dozens of Indigenous members of the uprising. A hundred thousand people protested in Mexico City against the government’s repression. The Zapatistas were much more than a guerrilla army. They were, and still are, a political movement. A movement based on Indigenous communal and collective organizing and control. And this was just the beginning. They returned to their mountain villages. They consolidated and they inspired. They formed autonomous Zapatista communities organized through democratic decision-making. Collective power. People from around the world came to learn. They came to study. They came to support. The Zapatistas became a political force across Mexico. They did caravans across the country. They held international meetings. They were a symbol of resistance in the heyday of the neoliberal, globalized age… A symbol of hope in the 1990s and into the 2000s, at a time when hope was in short supply. They are still a symbol of resistance and hope. Standing up in defense of their Indigenous lands in the jungles of Chiapas. Standing for another way, against the power of the big corporations, and the elites and the United States. Standing for one another in Mexico’s Lacandon Jungle. Thanks for listening. I’m your host Michael Fox. The Zapatistas rose up on January 1st, 1994, just over three decades ago. They remain an inspiration for social movements, communities and individuals seeks change around the world. Folks, if you have not heard, I have some really exciting news…. We have just launched Season 2 of Under the Shadow. PLEASE check it out. In the first episode I look at what’s driving Trump’s threats in Latin America today and the dangers of a renewed Monroe Doctrine for the region. As always, if you enjoy this podcast, and you appreciate my reporting, I hope you’ll consider following me on Patreon and becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll get updates every time I’ve posted something new online. And if you like what’s there, I have a ton of exclusive content, only available to my paid supporters. Every supporter really makes a difference. Those that sign up between now and the end of the year, will get a free digital copy of my latest music album. You can check it all out at www.patreon.com/mfox. I’ll add a link in the show notes. This is episode 83 of Stories of Resistance. If you don’t already subscribe to the show you can follow the links in the show notes. Stories of Resistance is produced by The Real News. Each week I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. Folks… If you like what we do, please do me a favor and rate us, follow us, leave a comment or a review, and help us spread the word. It really helps to get the word out about the show. As always, thanks for listening. See you next time. This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.
Statement on the Retirement of Warren Buffett
After over 60 years of historically successful investment, Warren Buffett will pass the baton to his successor on January 1. Now that he has more free time, he can re-enter his longtime cause, which is non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Existing nuc...
After over 60 years of historically successful investment, Warren Buffett will pass the baton to his successor on January 1. Now that he has more free time, he can re-enter his longtime cause, which is non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Existing nuclear arms treaties with Russia are either being suspended or ignored, or, in the case… This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader and was authored by matthew.
President Donald Trump has been inching toward war with Venezuela for one reason: oil.
President Donald Trump has been inching toward war with Venezuela for one reason: oil. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Carmen Rojas.
Homeowner Advocates Fight Back Against HOAs
Homeowners associations are undemocratic and unaccountable to the communities they govern. Grassroots groups are organizing to change this.
Homeowners associations are undemocratic and unaccountable to the communities they govern. Grassroots groups are organizing to change this. This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Glenn Daigon.
Gideon Levy & Rami Khouri on Death of Iconic Palestinian Filmmaker
Students Protest In Iran As Unrest Grows Over Economic Crisis
The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 30, 2025
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 30, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 30, 2025 appeared first on KPFA. This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.
Trump Backs Netanyahu’s Wars in Gaza, Iran & Beyond
Over 20M Americans Set to Lose Healthcare Coverage Jan. 1 After Congress Goes on Recess
Trump Set to Garnish Wages for Student Loan Defaults
Trump Backs Netanyahu’s "Colonial" Wars in Gaza, Iran & Beyond
Top U.S. & World Headlines — December 30, 2025
Empire, Mortality, and the Multi-Pronged Attack on Humanity
The following is an interview of me done by substacker Unbekoming, originally published with his introduction here. The questions and answers are broad-ranging and allow me to explain decades of my work in many areas of science. A main focus is to understand the Covid period, the so-called COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The main intermingled […] The post Empire, Mortality, and the Multi-Pronged Attack on Humanity first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The following is an interview of me done by substacker Unbekoming, originally published with his introduction here. The questions and answers are broad-ranging and allow me to explain decades of my work in many areas of science. A main focus is to understand the Covid period, the so-called COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The main intermingled topics, somewhat in the order of the questions are: my multi-disciplinary intellectual and professional paths (Q1) striking conclusions in my June 2020 paper on mortality (Q2) conclusions from studying mortality in 125 countries (Q3) impossible geo-temporal patterns, no viral spread (Q4) COVID-19 vaccines associated with 17 million deaths (Q5) importance of transmissionless bacterial pneumonia (Q6) historic global seasonality of mortality (Q7) historical geo-economics, environmental devastation, and emerging state ideologies (Q8) arms and mRNA vaccines as protection rackets (Q9) dominance hierarchy as plate tectonics of sociology (Q10) USA-driven vaccination campaigns as parasitic globalism (Q11) fallacies in the germ theory vs terrain theory debate (Q12) sociology of widespread and institutionalized harmful medical practices (Q13) the Covid campaign in its geopolitical context (Q14) future plans (Q15) Q: Denis, can you please tell us about your journey from being a tenured physics professor at the University of Ottawa to becoming one of the most prominent critics of pandemic policies? What pivotal moments led you to shift your focus from traditional academic research to analyzing public health data? Denis Rancourt: My PhD (1984) was in condensed matter physics, from the University of Toronto. I was 27 years old. Following two years of post-doctoral research in European laboratories (France and The Netherlands), I became a nationally funded lead researcher and university professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada. My research laboratory was continuously well funded through competitive awards, and I taught more than 2000 students in my 23 years at this institution. I was promoted quickly to attain the highest academic rank of tenured Full Professor. I have given many invited and keynote talks at international conferences, in several different areas of science. I have made discoveries and co-discoveries in magnetism, measurement science, metals physics, crystal-chemistry of rock-forming and environmental minerals, soil science, aquatic sediments and nutrients, planetary science (meteorites), climate science, theory of health, politics, and epidemiology. A recent CV is linked on my website. I have always been interdisciplinary and outspoken. I was fired by the University of Ottawa in 2009 for a conflict with the upper administration over academic freedom. Following my dismissal, the university entirely funded a million-dollar personal defamation lawsuit against me. After a decade of litigation and support from my union, and pursuant to an open letter and petition signed by several academics (19 March 2018), a global mutual agreement resolving all my issues with the university was signed in January 2019. I acquired extensive direct experience about the high degree to which Western professionals and institutions are corrupt. I have recognized for decades that this is a rapidly increasing trend in Canada. In 2009 I wrote an overview article for a sociology journal: “Canadian Education as an Impetus towards Fascism”. Much of this and more is discussed in my 2012 book of essays: “Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism”. Many of my essays are also at Dissident Voice. During my conflict with the University of Ottawa, and prior to my dismissal, the upper administration hired a high-ranking clinical and court psychiatrist to secretly write an opinion that stated that I was dangerous. I only learned of the psychiatric opinion years later during legal disclosures. As a self-represented litigant, I eventually won legal disclosure of the psychiatrist’s opinion, and then initiated professional-ethics litigation against the Montreal-based psychiatrist. It took years of endless tribunal and court hearings, fighting a major law firm, for me to <a href="https://denisrancourt.ca/entries.php?id=110&name=2022_02_08_tribunal_decision_regarding_guilt_in_rancourt_vs_morissette_disciplinary_council_of_the_college_of_physicians_of_quebec" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://denisrancourt.ca/entries.php?id%3D110%26name%3D2022_02_08_tribunal_decision_regarding_guilt_in_rancourt_vs_morissette_disciplinary_council_of_the_college_of_physicians_of_quebec&source=gmail&ust=1767116636830000&usg=AOvVaw0P6OiqXAund1ZRSPnJW7cC">win a disciplinary sentence against the psychiatrist, which was upheld in an appeal decision dated 10 September 2024. That was a rewarding saga, somewhat covered in French-language mainstream media in Quebec, largely occurring during Covid. I diverge. I have never stopped being an independent thinker since I was an infant. I remember inventing the knot from the first step in the shoelace bow that I was learning. My mother was not impressed despite my explanations. All of elementary school was extreme boredom except for the occasional intervening parent with a passion. Hearing about atoms, molecules and cells was a universe. I took shop in high school to avoid history and memory work. Loved it, including welding and machining. I could not remember so-called facts but I could figure out anything from fundamental principles. Teachers always regretted asking if anyone had questions. I won junior Chess champion at my high school, on pure talent without any theory or memory. I could never do a job without finding a contradiction leading me to define a new direction, from spectroscopy, to solitons, to nanoparticles, to psychology and politics. My path was populated with burgeoning new enemies everywhere, which is one reason I kept changing fields. I was a member of research institutes for both physics and earth sciences, and I taught scientific methods to graduate students from all the science and engineering departments in two faculties. (As an aside, my dean once barred me from supervising a willing scholarship student in climate science and told the university president I should not be allowed to work in that field.) For me, questioning and disbelieving the latest propaganda of a global threat―which was the declared Covid pandemic―was not a choice I made. Rather, it was my nature. My commitment to noisily resisting became unavoidable as government hysterics became stratospheric. I never believed a word, never wore a face mask (except one time when my wife wanted something for a special event and it could not conveniently be purchased otherwise – the experience doubled my anger), and I was never vaccinated. My first written reports to governments and institutions were made in April 2020, with the Ontario Civil Liberties Association. Eventually, I made my own website to fight the censorship, and co-founded CORRELATION Research in the Public Interest. I was banned from several venues, including Research Gate and LinkedIn. I was frustratingly censored on YouTube and Facebook, with much content removed. Q: Your first major COVID analysis was published in June 2020, titled “All-cause mortality during COVID-19 – No plague and a likely signature of mass homicide by government response.” That’s quite a bold statement. What evidence convinced you so early that the pandemic response itself was causing harm? DR: My very first thought was that a pandemic had to have many deaths, whereas there were no dead bodies in the streets. I also knew no one who had been given emergency care and a social activist friend of mine was finding and filming empty hospitals throughout Ottawa. I needed all-cause mortality data. I was inspired by the early matter-of-fact video interviews and early paper of the NY-based German epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski. I have a few German beer-drinking scientist friends and I generally love those guys. Wittkowski stressed from classic contagion theory and using available reports that lockdowns and school closures could only make things worse and would put the elderly in more danger (our own later theoretical calculations amply confirmed this, assuming correctness of the accepted theory). Among other things, Wittkowski went straight to available mortality data. That got me excited that there was hard data available, as opposed to the PCR garbage and so on. Wittkowski spoke from broad experience. He did not see the data the same way that I came to understand it but his public communications showed its potential and the traditional interpretive framework without political bias. I got right into it. That led to my June 2020 paper. Other early confirmations for me notably included the famous 2020 home-garage video statement of Mike Yeadon, some 2020 preprints of John Ioannidis, and an early 2021 video statement by Professor Sucharit Bhakdi. I had also by this time made several commentary videos and video interviews on YouTube, see: “COVID-19 with Denis Rancourt” (playlist, >100 videos). I wanted my science background and critical perspective to be of immediate use during the excessive government propaganda. The early all-cause mortality data available at the time of my June 2020 paper, for Europe and the USA, showed remarkable features that I highlighted in graphs and text: (1) No excess mortality occurred anywhere prior to the 11 March 2020 WHO declaration of a pandemic. (2) A peak of abnormally large mortality surged immediately following the WHO declaration of a pandemic in various jurisdictions but not anywhere else. (3) The peaks of abnormally large mortality, where they occurred, were synchronous across two continents. And, (4) the magnitudes of whole-population (all-ages) mortality were not particularly alarming in themselves, except for New York City. It seemed impossible to me that this spatiotemporal phenomenon could be due to the spontaneous spread of a dangerous new pathogen that had originated from some place in China, and why would the supposed new pathogen follow the 11 March 2020 political pronouncement made by the WHO? In addition, the jurisdictions of large excess mortality peaks had many reports of government and medical assaults against institutionalized frail and elderly persons. These points, together, made me conclude the way I did: “No plague and a likely signature of mass homicide by government response”. All the work my collaborators and I did in the following several years has consistently corroborated my June 2020 conclusion. In particular, an industry of theoretical epidemiology has arisen to argue that the spatiotemporal patterns of excess mortality arise from contagion theory for a respiratory virus, but in June 2025 we rigorously demonstrated that the empirical all-cause mortality data is inconsistent with these flawed creative adventures in theoretical epidemiology. Q: You’ve analyzed all-cause mortality data from over 125 countries during the COVID period. For readers unfamiliar with this approach, why is all-cause mortality more reliable than reported COVID deaths, and what patterns emerged that surprised you most? DR: In the great majority of deaths, assigning a cause of death is necessarily arbitrary and subject to political, professional and institutional bias. This is not controversial. It is a well-known problem. The said problem is unavoidable because of the very nature of death itself, which is a complex and cooperative system failure involving a multitude of damaged components. Even the said damaged components themselves are not easily characterized. On the other hand, recognizing the occurrence of a death, irrespective of any presumed cause, is straightforward. This is why counting a death (at a time and place, of a person with a given age and sex), like counting a live birth, gives the most reliable population data one can have. (As an aside, a collaborator and I are working on a “theory of death and aging” that I am rather excited about, which is another story.) This all-cause mortality can be counted with high temporal resolution, such as by day, thus allowing sudden mortality events to be detected, including summer heat waves, large transportation accidents, earthquakes, engineering failures, and the like; with high spatial resolution, down to neighbourhoods and institutions; with high resolution by age of the deceased; by socio-economic status; and by health status, such as vaccination status and presence of diagnosed chronic diseases. As such, all-cause mortality, thus resolved, is an extraordinarily powerful database. Furthermore, the recording of all-cause mortality is considered of national interest, and is most often required and standardized by law, in virtually all developed countries, for all sub-national jurisdictions. The largest failure in this regard is most of Africa. An additional frustration for researchers is lack of efficient proactive transparency and incomplete disclosure. Rare administrative artefacts are easy to spot (such as late registration of deaths during holidays). We have found no reason to think that state-reported all-cause mortality data is biased or manipulated. Quite to the contrary, we generally find a high degree of consistency, and excess-mortality events that match reports of known catastrophes. The large patterns of excess all-cause mortality that surprised me are many. They include the following: The virtual absence of any excess mortality, anywhere in the world, prior to the 11 March 2020 WHO declaration of a pandemic The sudden surges in mortality that occur on cue immediately following the 11 March 2020 WHO declaration of a pandemic The extreme geographical (jurisdictional) heterogeneity of excess mortality, compared to the historic pre-Covid-period trends, including within given countries (between states, provinces and counties), and including between cities with virtually identical circumstances (socio-economic, airports, cultural, etc.) The large number of countries and sub-national regions that had no detectable excess all-cause mortality in 2020 and until vaccination was introduced The large relative (P-score) mortality in all age groups in many jurisdictions during the Covid period (2020-2022) and up to the present The large persistent (post-Covid-years, into 2024 and 2025) excess mortalities in many Western countries, compared to well-established historic pre-Covid-period trends Remarkable correlations in time between well-defined peaks of excess mortality and rapid rollouts of vaccines, especially booster doses mainly given to elderly populations, in several jurisdictions (<a href="https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-indias-extraordinary-april-july-2021-excess-mortality-event-and-the-vaccine-rollout/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-indias-extraordinary-april-july-2021-excess-mortality-event-and-the-vaccine-rollout/&source=gmail&ust=1767116636830000&usg=AOvVaw3OiDxVyoz6V0A4NQ8pnQ98">India, <a href="https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/&source=gmail&ust=1767116636830000&usg=AOvVaw3-9WdzCz2N6ysuvBnELttD">Australia, Israel, several countries in the Southern Hemisphere, 23 of 87 countries around the world with sufficient data, and many sub-national regions) A large East-West divide of mortality patterns in Eastern European vs Western European countries, and a large North-South (Canada-USA-Mexico) gradient of mortality behaviours in North America For several countries in the world, the largest annual excess mortality was in 2022, following virtual completion (in 2021) of vaccine rollouts Q: In your research, you found that 30% of countries showed no excess mortality in 2020 until vaccines were introduced. Can you walk us through what this means and why it challenges the mainstream narrative about the pandemic? DR: That is correct, why would excess mortality occur only with vaccine rollouts in so many countries? It appears the assaults that accompanied vaccine rollouts were deadly. Establishment theoretical epidemiologists, who accept the standard contagion model of viral respiratory diseases, have to bend themselves into pretzels to rationalize the geotemporal patterns of excess mortality (all-cause or assigned-cause). Recently, we broke the pretzel by showing that the patterns of mortality are incompatible with and disprove the leading contagion and global spread calculations. The theory shows that, if we believe the model, then viral respiratory epidemics surge in a given population and are over within a few months. If the presumed virulent new pathogen is spreading around the globe via airport traffic, then there have to be corresponding epidemic busts that cannot be virtually synchronous on the planet and that cannot be absent in much of the global network of large airport hubs. The model is either consistent with the observed geotemporal mortality pattern or it must be abandoned. Unjustified theoretical patches and bootstrapping are not allowed. In my view, the paradigm of viral respiratory pandemics must be abandoned, and it should be understood as the control and profit-driven scam that it has become. Deadly respiratory conditions are complex, and pandemics of respiratory deaths can be induced via biological stress by coordinated assaults against populations. Covid has been a global experiment in the effects of such assaults, and analysis corroborates my point. I discussed the biological-stress mechanism for a global pandemic in a recent paper: “Medical Hypothesis: Respiratory epidemics and pandemics without viral transmission”. Q: You’ve estimated that COVID vaccines may have caused approximately 17 million deaths worldwide. This is an extraordinary claim that contradicts official health authorities. What methodology led you to this conclusion, and how do you reconcile this with the apparent temporal associations between vaccine rollouts and mortality spikes? DR: Let me first shock many of your readers with the opening statement that the striking temporal associations―that we have documented―between large sharp peaks in excess all-cause mortality and rapid vaccine rollouts (especially booster rollouts) are not directly due to vaccine toxicity itself. I will explain below in answer to this question how I have come to this conclusion. This is not to say that the vaccines are not fatally toxic for many individuals and circumstances. Significant fatal COVID-19 vaccine toxicity is proven beyond a doubt by adverse-effect vigilance data, disclosed clinical trial data, many published clinical case studies and many forensic autopsies, not to mention thousands of scientific papers on the injurious adverse effects of the vaccines, as we have emphasized in several of our reports (e.g., section “6.1 COVID-19 vaccines can cause death”, here). However, in rigorous all-cause mortality studies, we must distinguish “many vaccine-toxicity deaths” and “sufficient vaccine-toxicity deaths to directly produce large excess all-cause mortality peaks”. My first firm realization that the vaccine rollouts could be causing massive excess mortality in many countries came in my 6 December 2022 paper entitled: “<a href="https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-indias-extraordinary-april-july-2021-excess-mortality-event-and-the-vaccine-rollout/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-indias-extraordinary-april-july-2021-excess-mortality-event-and-the-vaccine-rollout/&source=gmail&ust=1767116636831000&usg=AOvVaw0--PAIXkMRqhgYdGGMjqAV">Probable causal association between India’s extraordinary April-July 2021 excess-mortality event and the vaccine rollout”. The paper is well worth reading even today, and reported a calculated fatal toxicity rate of 1% per injection in rural and urban India. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. interviewed me about these findings on 8 December 2022. Following this, our first report of strong temporal associations between large sharp peaks in excess all-cause mortality and rapid vaccine booster rollouts was for Australia and its states. This was our 20 December 2022 paper entitled: “<a href="https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/&source=gmail&ust=1767116636831000&usg=AOvVaw2xfoZJ2sOhmK_hBzpglsdh">Probable causal association between Australia’s new regime of high all-cause mortality and its COVID-19 vaccine rollout”. The said association corresponded to a calculated fatal toxicity rate of 0.05% per injection. In our next paper (9 February 2023), we showed that the remarkable large sharp peaks in excess all‑cause mortality essentially synchronous with successive rapid vaccine booster rollouts were stratified by age, with apparent fatal toxicity increasing exponentially with age: “Age-stratified COVID‑19 vaccine-dose fatality rate for Israel and Australia”. We also estimated that a representative all-ages global value of the calculated fatal toxicity rate would be 0.1% per injection. For 13.25 billion injections up to 24 January 2023, this corresponded to approximately 13 million calculated vaccine deaths worldwide up to 24 January 2023. In this way, the 9 February 2023 paper gave our first estimate of global mortality associated with the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts. The methodology is simple. One first estimates a calculated fatal toxicity rate per injection, based on observed associations between excesses of all-cause mortality and vaccine rollouts, and one then multiplies this rate with the number of vaccine doses administered. There is always the potential that even a strong association in the time series of excess death and of vaccine rollout is not due to vaccine toxicity itself but instead results from a death-causing intervention that accompanies vaccine rollout. Next (17 September 2023), using the same basic methodology, we studied 17 countries in the Southern Hemisphere and Equatorial Region, having sufficient data: “COVID-19 vaccine-associated mortality in the Southern Hemisphere”. The advantage with the Southern Hemisphere is that the booster rollouts do not coincide with seasons of naturally higher mortality, which is a difficulty in Northern Hemisphere countries. This is the paper in which we first reported the now prominent estimation of 17 million vaccine deaths worldwide. I presented our findings at an international conference in Romania on 18 November 2023. A conference participant (Bret Weinstein) then described our result in a Tucker Carlson interview, and the “fact-checking” industry went wild. The 17 million number became part of the general culture; the stuff of memes. We followed this up (19 July 2024) with our 521-page in-depth report on 125 countries: “Spatiotemporal variation of excess all-cause mortality in the world (125 countries) during the Covid period 2020-2023 regarding socio economic factors and public-health and medical interventions”. I believe this is a landmark paper that everyone should study. We argued why the viral respiratory spread paradigm should be abandoned, and we discussed causes of death in depth. In the big picture, we found that the overall excess all-cause mortality rate in the 93 countries with sufficient data in the 3-year period 2020-2022 is 0.392 ± 0.002 % of 2021 population, which corresponds to 30.9 ± 0.2 million excess deaths projected to have occurred globally for the 3-year period 2020-2022, from all causes of excess mortality during this period. This means that up to the end of 2022, 31 million excess deaths were caused globally by the government, corporate and professional establishment coordinated assaults against people. Three main categories of primary cause of death that we identified are: 1) Biological (including psychological) stress from mandates such as lockdowns and associated socio-economic structural changes 2) Non-COVID-19-vaccine medical interventions such as mechanical ventilators and drugs (including denial of treatment with antibiotics) 3) COVID-19 vaccine injection rollouts, including repeated rollouts on the same populations The last point includes the large disruptions (testing, confinement, so-called treatments, denial of normal care, etc.) that accompany rapid military-style rollouts of the vaccines in institutions with frail and elderly individuals. Q: In your recent work, you propose that the pandemic was actually a surge of “transmissionless bacterial pneumonias” caused by stress and medical interventions rather than a virus. Can you explain this theory in simple terms and how it relates to your finding that essentially all excess mortality was associated with respiratory conditions? DR: On the one hand, we have demonstrated in several papers that Covid was not a contagious spread of a viral respiratory disease. On the other hand, clearly discerned peaks in excess all-cause mortality often (although there are many exceptions) quantitatively correspond to mortality that is officially assigned to a respiratory condition (COVID-19). We first showed this quantitative agreement for the USA in our 25 October 2021 report: “Nature of the COVID-era public health disaster in the USA, from all-cause mortality and socio-geo-economic and climatic data”. Meanwhile, in the government data itself that we used half of the assigned COVID-19 deaths are associated with concomitant bacterial pneumonia, based on reported death certificates, and antibiotic treatment was being shunned, as we showed. In a given peak of excess all-cause mortality, if the deaths did not occur by spreading the presumed new respiratory virus, yet were clinically recorded as associated with serious respiratory conditions, then the respiratory conditions had to have arisen otherwise and in the same time period within the excess mortality peak. Well, as it turns out, the scientific literature is full of descriptions of transmissionless self-infection pneumonias induced by stressful circumstances in frail or elderly individuals. If the said stressful circumstances are suddenly systemically imposed, in bursts, then there will result peaks in excess mortality. I described this mechanism of transmissionless self-infection pneumonias in some detail on 2 December 2024: “Medical Hypothesis: Respiratory Epidemics and Pandemics Without Viral Transmission”. Basically, the human body is home to three main microbiomes, or large complex changing communities of microorganisms, living in the digestive tract, in the respiratory tract, and on the skin. These microbiomes and their dynamic balance are essential to life and to health in general. Virtually every known and unknown animal-environment microorganism is present in our bodies, and the populations of microorganisms cooperate and compete for turf and resources. These dynamic balances can be significantly impacted by experienced circumstances, including stress, injury, diet, social isolation, drugs, environmental toxins, etc., and are perturbed more frequently and more easily with age. To understand the process, there are many examples with ecological biomes (e.g., which I have studied), such as a sudden loading of nutrients in a lake, which gives toxic algae a competitive advantage, leading to deadly algal blooms that kill plankton and thus fatally disrupt the food web. By comparison, the study of human microbiomes is relatively new and is a vigorously growing field of medical research. So, we have everything needed to make us sick from the inside (i.e., we “get” sick), in response to imposed conditions. We don’t need spreading invisible novel pathogens for that. The three main microbiomes (lungs, gut, skin) are known to have strong and demonstrated responses to experienced stress. Consequently, for example, respiratory symptoms may be the best proverbial canary in the coal mine for detecting individual stress. As noted by a colleague, I have suggested that there is an evolutionary advantage to this sensitivity, but again I diverge. Basically, if establishment forces massively disrupt society in ways that increase biological (including psychological) stress, especially among the frail and elderly, then there will always be a corresponding “pandemic” of excess deaths, associated with symptoms of reacting microbiomes, especially visible respiratory difficulties. I have come to believe this was Covid. All our many analyses of data are consistent with this idea. There was no viral pandemic. The assaults, in waves, included: mandates, measures (masks, distancing…), continuous propaganda, unpredictable changes in imposed measures, lockdowns, closures (services, work, school, religion, leisure), travel restrictions, testing, diagnostic bias, confinement, denial of treatment (especially antibiotics for pneumonia), denial of usual care, mechanical ventilation, sedation, experimental and improper treatments, persecution and public mobbing of dissenters, and vaccination. The resulting excess mortality is modulated by dominant socio-economic factors of the society, including: age structure hierarchical poverty structure societal history of largescale infant and childhood trauma (war, famine, oppression) endemic social networks state networks of services, including institutions and institutional culture spectrum of widespread opioid addictions (including fentanyl and heroin) degree of medicalization of health susceptibility to deleterious state propaganda The idea of a spreading viral respiratory disease is irrelevant, disconnected from reality, and designed to manipulate and exploit people and nations. Q: You argue that seasonal mortality patterns and historical pandemics can be explained without invoking viral transmission. What alternative mechanisms do you propose drive these patterns, and do you believe humanity has ever faced a genuine viral pandemic? DR: Normal pre-Covid period seasonal all-cause mortality (high in winter, lower in summer) has been well documented in many countries for more than 100 years. It is a truly remarkable and stable phenomenon, including in wealthy and advanced societies, which is not completely understood. Many have pet theories, such as vitamin D, but no explanation is conclusive at this time. It is an active research project in our group. The amplitude in seasonal variation in the latest decades in Western countries in the Northern Hemisphere is approximately 10% of summer values. Summer trough values of mortality vary smoothly over many years, whereas so-called winter burden mortality above the summer baseline is chaotic and can be very different from year to year. There is an industry that tries to link this variable winter burden mortality to circulating viruses but it fails, in my opinion. It is remarkable that the winter all-cause mortality peaks are essentially synchronous across continents (Europe and North America), within all regions, countries and counties or states, and between these continents in the Northern Hemisphere. There is no detectable geographical gradient in these winter peak positions in any given winter in the last many pre-Covid-period decades. This has been true prior to mass airline travel and is true now. The said synchronicity, without centers or gradients, is contrary to models of spread. Furthermore, the winter burden peaks in the Southern Hemisphere occur during its winter, during Northern Hemisphere summer months, which would require remarkable equatorial gating of any presumed pathogens, and there is no seasonal variation of mortality in regions near the equator. Clearly, the global and local seasonal patterns of all-cause mortality (seen to be tied to respiratory, circulatory and many other conditions in the elderly, but not significantly to cancer) are a planetary phenomenon, not one mostly or solely related to models of respiratory pathogen emergence and spread. The winter burden mortality is probably associated with physiological stressors such as changing cold temperatures, atmospheric pressure, and humidity, which are driven by seasonal weather cycles and large weather systems on the planet. This is an obvious mechanism for “synchronicity” of winter burden mortality peaks. The seasonal stressors are sufficient to cause seasonal all-cause mortality among the elderly, increasing with age, but no winter burden mortality whatsoever in younger ages. The higher residence time of aerosol particles in dry air (presumed higher transmissivity of airborne microorganisms and higher suspended dust load in built environments in winter air) probably does not play a significant role in the global age-dependent geo-seasonal pattern of all-cause mortality. A conceptual link to the peaks of excess (beyond seasonal pattern) all-cause mortality occurring during the Covid period is immediate, since they too are synchronous, and they are tied to stressors from globally coordinated measures and rollouts. Both normal pre-Covid period seasonal winter burden peaks and Covid period excess mortality peaks are caused by externally imposed drivers (seasonal weather and so-called pandemic response, respectively) that create fatal biological stress for the frail and elderly. The phenomenon and consequences of biological stress have an eminent scientific history, starting in 1936 with the lifework of Hans Selye, and continuing with the modern speciality of human microbiomes. Biological stress, as first defined by Selye and augmented by decades of research, is the essential mechanism of virtually all early non-violent death. It should be the grounding for all investigations of mortality events and patterns, excluding only obvious cases such as earthquakes, if Big Pharma had not systematically poisoned the well. Q: Your 2019 report connected globalization, environmental factors like glyphosate use, and the emergence of climate change as a political doctrine. How does this geopolitical analysis inform your understanding of the pandemic response? DR: My large evidence-based 2019 analysis has received some praise and is entitled: “Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics Drive Successive Eras of Predatory Globalization and Social Engineering – Historical emergence of climate change, gender equity, and anti-racism as State doctrines”. I believe it is seminal in many respects. It is also available as an audiobook that can be <a href="https://denisrancourt.ca/videos.php?id=11&name=2019_04_02_audiobook_geo_economics_and_geo_politics_drive_successive_eras_of_predatory_globalization_and_social_engineering" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://denisrancourt.ca/videos.php?id%3D11%26name%3D2019_04_02_audiobook_geo_economics_and_geo_politics_drive_successive_eras_of_predatory_globalization_and_social_engineering&source=gmail&ust=1767116636831000&usg=AOvVaw2bZOjrYDN1IyN0rbGh3qN8">freely downloaded. My overarching conclusion, starting from the Second World War, is the high degree to which USA-regime-based and protected global elites, organizations, corporations and financiers occupied the planet and explicitly designed dominant social ideologies including anti-racism, gender, and climate change ideologies, to permeate every layer of Western and captured societies. I describe the nexus of the USA Empire’s power as reliance on owning and enforcing the global currency that is the USA dollar. They have done this by controlling the currency for exchanges in all major commodities including oil, opioids, agriculture and global medical interventions, and by dominating those sectors. The USA regime further runs a global protection racket based on imposing inflated arms sales (in USA dollars) to all its “allies” and protectorates. The USA regime also controls virtually all influential mainstream media in the occupied world, and has created the largest propaganda infrastructure in history. Its propaganda is so influential that it penetrates into the societies of sovereign nations such as Russia and China, especially if the propaganda contains global crisis hysterics related to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, the environment or health. My 2019 analysis, therefore, is an ideal general framework to understand the multi-pronged attack by the USA regime that was Covid, including prominent direct contractual and operational involvement by the USA DoD. Covid was a geopolitical operation designed and run by the USA regime. Under such pressures, Russia and China had no choice to participate in measures and to develop their own vaccines. China, in particular, was at high risk of becoming a global scapegoat, largely thanks to early top-tier scientific-journal epidemiological models, which are an integral part of the propaganda. See my “Arms sales and mRNA vaccine sales should both be understood as protection rackets”, including a link to a fascinating 25 March 2020 video interview with Ex-Russian Intel officer Vladimir Kvachkov. Q: You’ve described both arms sales and mRNA vaccine sales as “protection rackets.” Can you elaborate on this comparison and what you see as the underlying power structures driving these industries? DR: Yes, a protection racket is one in which organized crime extracts payments for a guarantee of so-called protection. It is essentially a rent payed to the controllers of territories of exploitation. It is outright extortion, accompanied by unlimited access to the premises. In the case of the USA regime and its military and surveillance technologies, arms sales are imposed on de facto occupied countries. The sales are in USA dollars, thus ensuring a demand for the USA dollar. The client state obtains the needed USA dollars by sales of its resource and labour paid for using USA dollars that the USA regime prints at will. As with any major commodity controlled by the USA, the imposed demand for and the creation of USA dollars is an endless conveyer belt of exploitation, enforced by military projection and financial dominance. In all of this the USA debt amassed by decades (since the USA’s 1971 unilateral withdrawal from the Bretton Woods agreement) of so-called “trade deficits” is essentially irrelevant, except to create an illusion that the exploited parties have “money in the bank”. The trade deficits themselves, for most countries, are simply measures of the degree of exploitation. This all works as long as the USA regime dominates the world and can impose its will. We are living in extraordinary and dangerous times in which USA dominance is being both challenged and surpassed. I say dangerous because the USA regime is extremely violent and has demonstrated little restraint against using war, acts of war, and terrorism via proxies to create chaos and instability that impedes multi-polar emergence. In the present context, the conclusion that Russia-China-India rapprochement increases world stability and safety is rational and justified. The imposed purchases of massive lots of COVID-19 vaccines were the same kind of protection racket. Like with arms, the sales were imposed both domestically and on all the de facto occupied countries. Like with arms, the purchases were in USA dollars and subservient currencies. Like with arms, the protection is against an engineered or fictitious threat (military aggression and viral pandemic, respectively). Like with arms, the propaganda about the threat is constant and pervasive. Like with arms, the vaccine protection racket includes large training exercises to practice and demonstrate efficient deployment. Covid was a military operation, and no USA regime military operation is without huge kickbacks and feeding of the Empire’s financial and military-industrial sector. Covid was also intended to test and advance surveillance, digital control, censorship, and social control agendas. These agendas are not unrelated to the USA Empire’s impending meltdown from loss of potency of its USA dollar global currency. Integrated digital control of every individual’s financial resources would ensure robust and efficient real-world grounding for the Empire’s currency, and complete surveillance and control of its subjects. China has already achieved population coupling to its national currency. The USA lags behind because of in-fighting between the big tech and financier elite stake holders, as per the 2024 analysis of Yanis Varoufakis delivered to a Chinese audience. Make no mistake: the Empire (the deep state and the top-tier elite parasites) considers it an existential imperative to impose digital financial control on all its subjects for the geopolitical and exploitative reasons explained above; all for your protection of course. Covid was, among other things, a spearhead to test and advance this agenda. Covid was also a demonstration of the Empire’s military capacity to rapidly literally inject all of its subjects with any substance it chooses, while taxing the public in doing so; again all for your protection. From this geopolitical and geo-economic perspective, in my opinion, debates about the nature and origin of the presumed virus and about the designer vaccine and its theoretical health consequences are useful distractions and secondary in relevance at best. The large excess mortality was from the societal assaults, and appears to have been collateral. Any successfully propagandized declared threat and vaccine rollout solution would have achieved the same goals and consequences. Importantly, the said social assaults installed during Covid now continue in many Western countries, in the form of: institutionally normalized wide-spectrum abuse of frail and elderly patients and care home residents, continued attacks against political and economic prospects of the domestic middle classes (with their troublesome desires for freedom and influence), and increased large-scale opioid dependence. The installed and continued assaults produce the persistent excess all-cause mortality that we have studied. Q: In your work on social dominance hierarchies, you suggest that illness serves an evolutionary function in maintaining these hierarchies. How does this theory apply to what we witnessed during the pandemic? DR: The overriding organizational principle in any group of social animals is dominance hierarchy. Empirical evidence is overwhelming in this regard. Irrespective of one’s preferred political theory, every group and society is a dominance hierarchy, with potentials for both maintained stability and totalitarian extremes. Furthermore, the overriding determinant of individual health and longevity is one’s position in the dominance hierarchy and the nature or steepness of the dominance hierarchy. The dominance hierarchy is a form of self-organized structured cooperation and it is a powerful survival and realization strategy for any species of social animal. Therefore, there is a large evolutionary pressure to form maintained dominance hierarchies. In 2011 I advanced this original (as far as I know) idea: Social-dominance-hierarchy oppression makes us sick, which has a large evolutionary advantage in that this permits and stabilizes the said hierarchy, thereby making the species competitive in its harsh environment. Therefore evolution selects mechanisms of biological-stress-induced ill-health. As a corollary, there is necessarily a health gradient tied to the social-status gradient in a social hierarchy. I first explained the idea on my “Activist Teacher” blog in the 20 December 2011 post: “A Theory of Chronic Pain—a social and evolutionary theory of human disease and chronic pain”. The article was also published at Dissident Voice and in my book. What this means is that oppression will make you sick, by many complex biological mechanisms that have evolved in animal bodies over millions (billions) of years. This is why there is a strong connection between biological (including psychological) stress and health. This connection is centrally important and is ignored and covered up by Pharma-dominated establishment medicine. Dominance oppression is the root cause of sickness and poor health, more so in the most violent and authoritarian dominance hierarchies, for most individuals. The older you are, the more effectively oppression and biological stress will kill you, and this is exponentially so. At the same time, one’s identity is viscerally tied to one’s place and value in the dominance hierarchy, and purposeful self-image is an essential driver for life in sentient beings. A loss of social status often means death for the individual, by one chronic disease or another. Therefore, confinement is a huge provider of biological stress and sudden imposed social isolation is deadly, again exponentially so with age. Given the extensive knowledge of the deadly effects of confinement, loss of social status and social isolation, Covid can be considered mass homicide perpetrated by our institutions, professionals and their hierarchical bosses, in a march towards a more totalitarian state. Q: You’ve been highly critical of clinical trials for vaccines, particularly those involving children. What fundamental flaws do you see in how vaccine safety and efficacy are assessed, and what evidence supports your position that childhood vaccination programs may cause more harm than benefit globally? DR: I gave a principled critique against all childhood vaccine programs in my recent article: “Opinion: Invalidity of counterfactual models of mortality averted by childhood vaccination”. Despite decades of study, there is no known example, in high or low childhood mortality countries, of any childhood vaccine rollout being associated with a decrease in childhood all-cause mortality. On the contrary, there is an apparent slowing down of the childhood survival benefit from development associated with childhood vaccine rollouts. In this context, development means improving sanitation and nutrition. Given this hard reality of at best undetectable benefits for reducing childhood mortality, there is no reason to look for elusive vaccination benefits in contrived clinical trials controlled by the same industry that profits from the scam and that has amply demonstrated its illegal and criminal behaviour in concocting the said trials. See the landmark book Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare by Peter Gøtzsche (2013, CRC Press: Taylor & Francis Group). The institutional capture and corruption have only increased since the book was written. Jablonowski et al. (2025) have recently demonstrated that rigged clinical trials were certainly the practice with COVID-19 vaccines. If we want to help children, we should help children, not exploit them for Big Pharma, padded scientific careers and increased revenues for medical professionals. The Western globalist elite exploiters and their corporations need to be driven out of maternity and paediatric care wards. Here again, therefore, I have shown that all-cause mortality data is a razor’s edge that can be used to discern health benefits from medical-industry scams. Most of these highly profitable scams (add chemotherapy, blood chemistry drugs, psychiatric drugs, pain management drugs, etc.) are enabled using elaborate, protected and institutionalized deception based on concocted clinical-trials that select special subjects, exclude undesirable results, underpower to mine advantageous outcomes, virtually never examine long-term harm, no longer use placebo arms, and do not disclose data to independent researchers. Q: You maintain some skepticism about complete “germ theory” denial while acknowledging that bacteria can cause disease under certain conditions. How do you navigate this nuanced position, and where do you draw the line between terrain theory and germ theory? DR: The debate about germ theory versus terrain theory is centered on belief or criticism of the germ hypothesis that a presumed specific disease can result from one being infected with a corresponding specific disease-causing pathogen, and that epidemics of specific diseases can be generated by transmission of the presumed corresponding specific pathogen. Germ theory is motivated by the wishful thinking that there are such specific diseases that can be cured by a magic bullet that kills or neutralizes the presumed corresponding specific pathogen, or that the disease can be prevented by avoiding the pathogen. Terrain theory postulates that disease is not fundamentally caused by pathogenic microorganisms and that health and resilience, including resistance capacity against assaults from the individual’s environment, depend on the body’s “terrain”, which in turn depends on the body’s life history of being subjected to assaults and deficiencies, but also inherited characteristics. Basically, many terrain theory advocates would say that no exposure to a microorganism or to a dose of microorganisms, and no microorganisms in one’s bodily microbiomes can be an initiating cause of harm, and that ill-health is always a consequence of poor terrain, irrespective of exposure to or challenge from any presumed harmful microorganisms. Terrain theory advocacy appears to be motivated by promotion of the importance of nutrition and life style choices, justified rejection of Pharma-driven establishment medicine, a desire to expose egregious lies of establishment medicine, and a desire to find a magic bullet argument (non-existence of viruses, benign danger from bacteria) that would collapse much of the irrational practice of establishment medicine. An AI description of terrain theory is: “Terrain theory proposes that the body’s internal health (“terrain”) dictates its susceptibility to disease, rather than germs being the primary cause.” There is much empirical evidence supporting the terrain perspective, but the debate or binary opposition (internal bodily fitness vs exposure to pathogens) cast in this way leaves out the centrally important role of the immediate and changing environment or life circumstances that are the source of biological (including psychological) stress. As such, the debate is plagued (no pun intended) by two ill-defined and tunnel-vision hypotheses set in binary opposition to each other. First, neither hypothesis sufficiently defines ill-health, sickness or disease. A sufficient definition would require much more and integrated knowledge, or at least more incisive paradigms than are presently used. Second, the germ-hypothesis branch unrealistically postulates the hypothetical effects of a single microorganism, whereas bacterial microorganisms in nature always occur as communities or microbiomes or bio-films or infusions of populations of a great number of different bacterial species. Third, the debate opposes a specific mechanism on the one hand (infection) and on the other hand a non-specified general manner in which ill-health or disease spontaneously occurs or does not occur (terrain). The debate in its usual form therefore is not strictly scientific. Following the scientific method is simpler. One receives a well-delimited precise hypothesis to examine whether it can be disproved. If the hypothesis is not one that can be disproved in principle, if it is not testable, then the hypothesis itself is not valid. If the hypothesis is that the pathogen is invisible and cannot reliably be identified and manipulated for the purpose of testing the hypothesis, then it is not a valid hypothesis. In my opinion, the virus advocates have not demonstrated that the viral hypothesis of disease causation is itself a valid (testable) hypothesis. The onus is on them to make this demonstration. At this time, therefore, in my opinion, the only scientific debate regarding the viral hypothesis of disease is whether the virus advocates have even demonstrated a testable hypothesis with current technology. If they have not, then they are simply practicing voodoo and promoting the practice of voodoo. If the hypothesis involves a bacterial cause of disease, then it is at least testable in principle with current technology. And the debate is whether the appropriate tests have been performed, and whether the hypothesis has been disproved. (Note that as a scientist I have performed research on bacteria.) Tuberculosis has been highly studied and is believed to be an infectious bacterial respiratory disease. However, many coexisting bacterial species are now seen to be concomitantly associated with the disease, contrary to the original view of a single causal bacterial species. Performed transmission experiments from diseased humans to animals are argued to be conclusive evidence of the infectious nature of tuberculosis or at least that transmission is possible; however the long-standing persistent and pervasive presence of the infection in the global population makes the contagiousness debate somewhat irrelevant, compared to an evolutionary coexistence paradigm, and the spectrum of individual manifestations rather supports a “terrain” interpretation. I am not aware of any controlled experiments on humans or non-human animals of challenges using doses from pure cultures of single species of bacteria. If a battery of such experiments were to produce null results, then the bacterial hypothesis of disease causation would be disproved, for the specific bacterial species, dose delivery method and animal model. If we relax the hypothesis to challenges using doses containing varied bacterial species, then the experiments are easier to perform and are more realistic in terms of what would occur in reality, such as in aspiration pneumonia. I believe these experiments would give positive results (induced disease manifestations) in many circumstances, depending on the state (“terrain”) of the test subjects. In addition, for example, a reputable scientific review of 36 clinical trials concluded: “antibiotics [reduce respiratory tract infections] and overall mortality in adult patients receiving intensive care”. Similarly, in a recent large population based cohort study the authors concluded: “In elderly patients with a diagnosis of urinary tract infection in primary care, no antibiotics and deferred antibiotics were associated with a significant increase in bloodstream infection and all-cause mortality compared with immediate antibiotics.” These studies support the idea that a large chemical disruption of microbiomes of bacteria associated with severe health conditions can provide lifesaving benefit in certain circumstances. This ties to the immoral Covid-period widespread practice of denying antibacterial treatments, discussed above. In human history, anthropologists tell us that the main cause of death limiting life expectancy to barely more than 30 years has been infections, in open wounds (from fights and accidents), from exposure to hostile environments and from acquired aggressive parasites, and the like. Reliable historical studies in the USA showed significant decreases in mortality rates associated with sanitizing water supplies, often using filtration and chlorine. In such deaths, the primary apparent cause is injury from consumption of bad water, not transmission of a specific pathogen. In our research we have stressed the important distinction that must be made between a true primary cause of death and an accompanying proximal or clinical cause of death (such as recorded on a death certificate). This is important in giving a correct context to the germ vs terrain debate. A primary cause of death is the agent that actually caused the fatal injury to the body. For example, a car accident can be a primary cause of death where massive loss of blood and specific systems failures would be proximal causes. Aggressions that cause fatal biological stress are primary causes, many system dysfunctions result, and the first proximal cause might be recorded as “pneumonia” or “heart failure”. Beyond that, we can debate whether the bacterial manifestations that accompany the cooperative failure known as death were harmful or beneficial, or intended (by the bacteria?) to be beneficial but caused collateral harm, and so on. My view is that the body’s microbiomes (lungs, gut, skin) can be perturbed by external stressors to spiral out of balance and cause or contribute to causing death. In aspiration pneumonia, the gut and respiratory microbiomes both contribute to the outcome. The degree to which an external stressor can perturb a microbiome and the recovery capacity both depend on the “terrain”, and the said terrain (the state of the body) is dramatically and necessarily impoverished with age, in addition to the impact from other factors. I believe that colonies (microbiomes) of bacteria can negatively impact health, to the point of death, and that susceptibility to such events depends on both “terrain” (bodily state) and ambient conditions (biological stress). For example, exposure alone to pathogens (such as respiratory pathogens associated with tuberculosis) is not sufficient to cause disease manifestations of tuberculosis, and as such may never be a primary cause of tuberculosis. I agree that the virus paradigm of disease is tenuous. I have not been able to find any conclusive evidence that supports the virus paradigm. Invisible causes are convenient to rationalize complex phenomena but the viral invisible cause is demonstrably useless in real terms measured by mortality, as we have repeatedly shown. Q: Your research indicates that medical interventions during COVID, including mechanical ventilation and denial of antibiotics, were primary causes of death. How did these harmful practices become so widespread, and what does this reveal about institutional medicine? DR: Let me answer by broadening the question. How are harmful medical practices initiated and how do they become widespread and institutionalized? The starting point of our query should be to recognize that fatal recommended medical practices certainly are widespread, in general and at every level of the medical establishment. I emphasized this in my 2015 critical review of the cancer paradigm. The epidemic of medical harm is too widespread and persistent over many decades to be considered as “errors”. It is not controversial to affirm that medicine is one of the few leading causes of premature death in the Western world and has been so for two or more generations. How did this arise and how is the situation robustly maintained? This brings us back to societal dominance hierarchy. The medical establishment’s structural societal purpose is primarily to manage and bolster the dominance hierarchy. Health provided by professionals is entirely an illusion, not unlike virtue provided by clergy and the church. Corporate medicine is intended to ensure servitude and dependence, and it may be the state’s most powerful instrument in this regard, manned by innumerable professionals, workers, teachers, and managers, and imbedded in a large finance, corporate and government structure. Medicine is part of the finance-industrial-congressional-military-intelligence-academic-medical-media complex of the USA regime, and therefore of the Western world. Medical clinics and institutions play the same role as the police-judicial apparatus: To systematically and randomly assault individuals in order to assert dominance (see: Silk, 2002), while also appearing to resolve some injustices in order to retain legitimacy and prevent rebellious outbursts. As such, human society is essentially a troupe of baboons, and its institutions are designed and evolve accordingly. With medicine, the control apparatus has the advantage over police and employers that it can directly make you weak or sick without relying solely on the physiological mechanism based on stress from physical and psychological aggression. Medicine can literally prescribe sickness and dependence. If we escape the massive propaganda regarding benefits from establishment medicine, and once we understand the sociological truth of its actual design, we must conclude that examples of medical practices providing real net benefit to individual health are either accidental or simply allowed to create the needed trust and legitimacy. In this context, the medical system constantly experiments with new so-called treatment protocols that, with the help of propaganda, fit nicely as new tools in the project of asserting subservience and dominance, while robbing the targets of resources and removing useless dependants such as the chronically ill and elderly. This is observed in any social animal dominance hierarchy; only the methods are different. As with any systematic assertion of dominance, the behaviour can go too far, spin out of control in a sense. In animal groups this can catalyze mobbing against dominants, for example. In our stable societies, there are constant corrective resets of institutional policy and behaviour, following events of media outrage or of resistance (such as so-called vaccine hesitancy). At the same time, elite corruption pushes laws and policies toward excessive exploitation. I described this societal pushing, pulling and corruption in my 2017 essay entitled “Cause of USA Meltdown and Collapse of Civil Rights”. This is a longstanding historic pattern, across millennia (see: The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History by David Hackett Fischer, 1996). The important and beneficial present MAHA movement at USA federal agencies, I would argue, is this kind of corrective reset needed to preserve and strengthen the medical establishment’s legitimacy and acceptance, while leaving in place most of its practices demonstrably harmful to individual health. The pandemic paradigm is exceptionally insidious on a higher level than regular aggressive maintenance of the dominance hierarchy. They want us to believe in a constant risk of virulent airborne-pathogen pandemics that each could threaten humanity on the scale of a massive meteorite impact, requiring global responses that bolster elite exploitation and control. My research has convinced me that there probably never has been such a pandemic in history, including 1918 and the Black Death. Regarding specific circumstances of harmful medical interventions applied during the Covid period, we again discussed examples in our most recent paper disproving pandemic viral spread. Q: Your 2019 geopolitical analysis predicted many aspects of what we later saw during the pandemic response. How do you view the COVID period within the broader context of globalization and US dollar hegemony? DR: Covid was a planned and executed USA-regime military exercise that coordinated many major corporate players including: Pharma, Medical, Finance, Media (including Social media), Intelligence, Transport, Army, Congressional and Parliamentary houses, Governments at all levels, international bodies, Police, Judiciary, Science, and Academia. Russia and China felt compelled to play along, given world opinion and penetration of the USA-run propaganda, and to develop their own vaccines and measures. Rulers who rejected the pandemic fraud were assassinated or otherwise removed or silenced. In reality there was no pandemic-causing virus and the vaccines were demonstrably harmful. The lab leak dimension is irrelevant, since there was no deadly viral agent. The responses and measures caused more than 30 million deaths worldwide (up to 2022, virtually all sick, elderly and opioid-addicted individuals) and left permanent societal scares including serious vaccine adverse effects. The newly installed institutional practices now cause large persistent excess all-cause mortality to this day in many countries, not to mention broader social acceptance of infringed civil freedom rights and protections. Work, leisure and health cultures were changed discontinuously. The medical establishment became more aggressive and authoritarian than even before in generational memory. A complete list of consequences would be very long. The Covid pandemic was possible because of USA-controlled globalization and USA world dominance. As other major poles of geopolitical power grow, and as USA dominance is eroded, such a global event of transformation and exploitation is less likely to be as successful again in the coming years. The window for the USA-regime to pull off such global scams as Covid is closing. The driving force of profit and Western elite influence are also waning as global multi-polarity increases. Increasing global multi-polarity, in the long run, will probably improve basic and civil rights of citizens of the USA more than any declared good intentions of their leaders, as global comparisons of and competition for good living and working conditions increases. Tourism interest and quality immigration flows are already increasing towards Russia and China. But first, conditions for Western citizens will get worse, especially in so-called allied countries pillaged by the USA, and especially for the working classes, not to mention the virtual certainty of increasing USA-led wars as the USA dominance window closes. Q: What are you currently focused on in your research with CORRELATION, and how can people who want to follow your work stay connected with your ongoing findings? DR: Presently, our main immediate research projects that are advanced to various degrees include: a theory of health and death, seasonal variations and geotemporal patterns of mortality in normal periods, an extensive study of almost 100 socio-economic factors associated with excess mortality, proof of manipulations of global temperature records, a large study of vaccine-status-resolved excess mortality, theoretical limits of spatiotemporal models of disease spread, and a study of unscientific Canadian government behaviour during Covid from accessed documents. Three main places to follow all our upcoming work are: The CORRELATION website: https://correlation-canada.org/research/ My website: https://denisrancourt.ca/ My substack: https://denisrancourt.substack.com/ I would like to thank my co-authors and collaborators since 2020 for many and continued discussions and challenges, and all the individuals who support our research. The post Empire, Mortality, and the Multi-Pronged Attack on Humanity first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Denis Rancourt.
Artificial Intelligence, Global Inequality, and the Colonial Machinery of Capital
Artificial intelligence is often presented as a universal breakthrough — a tool that will democratize knowledge, expand opportunity, and usher in a new era of human progress. But AI does not emerge in a vacuum. It is built inside a global order shaped by conquest, extraction, and the long shadow of empire. The world into […] The post Artificial Intelligence, Global Inequality, and the Colonial Machinery of Capital first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AI-300x300.avif" alt="" width="300" height="300" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-162290" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AI-300x300.avif 300w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AI-150x150.avif 150w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AI.avif 740w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Artificial intelligence is often presented as a universal breakthrough — a tool that will democratize knowledge, expand opportunity, and usher in a new era of human progress. But AI does not emerge in a vacuum. It is built inside a global order shaped by conquest, extraction, and the long shadow of empire. The world into which Copilot is deployed is not neutral terrain; it is a landscape carved by centuries of unequal development. Copilot becomes not only a technological assistant, but a mirror — revealing the deep inequalities that structure our world. AI does not transcend inequality. AI exposes it. The child, the circuit, and the colonial wound Imagine two children born in the same century, under the same sky. One grows up in an African village where electricity flickers or fails, where nightfall is not a choice but a condition, and where the promises of the “digital age” arrive as distant echoes. The other grows up in a Western city, surrounded by devices, broadband, and an entire ecosystem of artificial intelligence — including Copilot — ready to support learning, creativity, and opportunity. Between these two children stands a powerful technology. But Copilot does not bridge the divide. It reveals it. The African child is not “behind.” The African child has been pushed behind — by centuries of colonial plunder, resource theft, structural adjustment, and debt regimes that weakened the very infrastructures AI requires. These are not historical footnotes; they are living conditions. They shape who has access to electricity, who has access to bandwidth, and who is structurally excluded from the digital world. AI does not possess intention, but it operates inside human systems of intention. It does not decide where electricity flows, which languages dominate, or whose data becomes valuable. It simply amplifies the conditions into which it is placed. The Western child is not “ahead.” The Western child has been placed ahead — by a global system designed to concentrate wealth, bandwidth, and possibility. The devices on the Western child’s desk are built from minerals mined in the Global South. The broadband that powers their learning is funded by economies that benefited from centuries of extraction. The AI tools they use are trained on data produced overwhelmingly in the Global North. This is not a digital divide. This is a colonial divide — modernized, electrified, and automated. Capitalism’s invisible hand on the keyboard AI is often described as neutral or universal. But neutrality is impossible in a world organized by profit. Every layer of AI — from the minerals in its hardware to the languages in its training data — is shaped by global capitalism. 1. AI depends on unequal infrastructure AI requires: electricity broadband data centers rare minerals global supply chains linguistic dominance These are not evenly distributed. They follow the same patterns of extraction and accumulation that have defined global capitalism for centuries. The cobalt that powers batteries is mined in Congo. The servers that run AI models sit in wealthy nations. The languages prioritized by AI systems reflect colonial hierarchies, not global diversity. 2. AI reproduces global hierarchies AI systems are trained on data produced by a world where: the Global South extracts the Global North accumulates the poor labor the rich automate the marginalized are surveilled the powerful are optimized AI does not challenge this order. AI accelerates it. The same forces that once controlled land, labor, and resources now control data, algorithms, and digital infrastructure. The logic has not changed — only the tools have. 3. AI extends the reach of empire Where colonialism once used force, today it uses: patents platforms algorithms data monopolies AI becomes a new frontier of control — shaping who learns, who works, who is visible, and who remains unseen. Nations without technological sovereignty become dependent on foreign platforms. Communities without connectivity become digitally invisible. Languages without representation become computationally extinct. AI is not simply a tool. It is a political actor — one that reflects the priorities of those who own it. Closing And when Copilot reflects the world, it does not show a neutral landscape. It reveals a global order built on inequality, extraction, and the ruthless logic of profit — a world where technology advances while justice is deferred, and where innovation grows atop the suffering of those rendered invisible. AI does not liberate the oppressed. AI exposes the oppression — the structural violence, the stolen futures, the engineered scarcity that capitalism normalizes and empire requires. If AI is ever to serve humanity, then humanity must confront and dismantle the global capitalist order that shapes its reach, its purpose, and its beneficiaries. No algorithm can correct a world designed to concentrate power. No machine can democratize a system built on exclusion. Until that transformation occurs, AI will remain what it is today: a brilliant light shining on a deeply unjust world — illuminating not our progress, but the wounds we refuse to heal The post Artificial Intelligence, Global Inequality, and the Colonial Machinery of Capital first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Sammy Attoh.
Teachers have always been society’s most underestimated heroes. They carry the emotional, intellectual, and social development of entire generations—yet they work inside systems that often value credentials more than contribution, compliance more than creativity, and paperwork more than human potential. This essay explores the invisible load teachers carry — a burden that cannot be quantified, […] The post The Teacher’s Burden first appeared on Dissident Voice.
<a href="https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/f3579f09-83c1-4c14-96e7-79d3b562e23b?j=eyJ1IjoiNHFkNXV1In0.E9Qt9gnJ-HaDeOh2VefpDfd_f9U_9MXRSagVeFVb5qY" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/f3579f09-83c1-4c14-96e7-79d3b562e23b?j%3DeyJ1IjoiNHFkNXV1In0.E9Qt9gnJ-HaDeOh2VefpDfd_f9U_9MXRSagVeFVb5qY&source=gmail&ust=1767151102363000&usg=AOvVaw1O8WAuQ_-pr-Kts1fS_w3K"><img decoding="async" class="CToWUd" title="A classroom filled with lots of desks and chairs" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NbreBrTC6LBiMM_tsvr8NFCWmMcYOfuxvNQgWZvX_eEtvb0-MX3B1_9SZ0_nYuAht_F-lDvcfxO_Ry9ySlRyt8JfjcljZ3yYMeCVDp0Kp1_uzHqu6ZvEiCO91YivPQpSCidszZkaNh_72FR5HqcK4WBkgaYd_7MtShtzs4Q6ehDMOiazTtVaLuXC-NgD4OEqQwihwInUiop319Yfllq6tMtn9w1fvMRmREdf7sKBr2wq0VNX8_tJ2183Hftjp4FSCyADpnIM-f9RIDsX6vDjxrs1zx6DCmc7Yska3ZLWjyH6kWv=s0-d-e1-ft#https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1740635341299-3b8e3490f546?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzNXx8dGVhY2hpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzY1NDU5MzMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080" alt="A classroom filled with lots of desks and chairs" width="505" height="372.5" data-bit="iit" /> Teachers have always been society’s most underestimated heroes. They carry the emotional, intellectual, and social development of entire generations—yet they work inside systems that often value credentials more than contribution, compliance more than creativity, and paperwork more than human potential. This essay explores the invisible load teachers carry — a burden that cannot be quantified, standardized, or fully understood by anyone who has never stepped into a classroom with 30 different stories, needs, fears, and possibilities staring back at them. A great teacher adapts in real time. They sense confusion before a hand goes up. They notice the student who suddenly gets quiet. They see potential before a student recognizes it in themselves. They adjust lessons on the fly because the textbook hasn’t kept pace with the world. They bridge emotional, social, and academic gaps no curriculum designer could ever predict. And while they teach reading, writing, and critical thinking, they also manage the things no job description lists: trauma instability hunger exhaustion undiagnosed learning challenges anxiety broken homes pressure no child knows how to express They are part mentor, part counselor, part protector, part improvisational genius — and always, always human. And through it all, they teach. Not because the system makes it easy. But because their calling makes it necessary. **Here’s the truth systems don’t want to admit: Teaching is not a process. It is a craft.** A deeply human, intuitive, emotional craft that cannot be standardized without diminishing its power. Teaching requires patience, improvisation, empathy, humor, discipline, presence, attention, creativity — none of which appear on the institutional spreadsheets used to evaluate performance. When systems reduce teaching to metrics, teachers become data clerks. When they reduce creativity to checklists, teachers become script readers. When they reduce learning to test prep, teachers become compliance officers. Great teachers did not sign up for that. They signed up to spark curiosity, expand minds, change trajectories, and help human beings grow. It is no surprise, then, that teachers are leaving institutions — not because they stopped caring, but because institutions stopped caring about what makes teaching magical. More and more teachers now teach online, tutor independently, create educational content, host micro-schools, or reach tens of thousands of learners directly through digital platforms. Some reach more students in a single month this way than they did in a year inside a traditional system. This is not rebellion. This is rebirth. A return to the essence of teaching: one human being helping another become more capable than they were the day before. Great teachers are discovering what systems forgot: Human connection matters more than curriculum. Adaptation matters more than policy. Presence matters more than paperwork. Capability matters more than credentials. The burden teachers carry is immense. The expectations are unreasonable. The support is insufficient. The emotional load is heavy. And yet, the impact of their capability is immeasurable — felt across years, generations, and communities. Ask anyone who became who they are because one teacher saw them, believed in them, or challenged them. Ask anyone who was saved by a teacher’s kindness. Ask anyone whose future changed because one adult refused to give up on them. Ask anyone whose confidence came from a single sentence spoken at exactly the right moment. A teacher’s influence is invisible in the moment — and undeniable in hindsight. Their burden is heavy. Their capability is extraordinary. And their impact is eternal. The post The Teacher’s Burden first appeared on Dissident Voice. This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Arkhub Insights.
“Sick in a Hospital Town”: The Narrated Podcast
Inside The Abandoned Soviet Uranium Mines Of The Czech Republic
Tens of millions of Americans are set to see their health insurance costs soar when subsidies under the Affordable Care Act expire at the end of this year. Health insurance premiums are expected to more than double or even triple for some 20 m...
Tens of millions of Americans are set to see their health insurance costs soar when subsidies under the Affordable Care Act expire at the end of this year. Health insurance premiums are expected to more than double or even triple for some 20 million people, pricing many out of healthcare coverage entirely. “We’ve done nothing as a country to control healthcare costs,” says Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of health initiatives at the Community Service Society of New York and member of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team. She discusses how premiums will work, how to seek help, what to watch for in alternative plans, and more. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Trump Set to Garnish Wages for Student Loan Defaults; The Debt Collective Lays Out Other Options
Starting in January, the Trump administration says it will garnish the wages of student loan borrowers who haven’t been able to make their payments for at least nine months. “It’s cruel and hostile to working people to turn t...
Starting in January, the Trump administration says it will garnish the wages of student loan borrowers who haven’t been able to make their payments for at least nine months. “It’s cruel and hostile to working people to turn the system on before we’re sure that we can run it in a compliant manner,” says Julia Barnard, higher education team lead at the Debt Collective and former student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. To student debtors facing financial hardship, Barnard suggests “immediately [contesting] when they get a notice of wage seizure.” She lays out what is at stake, options for those facing default, and more. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“Israel Crushed Mohammad Bakri”: Gideon Levy & Rami Khouri on Death of Iconic Palestinian Filmmaker
Journalists Gideon Levy and Rami Khouri discuss the work of acclaimed Palestinian actor and filmmaker Mohammad Bakri, who died at the age of 72 on Christmas Eve. He appeared in more than 40 films and directed documentaries highlighting the exp...
Journalists Gideon Levy and Rami Khouri discuss the work of acclaimed Palestinian actor and filmmaker Mohammad Bakri, who died at the age of 72 on Christmas Eve. He appeared in more than 40 films and directed documentaries highlighting the experiences of Palestinians living under occupation. “On a personal level, I can’t tell you how much I loved him,” says Levy. On one hand, Levy describes him as a “brave Palestinian patriot.” On the other hand, he was a victim of “Israeli machinery, which totally crushed his life and his career.” Bakri was best known for his 2002 documentary Jenin, Jenin, featuring the voices of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp following a devastating Israeli military operation that killed 52 Palestinians. The film is banned in Israel. “Literature, poetry, cinema, art, cooking — any creative work that Palestinians do that reflects their humanity and their attachment to their ancient land, the Israelis and the Zionist movement want to crush this,” adds Khouri. This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
“Whatever Israel Wants”: Trump Backs Netanyahu’s “Colonial” Wars in Gaza, Iran & Beyond
We speak to journalists Gideon Levy and Rami Khouri about President Trump’s meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump supported Israel’s threats to launch new attacks on Iran and warned Hamas t...
We speak to journalists Gideon Levy and Rami Khouri about President Trump’s meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump supported Israel’s threats to launch new attacks on Iran and warned Hamas to disarm during the second stage of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement. Khouri, a Palestinian American journalist, called the meeting a “continuation of the American-Israeli drive, that’s been going on for some years now, to reconfigure the Middle East … into a new colonial arrangement, whereby the U.S. and Israel dominate what goes on in the region.” Levy, Israeli journalist for Haaretz, called the meeting an “embarrassment,” noting that “Donald Trump presents himself as someone who promises the sky, who has no demands from Israel whatsoever.” This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
U.S. Strikes Another Boat in the Pacific as the CIA Reports a Drone Strike in Venezuela, Trump Expresses Support for Israel’s Threats to Strike Iran, Trump: Hamas Will “Have Hell to Pay” If It Refuses to Disarm, Trump Claims to Have Spoken to Israeli President Herzog About Pardoning Netanyahu, Hamas Confirms Deaths of Spokesman Abu Obeida and Former Gaza Leader Mohammed Sinwar, Somalia Condemns Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland, Protests Erupt in Iran over Currency’s Collapse and Dire Economic Conditions, Russia Accuses Ukraine of Launching a Drone Attack on Putin’s Presidential Residence, Chinese Military Encircles Taiwan to Send “Stern Warning” to U.S. over Arms Shipments, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti Wins Mandate in Snap Parliamentary Elections, Poll Finds Nearly Half of U.S. Residents Report Diminishing Financial Security Under Trump, Judge Tosses Charges Against TikTok Streamer Shot by ICE as Video Refutes Agents’ Claims, Trump Administration Invokes Public Health Regulation to Deny Asylum Claims, Bangladesh’s Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia Dies at 80
U.S. Strikes Another Boat in the Pacific as the CIA Reports a Drone Strike in Venezuela Trump Expresses Support for Israel's Threats to Strike Iran Trump: Hamas Will "Have Hell to Pay" If It Refuses to Disarm Trump Claims to Have Spoken to Israeli President Herzog About Pardoning Netanyahu Hamas Confirms Deaths of Spokesman Abu Obeida and Former Gaza Leader Mohammed Sinwar Somalia Condemns Israel's Recognition of Somaliland Protests Erupt in Iran over Currency's Collapse and Dire Economic Conditions Russia Accuses Ukraine of Launching a Drone Attack on Putin's Presidential Residence Chinese Military Encircles Taiwan to Send "Stern Warning" to U.S. over Arms Shipments Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti Wins Mandate in Snap Parliamentary Elections Poll Finds Nearly Half of U.S. Residents Report Diminishing Financial Security Under Trump Judge Tosses Charges Against TikTok Streamer Shot by ICE as Video Refutes Agents' Claims Trump Administration Invokes Public Health Regulation to Deny Asylum Claims Bangladesh's Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia Dies at 80 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Democracy Now! Tuesday, December 30, 2025 This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Oregon Faced a Huge Obstacle in Adding Green Energy. Here’s What Changed This Year.
The post Oregon Faced a Huge Obstacle in Adding Green Energy. Here’s What Changed This Year. appeared first on ProPublica.
A few months ago, Oregon’s green energy outlook was bleak. The state Legislature and Gov. Tina Kotek had repeatedly failed to address a huge obstacle that has held back wind and solar projects in the Northwest for years: aging electrical lines too jammed up to handle more renewable power. A series of articles by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica identified barriers in the federal and state bureaucracies that delayed improvements to the beef up the grid. The failure to complete upgrades is the main reason Oregon, like its fellow progressive state and neighbor Washington, has lagged most of the nation in the growth of clean energy despite an internal mandate to go green. Bills to tackle the transmission problem continued to languish and die in the Oregon Legislature as recently as this spring. But there has been a groundswell of urgency since the stories were published. Kotek, a Democrat, has now issued two executive orders mandating that state agencies speed up renewable energy development by any available means, including fast-tracking permits and directly paying for new transmission lines. Those efforts could eventually be backed up by money. The state’s energy department, in a first, recommended lawmakers consider creating a state entity to finance, plan and build transmission lines. A lawmaker whose bill to create such an authority failed this year suddenly has hope for getting it done, and he said the governor’s office is working with him to make it happen. What was essentially an unacknowledged problem among many Oregon policymakers now has the full attention of the governor and the key agencies that report to her. There has been new attention on electrical transmission in Washington state, as well. The shift comes as President Donald Trump has created new obstacles to ramping up renewable energy. This year, he removed tax credits that made wind and solar cheaper to build, blocked new wind permits and fired employees of the federal agency that reviews them. This was the year “where you’ve seen all these factors coming together — we know that our outdated grid is choking our ability to grow across the state, and we’re already paying more for electricity,” Kotek said in an interview last week. Kotek acknowledged the role of OPB and ProPublica’s reporting when asked what prompted the changes. “You’ve been doing some great stories,” she said. In May, OPB and ProPublica showed that the state ranked 47th in renewable energy growth over the past decade. Washington is 50th. An analysis by the news organizations found that Northwest wind and solar farms face the longest odds in the country for successfully connecting to the power grid, under a process heavily controlled by the Bonneville Power Administration. The federal agency’s transmission lines and substations constitute 75% of the region’s electrical network. Out of 469 large renewables projects that have sought access to Bonneville’s system since 2015, only one was successful. Backers of the other projects either abandoned their requests or were still waiting on studies and necessary upgrades to power lines and substations. Northwest utilities fear rolling blackouts within the decade unless transmission capacity is expanded to meet surging energy demand, particularly from data centers that support artificial intelligence. Kotek said she hadn’t seen the numbers on Oregon’s stagnant renewable energy growth before OPB and ProPublica reported them. “I hope — and we will be planning — to make our numbers look better and better in the coming years,” she said. In 2021, when lawmakers enacted Oregon’s plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in electrical generation by 2040, they failed to account for transmission and the glacial pace set by Bonneville for improvements. (The agency has said previously its project approval decisions are guided by financial prudence.) Oregon leaders also did not address the state’s slow process for evaluating energy projects, with appeals that can prolong permit decisions on new power lines or wind and solar farms for years. The rules originated with the 1970s antinuclear movement. Foes say rural transmission and wind projects blight the landscape, and they have used the permitting system as a means of delay. Bills to smooth out the state permitting process, even those supported by rural interests, went nowhere. Efforts to bypass Bonneville also withered. Advocates proposed a state financing authority for new transmission lines and substations as recently as this year. The legislation, which lacked the endorsement of either Kotek or the Oregon Department of Energy, died. Emily Moore, director of climate and energy for the Seattle-based think tank Sightline Institute, called OPB and ProPublica’s reporting “invaluable” in prompting change. “It has motivated policymakers and advocates alike to try to find solutions to get Oregon and Washington unstuck and is recruiting new people to the effort,” Moore said. Kotek’s latest executive order calls for a wide array of state agencies to recommend ways to overcome obstacles to clean energy development. This followed her October order for state agencies to take “any and all steps necessary” to fast-track solar and wind permits. Separately, the energy department recommended lawmakers look into creating a new entity like state authorities in Colorado and New Mexico, which plan transmission routes, partner with transmission developers and issue bonds to finance construction. The agency’s strategic plan, finalized in November, said the state must streamline clean energy development and take a more active role in getting regional transmission lines built. Similar findings emerged in a Dec. 1 report by a state working group created by Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, which called for a dedicated state entity focused on increasing transmission capacity. The authors cited OPB and ProPublica’s 2025 coverage in stating that Washington is falling behind on infrastructure needed to hit its green energy goals. (Ferguson requested the report following reporting by The Seattle Times and ProPublica last year on the energy consumed by data centers, which receive generous state tax breaks.) “This would be something that could potentially really help move the needle,” said Joni Sliger, a senior policy analyst with the Oregon energy department. The governor has also ordered the department and Oregon utilities regulators to designate physical paths through the state in which permitting for transmission lines can be streamlined and to gather financial support for projects that serve the public interest. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" height="766" width="1149" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg" alt="A lush hilly landscape of conifer trees, bushes and grasses with pale blue mountains in the distance." class="wp-image-62336" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg 3000w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=863,575 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=422,281 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=552,368 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=558,372 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=527,351 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=752,501 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=1149,766 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/20250610-Lenz-Northwest-Wind-Problems-031_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?resize=2000,1333 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1149px) 100vw, 1149px" /> A proposed Eastern Oregon transmission line was stuck in the permitting process for nearly two decades. The line is expected to run through this stretch of La Grande, Oregon. Steve Lenz for ProPublica Kotek cited the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line in Eastern Oregon that got caught in permitting limbo for nearly 20 years, an episode highlighted in OPB and ProPublica’s reporting. The governor called the state’s handling of the project a “red flag.” “We have to get out of our own way,” she said. Kotek’s executive orders drew praise from a range of organizations who appeared with the governor when she announced her most recent moves in November. “It makes our energy system stronger and more reliable, enhancing grid resilience, expanding storage and bolstering transmission to keep electricity affordable and dependable for every Oregonian,” Nora Apter, Oregon director for the clean energy advocacy group Climate Solutions, said at the time. The head of Oregon Business for Climate, which represents interests including real estate developers, wineries and coffee roasters, also spoke at the event. Tim Miller, the group’s director, said that although Oregon has put in place an energy permitting system to ensure siting is done right, Kotek’s order “reminds the state that we also have to get things done.” Lawmakers now are working on a plan to enact a state transmission financing authority during the next full legislative session, in early 2027. Rep. Mark Gamba, the Portland-area Democrat whose effort to create such an agency last year failed, said the governor’s office is in discussions with him about the new legislation and that he expects it to pass thanks to her involvement. “Her leaning in the way she has is what we needed,” he said. Gamba said he’s seeing newfound support for expanding transmission from across the political spectrum. “I’ve gotten calls from interests that typically I’m on the other side of the fight with,” Gamba said, “because they recognize that this is an economic development issue as well.” The post Oregon Faced a Huge Obstacle in Adding Green Energy. Here’s What Changed This Year. appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Tony Schick.
25 Investigations You May Have Missed This Year
The post 25 Investigations You May Have Missed This Year appeared first on ProPublica.
Over the past year, ProPublica has published hundreds of investigations. In January, Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News examined why a sexual assault case took seven years to go to trial in Alaska. In March, our video journalists told the stories of three mothers fighting to address America’s stillbirth crisis. In August, a team across the newsroom calculated how deeply President Donald Trump’s administration cut federal health agencies. And in December, Megan Rose and Debbie Cenziper reported how the Food and Drug Administration’s lax generic drug rules put a lung transplant patient’s life at risk. Here are 25 long-reads to add to your end-of-year reading list. You can also explore our most-read stories of the year. 1. Anchorage Police Say They Witnessed a Sexual Assault in Public. It Took Seven Years for the Case to Go to Trial. By Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News. Co-published with Anchorage Daily News. Published Jan. 7. In Alaska, where the time to resolve most serious felony cases has nearly tripled over the past decade, one case was delayed so long that both victims died. A former prosecutor called it “a travesty of justice.” 2. Dozens of People Died in Arizona Sober Living Homes as State Officials Fumbled Medicaid Fraud Response By Mary Hudetz, ProPublica, and Hannah Bassett, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Co-published with Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Published Jan. 27. Arizona officials acknowledged that a fraud scheme targeting Indigenous people with addictions cost taxpayers $2.5 billion. But they haven’t accounted publicly for the number of deaths tied to the scheme. 3. What a $2 Million Per Dose Gene Therapy Reveals About Drug Pricing By Robin Fields Published Feb. 12. Video by Jose Sepulveda/ProPublica Taxpayers and charities helped develop Zolgensma. Then it debuted at a record price, ushering in a new class of wildly expensive drugs. Its story upends the widely held conception that high prices reflect huge industry investments in innovation. 4. How a Global Online Network of White Supremacists Groomed a Teen to Kill By A.C. Thompson and James Bandler, ProPublica, and Lukáš Diko, Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak. Co-published with FRONTLINE. Published March 8. The murders of two people outside an LGBTQ+ bar at first looked like the act of a lone shooter. A ProPublica and FRONTLINE investigation shows they were, in fact, the culmination of a coordinated, international recruiting effort by online extremists. 5. Before a Breath: America’s Stillbirth Crisis By Nadia Sussman, Liz Moughon, Margaret Cheatham Williams and Lisa Riordan Seville Published March 20. Video by ProPublica More than 20,000 stillbirths occur in the U.S. each year, but 1 in 4 may be preventable. “Before a Breath” sheds light on three mothers fighting to change those statistics. 6. “A Wholly Inaccurate Picture”: Reality Cop Show “The First 48” and the Wrongly Convicted Man by Jessica Lussenhop, photography by Sarahbeth Maney Published March 29. Video by Jose Sepulveda/ProPublica Edgar Barrientos-Quintana spent 16 years behind bars wrongly convicted for a shooting featured on “The First 48.” The Minnesota attorney general’s office effectively alleged that the show shaped the case instead of the case shaping the show. 7. An Algorithm Deemed This Nearly Blind 70-Year-Old Prisoner a “Moderate Risk.” Now He’s No Longer Eligible for Parole. By Richard A. Webster, Verite News. Co-published with Verite News. Published April 10. A Louisiana law cedes much of the power of the parole board to an algorithm that bars thousands of prisoners from a shot at early release. Civil rights attorneys say it could disproportionately harm Black people — and may even be unconstitutional. 8. How a Chinese Prison Helped Fuel a Deadly Drug Crisis in the United States By Sebastian Rotella Published April 23. While China enforces strict laws against domestic drug trafficking, state-supported companies have openly shipped fentanyl to the U.S., investigators say. One prison-owned chemical company boasted online: “100% of our shipments will clear customs.” 9. Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much. By Rob Davis, photography by Sarahbeth Maney. Co-published with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Published April 25. Nike has made an expansive effort to convince consumers, investors and others that it is improving the lives of factory workers who make its products, not exploiting them. A rare view of wages at one Cambodian factory tests this claim. 10. Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA’s Gamble on America’s Drugs By Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose, Brandon Roberts and Irena Hwang Published June 17. A ProPublica investigation found that for more than a decade, the FDA gave substandard factories banned from the United States a special pass to keep sending drugs to an unsuspecting public. 11. He Was Accused of Killing His Wife. Idaho’s Coroner System Let Clues Vanish After a Previous Wife’s Death. By Audrey Dutton Published July 16. Video by Jose Sepulveda/ProPublica Clayton Strong had a history of domestic unrest in two marriages. The women’s families say a more thorough investigation of Betty Strong’s death in Idaho might have saved the life of his next wife, Shirley Weatherley, in Texas. 12. He Came to the U.S. to Support His Sick Child. He Was Detained. Then He Disappeared. By Melissa Sanchez, ProPublica; Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune; Mica Rosenberg and Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica; Ronna Rísquez, Alianza Rebelde Investiga; and Adrián González, Cazadores de Fake News. Co-published with Alianza Rebelde Investiga, Cazadores de Fake News and The Texas Tribune. Published July 18. Like most of the more than 230 Venezuelan men deported to a Salvadoran prison, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas had followed U.S. immigration rules. Then Trump rewrote them. 13. The Drying Planet By Abrahm Lustgarten, graphics by Lucas Waldron, illustrations by Olivier Kugler for ProPublica Published July 25. A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise. 14. Middle School Cheerleaders Made a TikTok Video Portraying a School Shooting. They Were Charged With a Crime. By Aliyya Swaby. Co-published with WPLN. Published July 28. Social videos, memes and retweets are becoming fodder for criminal charges in an era of heightened responses to student threats. Authorities say harsh punishment is necessary, but experts say the crackdown has unintended consequences. 15. “We’ll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out” By Nicole Foy and McKenzie Funk Published July 31. We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “minimum amount of force.” You can judge for yourself. 16. Gutted: How Deeply Trump Has Cut Federal Health Agencies By Brandon Roberts, Annie Waldman and Pratheek Rebala, illustrations by Sam Green for ProPublica Published Aug. 21. More than ‎20,500 workers have left or been pushed out of federal health agencies, a ProPublica analysis found. Staffers say the cuts will leave their agencies less equipped to conduct studies, perform inspections and combat deadly outbreaks. 17. “Material Support” and an Ohio Chaplain: How 9/11-Era Terror Rules Could Empower Trump’s Immigration Crackdown By Hannah Allam Published Sept. 9. The U.S. government was trying to deport Ohio children’s hospital chaplain Ayman Soliman, alleging tenuous connections to terrorism. If DHS had succeeded, experts say it could have handed the Trump administration a “sledgehammer” to use on mass deportations. A few weeks after this investigation was published, Soliman was freed. 18. “Just Let Me Die” By Duaa Eldeib, photography by Sarah Blesener for ProPublica Published Sept. 10. After insurance repeatedly denied a couple’s claims, one psychiatrist was their last hope. 19. These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department. By Megan O’Matz and Jennifer Smith Richards Published Oct. 8. Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars — and the end of public schools as we know them. 20. How Paul Newby Made North Carolina a Blueprint for Conservative Courts By Doug Bock Clark Published Oct. 30. Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power. Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state. 21. She Begged for Help. This State’s Probation Gap May Have Put Her in Danger. By Paige Pfleger, WPLN, and Mariam Elba, ProPublica. Co-published with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, Tennessee Lookout and WPLN. Published Nov. 11. Tennessee probation officers pause in-person visits and home searches for offenders facing an arrest warrant. That reduced supervision can last for months. Temptress Peebles was one of six mothers who died during this gap. 22. What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic By Nat Lash, graphics by Chris Alcantara Published Nov. 18. Egg producers suspect bird flu is traveling through the air. After a disastrous Midwestern outbreak early this year, we tested that theory and found that where the wind blew, the virus followed. Vaccines could help, but the USDA hasn’t approved them. Read More The Most-Read ProPublica Stories of 2025 23. Under Trump, More Than 1,000 Nonprofits Strip DEI Language From Tax Forms By Ellis Simani, design by Zisiga Mukulu Published Dec. 17. As the Trump administration ordered agencies to eradicate “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, we identified more than 1,000 nonprofits that removed such language from the mission statements in their tax filings. 24. Inside the Trump Administration’s Man-Made Hunger Crisis By Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester, photography by Brian Otieno for ProPublica Published Dec. 17. “Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death. 25. Fighting for Breath By Megan Rose and Debbie Cenziper, photography by Hannah Yoon for ProPublica Published Dec. 19. Lung transplant patient Hannah Goetz’s life depended on the generic version of a critical drug. It was supposed to be equivalent to the brand-name medication — but the FDA doesn’t always ensure that’s the case. The post 25 Investigations You May Have Missed This Year appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by ProPublica.
The Most-Read ProPublica Stories of 2025
The post The Most-Read ProPublica Stories of 2025 appeared first on ProPublica.
When President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, ProPublica’s reporters set out to cover how his second administration would reshape the government and the country. Our reporters detailed what happened when the Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by Elon Musk, slashed federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Social Security Administration. We wrote about the people caught up in the administration’s immigration crackdown, including the more than 170 U.S. citizens who had been detained by immigration agents. We profiled key figures in the administration, including the 22-year-old picked to lead terrorism prevention and the man who has been described as Trump’s shadow president. Our newsroom also focused beyond the White House. Ginger Thompson wrote a five-part series, with research by Doris Burke, that told the story of American health care through the only hospital in Albany, Georgia. Ellis Simani and Lexi Churchill uncovered a Texas charter school superintendent who makes $870,000. And David Armstrong sought to understand why a single pill of his cancer drug cost the same as a new iPhone. Those were all among the investigations that readers spent the most time with this year. In the new year, ProPublica will keep reporting on these storylines — and new ones. In the meantime, revisit our most-read stories of 2025, as measured by the total amount of time spent reading them across several of our publishing platforms. 1. The Militia and the Mole By Joshua Kaplan Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter. 2. Sick in a Hospital Town By Ginger Thompson, with research by Doris Burke Why were the people in Albany, Georgia, so sick, when the town’s most powerful institution was a hospital? 3. Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is “Only a Matter of Time” By McKenzie Funk Current and former flight attendants for GlobalX, the private charter airline at the center of Trump’s immigration crackdown, expressed concern about their inability to treat passengers humanely and to keep them safe. 4. The Untold Saga of What Happened When DOGE Stormed Social Security By Eli Hager DOGE has ignored urgently needed reforms and upgrades at the Social Security Administration, according to dozens of insiders and 15 hours of candid interviews with the former acting chief of the agency, who admits he sometimes made things worse. 5. Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal By Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Alex Mierjeski The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found Trump once did the very thing he called “deceitful and potentially criminal.” 6. Getting “DOGED”: DOGE Targeted Him on Social Media. Then the Taliban Took His Family. By Avi Asher-Schapiro and Christopher Bing Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi, who fled the Taliban in 2021, had worked to help U.S. diplomats understand his homeland. Then DOGE put his family’s lives at risk by exposing his sensitive work for a U.S.-funded nonprofit. 7. “The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention By Hannah Allam One year out of college and with no apparent national security expertise, Thomas Fugate is the Department of Homeland Security official tasked with overseeing the government’s main hub for combating violent extremism. 8. The Price of Remission By David Armstrong When Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, he set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. He has covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What he discovered shocked him. 9. “Incalculable” Damage: How a “We Buy Ugly Houses” Franchise Left a Trail of Financial Wreckage Across Texas By Anjeanette Damon and Mollie Simon Charles Carrier is accused of orchestrating a yearslong Ponzi scheme, bilking tens of millions of dollars from both wealthy investors and older people with modest incomes. Despite signs of trouble, the houseflipping chain HomeVestors of America didn’t step in. 10. The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation By Robert Faturechi and Avi Asher-Schapiro Federal authorities were chided for seizing electronic devices from Tate and his brother, and told to return them, records and interviews show. Experts said the intervention was highly inappropriate. 11. This County Was the “Model” for Local Police Carrying Out Immigration Raids. It Ended in Civil Rights Violations. By Rafael Carranza, Arizona Luminaria. Co-published with Arizona Luminaria. Under Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County was one of the first testing grounds for ICE’s 287(g) program, which lets local police enforce immigration laws. Many Arizonans say those abuses parallel what’s playing out now under Trump. 12. The H-2A Visa Trap By Max Blau, ProPublica, and Zaydee Sanchez, for ProPublica, with illustrations by Dadu Shin for ProPublica Sofi left behind her child in Mexico for the promise of providing him a better life. She ended up a victim of an operation that is alleged to have exploited the H-2A visa program — and the workers it brought to America. 13. “Ticking Time Bomb”: A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn’t Get an Abortion in Texas. By Kavitha Surana and Lizzie Presser, photography by Lexi Parra for ProPublica ProPublica has found multiple cases of women with underlying health conditions who died when they couldn’t access abortions. Tierra Walker, a 37-year-old mother, was told by doctors there was no emergency before preeclampsia killed her. 14. To Pay for Trump Tax Cuts, House GOP Floats Plan to Slash Benefits for the Poor and Working Class By Robert Faturechi and Justin Elliott A menu of options being circulated by congressional Republicans also includes new tax cuts for corporations and the ultrawealthy. 15. Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirements, experts say. 16. We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. By Nicole Foy, photography by Sarahbeth Maney The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And nearly 20 children, two of whom have cancer. 17. Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera. By Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy, photography by Peter DiCampo Behind closed doors in Washington, top advisers made a series of decisions that had devastating repercussions for the poorest country on earth. We went to South Sudan and found people who died as a result. 18. “The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump By Eli Hager In a recording obtained by ProPublica, acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek portrayed his agency as facing peril, while also encouraging patience with “the DOGE kids.” 19. This Charter School Superintendent Makes $870,000. He Leads a District With 1,000 Students. By Ellis Simani, ProPublica, and Lexi Churchill, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Co-published with The Texas Tribune. On paper, Salvador Cavazos earns less than $300,000 to run Valere Public Schools, a small Texas charter network. But taxpayers likely aren’t aware that in reality, his total pay makes him one of the country’s highest-earning superintendents. Read More 25 Investigations You May Have Missed This Year 20. What You Should Know About Russ Vought, Trump’s Shadow President By Andy Kroll Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies. Here are some key things to know about the D.C. insider who wants to take a hatchet to the federal government. 21. “Slow Pay, Low Pay or No Pay” By T. Christian Miller Blue Cross authorized mastectomies and breast reconstructions for women with cancer but refused to pay the full doctors’ bills. A jury called it fraud and awarded the practice $421 million. 22. “We’re Broken”: As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Are Leaving in Droves for ICE By Keri Blakinger Many of the problems the agency is facing now are not new, but staff and prisoners fear an exodus of officers could make life behind bars even worse. 23. He Spent Funds Meant for Native Hawaiians on Polo and Porsches. The Federal Government Failed to Stop Him. By Nick Grube, Honolulu Civil Beat. Co-published with Honolulu Civil Beat. A small business program allowed Christopher Dawson to win big contracts if he promised to uplift Native Hawaiians. Instead, federal prosecutors allege, he used the money to line his own pockets. 24. Young Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget. By Jessica Lussenhop, ProPublica, and Andy Mannix, Minnesota Star Tribune, photography by Leila Navidi, Minnesota Star Tribune. Co-published with Minnesota Star Tribune. In Minnesota, leaders of an Old Apostolic Lutheran Church community enabled a child abuser by telling his victims that once the sins were “washed away in the blood of reconciliation,” they could never speak of them again. 25. Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. By Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban. The post The Most-Read ProPublica Stories of 2025 appeared first on ProPublica. This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by ProPublica.
The Venezuela Escalation Ignores a Long History of U.S. Hypocrisy on Drugs
Every accusation is a confession. This is clearly true of the Trump administration’s insistence that Venezuela operates as a “narco-state,” exporting terrorism to the U.S. via fentanyl, now labeled as a “weapon of mass destruction.” The charge is not only false, given that virtually no fentanyl enters the country from Venezuela, but transparently political and pretextual. More The post The Venezuela Escalation Ignores a Long History of U.S. Hypocrisy on Drugs appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM.png 1848w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-969x630.png 969w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-768x500.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-1536x999.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-600x390.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1848px) 100vw, 1848px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="969" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-969x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-969x630.png 969w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-768x500.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-1536x999.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-600x390.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM.png 1848w" sizes="(max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395215" class="wp-image-395215 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-680x442.png" alt="" width="680" height="442" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-680x442.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-969x630.png 969w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-768x500.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-1536x999.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-500x325.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM-600x390.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-29-at-9.34.12-PM.png 1848w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Jon Tyson. Every accusation is a confession. This is clearly true of the Trump administration’s insistence that Venezuela operates as a “narco-state,” exporting terrorism to the U.S. via fentanyl, now labeled as a “weapon of mass destruction.” The charge is not only false, given that virtually no fentanyl enters the country from Venezuela, but transparently political and pretextual. This hypocrisy was made unmistakable with Trump’s recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in 2024 in a U.S. federal court on drug trafficking charges. Hernández presided over a regime long treated as a strategic ally within Washington’s regional security architecture, a reminder that the label of “narco-state” is applied not according to fact but according to the shifting imperatives of U.S. imperial power. This accusation collapses further when placed in broader historical context. For decades, the most powerful state actors facilitating and protecting narcotics trafficking have not been Washington’s adversaries but Washington itself. Throughout the Cold War and the so-called War on Drugs, the United States, above all through the CIA, repeatedly subordinated drug enforcement to geopolitical priorities, enabling narco-networks so long as they advanced perceived U.S. interests. These dynamics became especially pronounced in the 1980s, with disastrous consequences both at home and abroad. The decade marked an intensification of the Cold War under Ronald Reagan. His administration insisted that communist “advances” could not only be contained but rolled back. Upon taking office, Reagan launched his promised global offensive, intervening wherever alleged Soviet influence appeared. Turning a blind eye to drug trafficking became a central feature of this crusade, as anti-communism consistently took precedence over anti-narcotics efforts. Carter and the Crisis of Confidence Reagan’s rise followed a brief but meaningful thaw. In the wake of Watergate and the Vietnam War, Americans’ faith in political institutions had been profoundly shaken. Years of economic stagnation, inflation, and the reverberations of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo convinced many that the postwar promise of endless upward mobility, the ideological core of the American dream, was collapsing. It also became impossible to ignore that the U.S. was not only failing to deliver on its economic promise but had also long abandoned the democratic values it claimed to champion. In 1975, the Church Committee laid bare what much of the Global South had known for decades: the United States had been operating as a global anti-democratic force, orchestrating coups and assassinations, sabotaging leftist movements (at home and abroad), and imposing political outcomes that served the interests of American capital rather than the aspirations of people around the world. Then, in 1977, came Jimmy Carter. Carter promised a new foreign policy rooted not in reflexive anti-communism but a commitment to human rights. In doing so, he broke, at least in his rhetoric, with decades of bipartisan Cold War orthodoxy. For the first time, a president openly challenged the axiomatic belief that every leftist movement was a Kremlin proxy that demanded immediate U.S. intervention. As Carter put it, “we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear,” acknowledging that “for too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs.” Washington, he admitted, had “fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is better quenched with water,” a strategy that had ultimately backfired. Carter would also come to critique not only the misguided zealotry of U.S. foreign policy but, to an extent, capitalism itself. As he turned toward the root causes of the nation’s intersecting crises, he warned that “too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption,” and that “human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.” Conservatives responded with derision, quickly dubbing it the “malaise speech,” a framing that captured many Americans’ refusal to confront the deeper structural problems Carter had identified. The Reagan Rollback Reagan ran on this response. He rejected everything Carter had come to represent. Carter, for his part, presided over a series of perceived foreign policy blunders, not all of them self-inflicted, including the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and his actual record was far less radical than his rhetoric suggested. But Reagan seized the moment, casting Carter as weak, naïve, and insufficiently committed to American power and the American way of life, and he won in a landslide. When Reagan assumed office in 1981, he claimed a mandate to pursue his promised program of unfettered capitalism at home and militant anti-communism abroad, raising the military budget to what were then unprecedented levels. Yet even with this political momentum, he faced constraints. Among them was a public skepticism toward foreign intervention, labeled “Vietnam syndrome,” which posed a direct challenge to his effort to reassert American military primacy on the global stage. Reagan, however, was not inclined to let public sentiment, democratic constraints, or questions of legality impede his objectives. This saw its most notorious expression in the Iran-Contra Affair, in which administration officials sold weapons to Iran, then in a war of attrition with Saddam’s Iraq, whom the U.S. was backing, in exchange for assistance pressuring Hezbollah to release American hostages in Lebanon, while simultaneously generating funds to support the Contras in Nicaragua. Both were illegal: Congress barred aid to the Contras with the 1982 Boland Amendment, and arms sales to Iran violated U.S. law once it was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. Drug Traffickers and “Freedom Fighters” Another method in which Reagan sought to bypass political constraints on his policies was through the funding of “freedom fighters” in covert proxy wars, an expensive endeavor financed not only by taxpayer dollars but also by enabling allies to engage in drug trafficking. The tactic was hardly new. Imperial powers had long leveraged drugs to consolidate geopolitical control, from alcohol’s role in Indigenous dispossession to Britain’s forced export of opium into China. Nor was this unprecedented for the United States. During the American war in Vietnam, U.S. intelligence enabled local traffickers to fold an existing regional drug trade in support of their counterinsurgency effort. As historian Alfred McCoy has demonstrated, this helped transform the Golden Triangle into the world’s largest opium-producing region. Estimates during the conflict suggested that up to 25% of U.S. troops stationed in Southeast Asia used heroin in some units, and thousands returned home with addictions seeded with the complicity of Washington. Under Reagan, such complicity only grew. As the administration aggressively expanded punitive anti-drug policing at home under the banner of the “War on Drugs,” it tolerated and indirectly facilitated the cultivation and transport of narcotics when doing so served Cold War priorities. This dynamic was most visible in two of the bloodiest proxy wars of the Reagan era: the Soviet-Afghan War and the Contra War in Nicaragua. After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States funneled billions of dollars to the mujahideen in an attempt to mire the Soviets in a Vietnam-like quagmire, ultimately producing the most expensive covert operation in U.S. history. It was clear at the time that this policy risked significant “blowback,” although the result was much worse than imagined, but the chance to bleed the Soviets was not one Reagan was willing to forgo. The extent of U.S. support, indispensable to sustaining the anti-Soviet insurgency, led political scientist Mahmood Mamdani to refer to the insurgency as an “American Jihad.” But the flow of money and arms was not enough on its own, and drug trafficking helped to supplement the effort. Before the war, heroin production in Afghanistan was negligible. By 1989, Afghan-Pakistan supply routes dominated global markets, destabilizing the country and region and creating the conditions for a catastrophic CIA and drug-money enabled, warlord-led civil war that ultimately led to the Taliban’s consolidation of power in 1996. This heroin not only fueled death and destruction in Afghanistan, where the American-Afghan victory was paid for with the lives of millions of Afghan civilians, but it also boomeranged back. As Mamdani documents, during the Soviet-Afghan jihad, this heroin came to account for some 60 percent of the heroin circulating on U.S. streets. The consequences were immediate and severe. As a White House drug-policy adviser acknowledged at the time, New York City witnessed a 77 percent increase in drug-related deaths. In Central America, a parallel “logic” emerged. The Contras needed cash, and cocaine networks supplied it. The Contras needed cash, and cocaine networks supplied it. The Kerry Committee, convened in the wake of Iran-Contra, and tasked with investigating these links, concluded in 1989 that there was substantial evidence the Contras engaged in drug smuggling and that U.S. officials allowed them to operate without interference. This support for traffickers unfolded at the very moment the U.S. was intensifying its domestic crackdown on cocaine. During this period, lawmakers and prosecutors entrenched and weaponized legal asymmetries between crack and powder cocaine, driving the militarization of policing and expanding infrastructure of mass incarceration, a campaign that disproportionately targeted and destabilized Black communities across the country. When Gary Webb, an investigative journalist for the San Jose Mercury News, revealed in 1996 an even more direct connection between CIA awareness of Contra-linked cocaine profits entering the United States and the simultaneous domestic “War on Drugs,” the backlash was swift. Government officials and major media outlets launched a concerted campaign to discredit him, all but ending his career. Nonetheless, many of his findings would soon be corroborated, at least in part, by internal investigations conducted by the CIA and DOJ. The Failures of the “War on Drugs” Trump’s latest invocation of drugs as a pretext for war with Venezuela is unconvincing on its face. But situated within the long historical record of U.S. complicity in, or calculated indifference to, drug trafficking when it served strategic ends, even when those decisions inflicted direct harm on Americans, it becomes little more than farce. For decades, Washington has treated narcotics not as a public health challenge but as a political instrument, inflating them into an existential national security threat when expedient and minimizing them when inconvenient. The “war on drugs” has never been a genuine campaign to curb the sale or use of narcotics or to protect Americans. Rather, it has functioned as a mechanism for advancing American power. This history makes clear that the U.S. cannot credibly condemn other nations for their entanglements in the drug trade until it reckons with its own record as a facilitator of state-sponsored terrorism and narco-trafficking. The post The Venezuela Escalation Ignores a Long History of U.S. Hypocrisy on Drugs appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eric Ross.
America’s Loss of Science and Loss of Virtue
The Trump administration has issued a death warrant for science. This kills one of America’s greatest most productive avenues to GDP growth. Simple-minded people are determining the future course of the country. After all, science is foundational to America’s economy. More The post America’s Loss of Science and Loss of Virtue appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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The Trump administration has issued a death warrant for science. This kills one of America’s greatest most productive avenues to GDP growth. Simple-minded people are determining the future course of the country. After all, science is foundational to America’s economy. This legacy for America is destined to be the antithesis of what’s found in the writings of Marcus Aurelius’ world-famous notebooks, filled with words of wisdom about leading an honorable life, Meditations, one of the world’s great pieces of literature by one of the wisest minds of the ancient world Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 CE) the 16th emperor of Rome collected thoughts in notebooks, now considered one of the most important Stoic texts of all time and common text for America’s universities today. Marcus is now stronger than ever as one of the most widely read works of philosophy in the world. Will this administration leave a “notebook” like Marcus’s for history to judge… virtue, honor, respectfulness, pursuit of the common good? Hmm. Marcus Aurelius was the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world. “More recent leaders such as Bill Clinton have admired Marcus not so much as a philosopher-king but simply as a man who recognized that he had to do his duty as emperor without letting it go this his head and without becoming a tyrant.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditation, The Annotated Edition by Robin Waterfield, Basic Books, 2021). Marcus’s notebooks are filled with praise for a virtuous lifestyle. He describes the most important virtue as “acting fairly, honestly, and with kindness towards others, thus recognizing one’s duty to the community and the common good.” ICE? Yet, America is experiencing a feast of political retribution and destruction of value-oriented policies created for the common good. This is destruction via a wrecking ball of indeterminate size because it is so large that it’s difficult to fully comprehend. For example, Trump underlings are halting construction of major offshore wind farms, based upon a squirrely excuse of “threats to national security” (classified reports) creating radar interference. Why does this sound phony? Come on now, seriously, years ago, Trump claimed windmills cause cancer, said he hates them, before anybody dreamed up a national security issue. They’re suspending five major projects that were slated to go into full operation in 2026 and early 2027. Wind is free, no CO2 emissions, suspending work is prima facie evidence of insanity at work. The Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts’ coast is one of the targeted projects. One-half of its turbines are already generating power and sending it to the grid while the remainder of the massive 62-turbine-farm remains under construction, aiming to serve 400,000 homes with electricity when fully operational. However, as of December 22, 2025, it is now officially halted by a federal order from the DOI. Meanwhile, the operating turbines have exceeded all pro forma expectations for electricity generation. Standing tall! In pitch-perfect Newspeak, Trump officials say cuts in science are made in “the interest of better science” that benefits all Americans. That has a very bad odor to it. Nearly 2,000 doctors, scientists, and researchers, including dozens of Nobel Prize winners, signed an open letter warning that the U.S. lead in science is being “decimated” and that a “climate of fear” has descended on the research community. More than 90 NIH researchers publicly signed a separate letter, aka: the “Bethesda Declaration” criticizing deep cuts in public health research. That doesn’t sound like better science. Plans to Breakup “The Mother of Climate Research” “White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, in a post Tuesday on X, announced the plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, calling it ‘one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.’ NCAR was founded more than six decades ago to provide universities with expertise and resources for collaborative research on global weather, water, and climate challenges… Antonio Busalacchi, who heads the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of 129 U.S. universities that oversees the Boulder facility, told NPR he received no prior notice before the announcement and believes the decision ‘is entirely political.” (Scientists Push Back on Trump Plan to Break Up a Critical Climate and Weather Center, NPR, Texas Public Radio, Dec. 20, 2025) NCAR impressively impacts every American, e.g., among NCAR’s many contributions, it developed dropsondes — tube-shaped instruments released from aircraft…Antonio Busalacchi says these efforts have contributed to decades without passenger plane crashes caused by wind shear or downbursts. “We’ve had zero loss of life from these weather events that can be directly attributed to our research. And that’s what we’re talking about losing, if NCAR shuts down,” Ibid. The threat to NCAR is far-reaching: “Jason Furtado, an associate professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, calls NCAR ‘a world-envied research center for atmospheric science’ and ‘a beating heart for the atmospheric science community.’ He says his research and that of many other scientists would simply not be possible without the Boulder center. ‘In some way every atmospheric scientist has a connection to NCAR, whether they’ve directly been to the building or they have not,” Ibid. Negatively clobbering atmospheric scientists does not make science better. It makes it much, much worse and threatening a society that is increasingly harmed by climate change’s insane whiplashing weather systems that, if not forewarned, kill and destroy, sending a clear message that fossil fuel CO2 emissions heat up the planet beyond sustainability of a 10,000-year-old climate system, not too hot, not too cold. Why have the insurance industry and commercial banks figured this one out, yet the White House seems lost in the weeds? “Insured losses from natural disasters in the U.S. now routinely approach $100 billion a year, compared to $4.6 billion in 2000,’ according to a recent Senate Budget Committee report… Costs to insure many homes are higher today, and in some cases, insurance is harder—in certain areas even seemingly impossible—to find.” (How Climate Risk — and losses — Are Creating High Prices for Home Insurance, JP Morgan, May 16, 2025) The world’s largest insurance company: Allianz: How Climate Change is Unravelling Insurance Markets, Sustainability Magazine, April 7, 2025. This is no hoax. Ipso facto, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder has never been needed more than today. Major insurance companies and major commercial banks have already identified the issue of a whacky climate system supercharged by burning too much fossil fuels as a threat to America’s economic system. But now, with the Trump cuts, everybody’s flying blind in the face of torrential climate behavior seen on nightly news programs throughout the country. Statement by Allianz Senior Executive “The way forward, according to Allianz and others, is unequivocal – reduce emissions at speed and scale. The technologies already exist – solar, wind, battery storage, green hydrogen, grid upgrades – but deployment remains sluggish. This is not just a moral imperative, they argue. It is a financial one. This is not about saving the planet. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance and civilization itself can continue to operate. Manufacturers, particularly those dependent on insurance, finance and cross-border capital flows, must see decarbonization as not just a regulatory or ethical requirement—but as a precondition for business continuity,” Ibid. Those wind farms could save tons of CO2 emissions that heat up the planet, disrupting thousands of years of a Goldilocks’ climate system. It’s nearly gone! Meanwhile, scientists are looking overseas for work. What a mess! The post America’s Loss of Science and Loss of Virtue appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Hunziker.
We are today living in an era of historically ferocious political regression, a massive conservative backlash whose grievances are often more imagined than real. In no case is this more dramatic than race. Notwithstanding the fact that Nick Fuentes is preaching white victimhood to millions, the Coast Guard has declassified nooses and swastikas as hate symbols, and the Supreme Court has eliminated voting rights protections and affirmative action, African Americans continue to be discriminated against. Indeed, for all of the problems with the New York Times' 1619 Project, it did show the ways in which structural racism continues to shape the US from healthcare to the labor market to criminal justice to traffic. Nevertheless, today's anti-woke backlash is so ubiquitous that even some liberals have accepted its premise that in the movement against racism the pendulum has swung too far. More The post Antiracism in the Age of Trump appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 4032px) 100vw, 4032px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="840" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-840x630.jpeg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-227496" class="size-medium wp-image-227496" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-680x510.jpeg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-680x510.jpeg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-840x630.jpeg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-500x375.jpeg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_1563-600x450.jpeg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the US might be the only country that ever went from the status quo to counterrevolution without revolution in between. We are today living in an era of historically ferocious political regression, a massive conservative backlash whose grievances are often more imagined than real. In no case is this more dramatic than race. Notwithstanding the fact that Nick Fuentes is preaching white victimhood to millions, the Coast Guard has declassified nooses and swastikas as hate symbols, and the Supreme Court has eliminated voting rights protections and affirmative action, African Americans continue to be discriminated against. Indeed, for all of the problems with the New York Times’ 1619 Project, it did show the ways in which structural racism continues to shape the US from healthcare to the labor market to criminal justice to traffic. Nevertheless, today’s anti-woke backlash is so ubiquitous that even some liberals have accepted its premise that in the movement against racism the pendulum has swung too far. It is therefore immensely valuable that David Roediger has just written a memoir, as there are few people better equipped to evaluate the project of radical anti-racism in light of today’s all-consuming reaction. An Ordinary White: My Anti-Racist Education accomplishes a great deal. For one, it is a record of both Roediger’s life and the world into which he was born. Roediger, now 73, was raised in the southern Illinois “sundown town” of Columbia, Illinois and spent parts of his youth in Cairo, Illinois, a town whose leaders, after unsuccessfully fighting desegregation tooth and nail, decided to abandon rather than share the city’s schools, pools, and parks. Roediger writes that he was “saved” from his small town’s racist parochialism by the Catholic left and the Black freedom movement and, later, by the anti-war movement. Roediger also credits his interest in music and sports (he was an accomplished tennis player and deeply admires Arthur Ashe) for broadening his worldview and helping to lead him from a likely life of smalltown factory work to the heights of historical scholarship. The book additionally chronicles the different milieus Roediger came up in, including the radical publisher Kerr Company and collectives such as the Red Rose Chicago Surrealist Group, and it details the evolution of his research on, and eventual bridging of, labor and race. Roediger is humble and the idea of his writing a memoir, which necessarily draws attention to its author, seems a bit incongruous. But it becomes clear that one of Roediger’s aims with the book is to credit his influences and mentors, including historians Sterling Stuckey and George Rawick. Providing the reader with an intimate depiction of scenes from the post-1970s left, Roediger also shares stories about everyone from Raya Dunayevska and CLR James to Eugene Genovese, Noel Ignatiev, Mike Davis, Toni Morrison, and Angela Davis, with whom he once escaped a late-running event to watch Spike Lee’s Bamboozled. Roediger is polite and generally prudent, but he nevertheless earns his keep as a storyteller, in part by sharing numerous excellent recommendations of writers, films, and books (other than my great former professor Jerry Watts, Roediger is the only person I’ve ever heard recommend Jack Conroy’s fantastic 1933 novel The Disinherited). The book also frequently functions as a fun and informative form of campus lit. Roediger has taught exclusively at <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-395024 alignright" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781531509576_1-680x1027.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="302" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781531509576_1-680x1027.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781531509576_1-417x630.jpg 417w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781531509576_1-500x755.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781531509576_1-600x906.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781531509576_1.jpg 700w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />large public Midwestern land-grant universities (currently the University of Kansas) and provides a detailed account of their history and the dire straits they find themselves in today. The rot at the heart of the modern university is nicely conveyed through descriptions of posh parties attended by star professors and hosted by ambitious administrators who make “constant pronouncements of loyalty to place and mascot” while continually searching for jobs higher up the ladder. Simultaneously, Roediger points out that Thorstein Veblen observed a century ago that the university (‘”an aggregation of buildings and other improved real-estate'”) will always pursue physical construction (more than ever, sports facilities) over silly things like teaching and learning, so it’s hard to be too scandalized about the problems of the university today. Still, Roediger writes, “I find it worth critically defending the crappy, underfunded, corporate, compromised public universities that we have against the forces dismantling them.” But the heart of the book is a defense of the politics that Roediger is most associated with. Wages of Whiteness, one of the foundational texts of White Studies (a term Roediger has shied from), had a thunderous effect on the then-prevailing conceptions of the history of race and labor. Borrowing its title from a line by W.E.B. Du Bois, the book examines the ways in which working class whites benefited from and defended the psychological wage accruing to their “race.” That is, whites’ racism was not merely an effect of top-down manipulation by elites or “false consciousness” diverting them from their “true” economic interests but was, amid the degradation of industrial labor, produced from the ground up to offset white workers’ miseries via the solace of their “at least not being Black.” While this observation seems commonplace today, it has become so in large part because of the contributions of Roediger and scholars such as Ignatiev as well as those, including Kimberlé Crenshaw and bell hooks, working in the related and much maligned field of Critical Race Studies. The political implications of Wages of Whiteness would seem self-evident, but the book has been subject to both attack and, maybe more destructively, misinterpretation. Many Marxist thinkers originally rejected Roediger’s argument, which accorded primacy not to class and economics but psychology. To be fair, Marx himself recognized the obvious dialectic between material base and superstructure; what is defined as real is real in its effects. Roediger’s account was an essential intervention into an at times abstract Marxism that could explain labor relations in general but, when applied to the racist conditions of US history, not always in particular. There is no doubt that the bosses would send in the Klan to break up interracial cooperation among workers, but there are explicable, if tragic, reasons why it so often worked. Any revolutionary movement needs to tackle these reasons head on, not condescendingly explain them away as a result of mere manipulation of duped white workers. It is in significant part due to Roediger that there are today thankfully very few on the left who would deny “…that there is no serious US study of class that does not also take full measure of race and gender.” If Marxists largely failed to land their blows against Wages of Whiteness, the adoption of Roediger’s arguments by liberals has ironically inflicted a great deal of damage. We seemingly cannot go a day without seeing another denunciation of woke politics, the scourge of the right but also subject to the “real talk” of liberals who are still reeling from the elections of Donald Trump. One problem is that many of these denunciations are in their particulars correct, and it isn’t difficult to score points by lampooning the institutionalization of antiracism, particularly its self-flagellating/self-indulgent “therapeutic” strains. Indeed, there is much to criticize when it comes to self-promoters like Robin DiAngelo, as HR departments have eagerly appropriated antiracism to, ironically, enhance their disciplining of labor by providing management with a moral cudgel. That management is going to opportunistically exploit whatever it can to further control workers, however, is not a criticism of antiracism but of management. As Roediger notes, both Critical Race Theory and White Studies never sought to change the subject from class to race but instead understood that shifts “in the direction of equality under the law leave in play historic inequalities and the current structures that reproduce them, requiring a systematic remedy.” It goes without saying that hierarchical institutions that are wholly invested in maintaining capitalist relations are intrinsically incapable of pursuing such remedies. This applies not only to employment but also education. Irrespective of the merits or radicality of antiracism, without larger structural transformation it is doomed to become something else once it is incorporated into K-12 mandatory schooling, a massive coercive state bureaucracy cultivating tomorrow’s workforce through inculcating the general obedience and intellectual conformity desired by employers. The self-serving institutional appropriation of antiracism doesn’t mean, though, that we throw the baby out with the bathwater. As Roediger writes, in working for radical transformation we have to go “through” not “around” race. As such, Roediger emphasizes that he has never once suggested that whites ought to feel ashamed for being white, a debilitating position that all but guarantees the backlash. On the contrary, calling again on Du Bois, Roediger insists that whites ought to feel not guilty but angry — angry that their political horizons have been narrowed by the lies of race, “sad failures of imagination” separating them from meaningful betterment of their world as well as their humanity. The post Antiracism in the Age of Trump appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joshua Sperber.
I wrote my first post for Inequality.org, Our First Trillionaire: Only a Matter of Time, over twelve years ago. I hoped, at the time, that the post would age poorly. After all, the presence of a trillionaire on American soil would certify that we had unquestionably reached an oligarchic concentration of our nation’s wealth. Unfortunately, More The post Trillionaire Cometh, Democracy Goeth appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, 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1225w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="523" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1225px) 100vw, 1225px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1225" height="943" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1225px) 100vw, 1225px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1225" height="943" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1225px) 100vw, 1225px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1225" height="943" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1225px) 100vw, 1225px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1225" height="943" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1225px) 100vw, 1225px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1225" height="943" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1225px) 100vw, 1225px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="818" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w" sizes="(max-width: 818px) 100vw, 818px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395194" class="size-medium wp-image-395194" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="523" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-680x523.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-818x630.jpg 818w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-768x591.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-500x385.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941-600x462.jpg 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elon_Musk_54349592941.jpg 1225w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 2.0 I wrote my first post for Inequality.org, Our First Trillionaire: Only a Matter of Time, over twelve years ago. I hoped, at the time, that the post would age poorly. After all, the presence of a trillionaire on American soil would certify that we had unquestionably reached an oligarchic concentration of our nation’s wealth. Unfortunately, that post has aged remarkably well. If anything, I now see my forecasting as too timid. Elon Musk’s personal wealth now sits at about $750 billion. That total represents an annual average increase of 23 percent over the $60 billion Bill Gates fortune of 2013. At that rate of increase, America will boast its first trillionaire at least a decade before 2039, the year I gave CNBC writer Eric Rosenbaum in 2014 as the date our nation would most likely see its first trillionaire. Back in 2013, I worried mightily that the absence of a reliable mechanism in America’s tax system to limit the growth rate of extreme fortunes would cause the wealth share of the richest Americans to rise to ever-higher levels. Wealth at America’s economic summit, I noted, was growing at a faster rate than the nation’s aggregate wealth, and that rapid growth was bringing a disturbing arithmetic into play. “If the wealth of one group within a nation grows at a faster rate than the nation’s aggregate wealth,” I pointed out, “that group’s share of the aggregate wealth must increase over time. That’s a mathematical certainty. And the level of subsequent wealth concentration has no limit.” Our country’s wealth concentration story has played out exactly that way over the past dozen years, as economist Gabriel Zucman has detailed. The nation’s top .00001 percent — a mere 19 households — has increased its share of America’s wealth from 0.1 percent in 1982 to 1.81 percent in 2024. Of the country’s $148 trillion total wealth in December 2024, those 19 households held $2.6 trillion. In the past year, their wealth total has increased to well over $3 trillion. That increase has produced a stunning annual increase in the wealth share of that ultra-elite group, nearly 7 percent per year on average. To achieve that rate of wealth share growth, the wealth of our top .00001 percent — one ten-millionth of America’s households — has had to grow at an average rate nearly 7 percentage points above the average annual growth rate of the country’s wealth. Over a decade ago, I told CNBC that America’s march to oligarchy would revolve around a considerable increase in the concentration of wealth within the billionaire class. Those 19 households in our top .00001 percent comprise 5 percent of America’s top .0002 percent (380 households, or roughly, the Forbes 400). Their share of the wealth of that larger group of billionaires now stands at about 50 percent today, a quadrupling since 1982. What has generated America’s increasingly oligarchic wealth concentration? The worst culprit, I’d argue, continues to be a federal income tax system that not only lacks a reliable mechanism to rein in the growth of massive fortunes but does the exact opposite, exacerbating wealth inequality when we most need it contained. Specifically, our tax system applies an extremely regressive tax rate to capital gains, the principal form of economic income flowing to our billionaire class. The effective annual income tax rate on the capital gains of our richest often runs less than 5 percent. That reality has baked into America’s cake a continuing concentration of our country’s wealth. In 2013, with Mexico’s Carlos Slim then the world’s wealthiest person, I contemplated the concentration of power that would accompany the arrival of American trillionaires. “Unless basic U.S. tax policy changes,” I noted, “the United States will be mathematically certain to reach Mexican-like levels of wealth concentration. The only questions: Who will be our Carlos Slim and how kindly will our trillionaires treat us.” Indeed, the gap between America’s level of wealth concentration and Mexico’s has closed considerably over the past 12 years. Slim, still the wealthiest Mexican, has seen his share of Mexico’s total wealth fall since 2013. But the share of American wealth held by the wealthiest American — Gates in 2013 and Musk in 2025 — has tripled. And we saw the accompanying concentration of power become vividly visible at Trump’s second inauguration. On the inaugural stand, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg all sat center stage. We see that same concentration in the funding of our politics. In the 2024 election, reports Americans for Tax Fairness, our billionaires collectively accounted for $2.6 billion of the $15.9 billion in total political spending, a total lopsidedly on the Republican side. Musk alone spent about $277 million in 2024, a tiny one-thousandth of his net worth at the time, but nearly 2 percent of total political spending in a nation of 340 million people. At his current level of wealth, Musk could drop $1 billion by himself into the 2026 election without breaking much of a financial sweat. But those numbers only hint at the political power our richest now wield. Billionaire control over our nation’s major media outlets far exceeds the influence of direct billionaire political spending. The six billionaires with wealth over $200 billion all control either a major media outlet or a major social media platform. Musk, of course, owns Twitter. Zuckerberg, through Meta, controls Facebook and Instagram. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Larry Ellison’s son, David, holds a controlling interest in Paramount, the media giant that owns CBS and is seeking to acquire control of Warner Bros. Discovery. The Ellisons also have their eyes on the U.S. operations of TikTok. Larry Page and Sergey Brin remain the largest shareholders of Alphabet, the corporate colossus that controls Google and YouTube. What does that billionaire lock-grip over our largest media translate into? Everything from a Washington Post editorial page that rails against wealth taxation to the placing of America’s most respected weekly network TV news show, 60 Minutes, in the censorious hands of the right-wing ideologue Bari Weiss. America now finds itself in a democracy-destroying downward cycle. Extreme wealth begets a political power that begets policy choices that lead to even more extreme wealth concentration. The challenge of breaking that cycle could hardly be more daunting. The arrival of our first trillionaire could well mark the date America’s oligarchy becomes unbreakable. Let’s not let that happen. The post Trillionaire Cometh, Democracy Goeth appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bob Lord.
Africa Deindustrializes Due to China’s Overproduction and Trump’s Tariffs
At the close of a year in which Africa’s underlying economic problems continue to worsen, the Johannesburg G20 summit on November 22-23 utterly failed in its mandate to cut the continent’s foreign debt and assure that appropriate climate-finance grants will be available. Nevertheless, even while the world economy’s value chains suffer disfigurement thanks to Donald More The post Africa Deindustrializes Due to China’s Overproduction and Trump’s Tariffs appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1440" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1440" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1440" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324.jpg 2560w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1120" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1120x630.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1120px) 100vw, 1120px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395200" class="size-medium wp-image-395200" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-680x383.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="383" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-680x383.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Session_I_of_the_G20_South_Africa_2025_000186324-600x338.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph Source: 内閣広報室｜Cabinet Public Affairs Office – CC BY 4.0 At the close of a year in which Africa’s underlying economic problems continue to worsen, the Johannesburg G20 summit on November 22-23 utterly failed in its mandate to cut the continent’s foreign debt and assure that appropriate climate-finance grants will be available. Nevertheless, even while the world economy’s value chains suffer disfigurement thanks to Donald Trump’s whimsical tariffs, ambitions for Africa’s long-overdue industrialization are regularly articulated based either on copying an East Asian sweatshop-based strategy replete with Special Economic Zones, given the continent’s large, young, desperate workforce; or on adding value to local raw materials. In both cases, hope is sometimes expressed that, as U.S., British and European Union (EU) aid shrinks and trade barriers rise, the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) economies will come to the rescue, especially because a benign sponsor – Beijing – is standing by, quite capable of reversing current trends. Writing in early December, Tricontinental research institute leader Vijay Prashad recalled how, “At the 2015 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Chinese government and fifty African governments discussed the problem of economic development and industrialization. Since 1945, the question of African industrialization has been on the table but has not advanced due to the neocolonial structure that has prevented any serious structural transformation.” True, colonial-era and immediate post-colonial African dependency relations persisted thanks to Western economies’ power over the continent’s exports, over global commodity markets and over nascent value chains through the fragmentation and extension of corporate production systems. Only a few sites of durable capital accumulation emerged in Africa via productive forces associated with manufacturing. Prashad explains: “The most industrialized countries on the African continent are South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt, but the entire continent accounts for less than 2% of world manufacturing value added and only about 1% of global trade in manufactures. That is why it was so significant for FOCAC to put industrial policy at the heart of its agenda; its 2015 Johannesburg Declaration affirmed that ‘industrialization is an imperative to ensure Africa’s independent and sustainable development’.” These are fine aspirations – and they are also expressed regularly in African elite meetings with Western imperial powers, such as in Angola last month when 76 leaders of the EU and African Union met for a major summit aiming to “Strengthen continental and regional economic integration and accelerate Africa’s industrial development.” Yada yada. In practice, such sentiments tend to be overwhelmed by the capitalist mode of production’s laws of motion; today, especially by the unregulated, increasingly desperate drive for profit and commodity access by Chinese firms. A new book makes that case (with free download here): The Material Geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative, edited by Elia Apostolopoulou, Han Cheng, Jonathan Silver and Alan Wiig. (For dialectical curiosity, here’s a completely different approach, from a neoliberal podcaster arguing that China’s ‘curse of overproduction’ is not capitalism’s fault but is due to “government’s heavy intervention, weak market mechanisms, and lack of legal frameworks perpetuate inefficiencies, with local governments chasing GDP through subsidies and projects.”) In a more critical – but nationalistic (and non-solidaristic) – spirit, one of Prashad’s leading allies here in Johannesburg, Irvin Jim of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), made a heartfelt appeal last month against “the dumping of cars from India and China” whose automakers have increased their market share here by a factor of 25 since 2018. Hence, insists Jim, “it is about time that we must increase tariffs.” His grievances about massive job losses caused by imports – to be discussed in detail in the next essay – suggest Prashad is not yet attuned to deindustrialization damage done by the Chinese state and its capitalists in recent years. Moreover, at a time the West has shrunk its own (inflation-adjusted) aid-debt-investment packages, the FOCAC commitments made in 2015 – amounting to about $22 per African citizen – were chopped nearly in half by 2024. Relentless Western abuse of Africa Of course, Washington should mainly be blamed for the continent’s most current wave of social misery and economic degradation, which in the second half of 2025 contributed to Gen Z social uprisings in Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Madagascar, Zambia and Tanzania. The mix of Western economic attacks on Africa and greedy resource grabbing should not disguise how imperial interest at the White House and State Department is waning: Trump last week recalled 15 career-professional U.S. ambassadors from African countries, to be replaced by America-First political hacks. Exceptions to that disinterest in Africa may arise, such as the Lobito Corridor extraction route for $2 trillion worth of minerals to be spirited out from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) via an Angolan port. In a ‘peace deal’ earlier this month brokered by Trump between corruption-accused DRC leader Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame – one immediately violated – the U.S. president announcedhe would soon be “sending some of our biggest and greatest companies over to the two countries… we’re going to take out some of the rare earth and take out some of the assets and pay… and everybody’s going to make a lot of money.” Except the African people and ecologies, yet again victims of what can be termed ‘unequal ecological exchange.’ Already in February, Trump and his ex-South African sidekick Elon Musk had wiped out most U.S. emergency food, medical and climate-related aid to Africa, with a special cut for all South African contracts. Washington’s $64 billion US Agency for International Development was shuttered by Musk, fed “into the wood chipper,” leaving many millions of lives at risk (although some AIDS medicines spending was later revived). Then came Trump’s devastating tariffs – in February, April and again in August – followed by the September demise of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which since 2000 had given dozens of African countries duty-free access to U.S. markets. Notwithstanding a deeper context of dependency relations associated with AGOA – for as political economist Rick Rowden points out, “gains were largely due to African exports of petroleum and other minerals, not manufactured goods” – these latter trade-curtailing processes were exceptionally damaging, wiping out 87% of auto exports from South Africa in the first half of 2025. The World Bank concluded of 2025’s tariff chaos, “industry-level impacts may be significant in global value chain–linked activities, notably, textiles and apparel as well as footwear (Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mauritius) and automotive and components (South Africa)… Loss of the AGOA would sharply reduce exports to the United States. On average, exports would decline by 39% if a nation were suspended from AGOA benefits.” (A House of Representatives bill may gain support to resume AGOA in 2026 but without the main industrial beneficiary, South Africa, due to Trump’s irrational hostility. Exports of autos, steel, aluminium and many agricultural products to U.S. have collapsed.) Moreover, other Western sources of demand for African products will also soon decline, according to the World Bank, thanks to Europe’s “new regulatory measures, such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the EU Deforestation Regulation, [which] impose stringent compliance requirements on exporters of cement, metals, and agricultural products” starting in early 2026. The Bank admits both that a “global shift toward ‘friendshoring’ in strategic industries, risks marginalizing African suppliers” – thus undermining its export-led ‘growth’ mantra. On the class-struggle front, the Bank continues, “The growth of the labor share in national income registered a negative contribution in 2000–19: it declined at an annual rate of 0.1%. This decline reflects the adoption of more capital-intensive technologies, increased participation in global value chains, reduced (relative) bargaining power of workers, and greater market power of large firms in concentrated product markets.” Too much is being produced, mainly by China Still, the overarching crisis affecting the world economy, not just Africa’s, can be termed the ‘overaccumulation of capital,’ which Karl Marx had in Das Kapital identified as the core internal problem capitalism faces, due to the tendency to overproduce relative to market size. From that process, we can understand geopolitical tensions much better. As world-systems sociologist Ho-fung Hung recently suggested, “Today’s intensifying U.S.-China rivalry resem­bles more the inter-imperial rivalry a century ago driven by the overaccumula­tion of rising capitalist power – that is China – than the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.” At the end of 2025, it is abundantly evident that far too much productive capacity exists in China, given limits to the fractured world economy’s ability to mop up the surpluses through various forms of consumption and debt – now at saturation level in many countries. The excess capacity is experienced in various ways, as capital flows away from durable fixed investment in many settings, and often into extreme financial bubbling due to higher speculative profits. When the crash comes, if the state is sufficiently strong, such credit flows can be reversed, as Evergrande’s 2021-22 collapse in China illustrates (following which the state’s managers of overaccumulated capital self-destructively redirected bank loans to manufacturing again). Nervousness about the durability of the financialization that inevitably follows overproduction is reflected in the soaring gold price, up from $250/oz 25 years ago to an insane $4500/oz today. There is also new evidence, in many national economies, of fresh swathes of deindustrialization, high levels of unemployment and under-employment, and falling profit rates. Mostly though, excess capacity is the core signal, as some crucial sectoral examples show: + global steel output of nearly 9 billion tonnes in 2024 contrasted to 2.47 billion tonnes of capacity (i.e., 76% capacity utilization), with a rise of another 10% excess capacity estimated in 2025, to 680 megatonnes; + in chemicals, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month, “A wave of new Chinese petrochemical plants is raising fears of a deluge of exports that will put pressure on other producing nations that are already struggling with oversupply” due to “seven massive petrochemical hubs… creating a global glut that could swell even further if more planned plants come online” at a time, in 2025, polyethylene output rose 18%; + China’s annual vehicle production capacity – carrying either internal combustion engine or electric motors – was 55.5 million vehicles/year capacity in 2024, but was only half utilized (just 27.5 million vehicles were produced that year), while in 2025, Chinese output was expected to reach 35 million (still a low capacity utilization), displacing other economy’s sales and leaving the world with increased idle capacity, as global vehicle sales languish at 90 million; + also in China, “The root cause of the cement sector’s current difficulties lies in the long-standing problem of overcapacity, which has now been amplified by weaker market demand” since 2021 “due to declining property investment and a slowdown in infrastructure construction,” according to the China Building Materials Federation, and + solar photovoltaic panels generated nearly 600 GW of new power in 2024 – mostly emanating from China – but there was, at that point, more than 1,000 GW of annual manufacturing capacity, and to store the power, lithium-ion batteries were produced at the scale of 2.5 TWh in 2023, but by 2024 there was 3 TWh of capacity and projections of 9 TWh by 2030, at a time demand was expected to rise only to 5 TWh. (Renewable energy offers a curious form of capitalist ‘excess capacity’ – since this description obviously deserves scare quotes: for the sake of ecological sanity, it is a misnomer. So much more capacity is urgently needed for installation in every corner of the earth, but at an affordable price. And it’s becoming obvious that even mass production in China apparently cannot drive prices down to the point where capitalism can save itself from the climate catastrophe, given this disjuncture.) As a result of core sectoral overinvestment, financial bubbling and trade turmoil, world capitalism is currently suffering the worst case of overaccumulation in recorded economic history. In a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the extent of recent overproduction emanating from China is illustrated by comparing investment rates of its firms (and also multinational corporate subsidiaries there) to sites elsewhere. China’s economy takes obvious leadership in ‘new economy’ sectors, amidst an overall investment boom that followed Beijing’s recent redirection of bank lending into manufacturing. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395083" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-680x378.png" alt="" width="680" height="378" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-680x378.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-1134x630.png 1134w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-768x427.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-1536x853.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-500x278.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM-600x333.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.25.09-AM.png 1750w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> However, whether this investment can be justified by sustained profitability remains to be seen, for as the OECD shows, China’s rates are generally lower overall than in other countries, and especially in several (mainly old-economy) sectors including semiconductors, fertilizers, chemicals, aluminium, steel, and aeronautics and defense. One reason for the overproduction of those goods, is the Chinese state’s ambition and ability to redirect credit flows (often at below-market rates), as can be seen in the year-on-year growth in Beijing’s (centrally-directed) lending to its own firms. This is a revealing case in which public policy amplifies capitalism’s underlying contradictions (the classic ‘pro-cyclical’ bias of neoliberalism). So after the early-2019 year-on-year increases in lending to China’s bubbly real estate sector hit $1 trillion, at the peak of the economy’s chaotic property speculation, then, contributing to the bubble’s burst, loans fell rapidly in 2021, down to no year-on-year growth by early 2024. In contrast, year-on-year growth in Chinese manufacturing finance rose from steady levels of just $60-90 billion in the 2016-20 period; and suddenly by late 2023 there were $700 billion worth of new manufacturing loans (compared to the year before). <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395082" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-680x423.png" alt="" width="680" height="423" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-680x423.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-1014x630.png 1014w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-768x477.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-1536x955.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-500x311.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM-600x373.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.21.18-AM.png 1786w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> These trends appear to have continued, if the People’s Bank of China statistics are accurate; in September its staff reported that “outstanding medium and long-term loans to the manufacturing sector registered a year-on-year increase of 15.9%. Specifically, outstanding loans to the high-tech manufacturing sector increased by 13.4% year on year.” Hence in 2024-25, manufacturing output in China has been formidable, growing nearly 6% annually (more than ten times the 0.6% global manufacturing increase in 2024 and three times 2025’s expected increase of 1.9%). The result is a 2025 trade surplus that, for the first time, exceeded $1 trillion. But it is vital to keep the systemic features in mind, because in this process of serving capitalist global value chains, “China has made large transfers in value through trade and investment to the imperialist bloc,” according to Marxist economist Michael Roberts. This is obvious enough, but so too have peripheral countries like the DRC made large transfers in value to Chinese capitalism through, first, Congolese workers’ depletion of non-renewable resources that are inadequately compensated (either through royalties or various forms of profit reinvestment), thus depriving current and future generations of natural wealth; second, through massive greenhouse gas emissions whose cost we consider below; and third, through local pollution which in many cases can be extreme. All these features contribute to China’s role as a subimperial power. Can Chinese-led industrialization save Africa? How does China address its excessive local investment and untenable trade surpluses? One obvious strategy implemented since the early 2010s is when firms attempt so-called ‘going out’ from their immediate sites of overaccumulation, along the Belt and Road Initiative. This has included the establishment of much stronger connections to African markets, which should in turn permit more African exports. This process coincides, insists Ho-fung Hung, with “the increasing competition between Chinese capital and U.S. capital worldwide after China started to aggres­sively export its overaccumulated capital to the rest of the world in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008.” In contrast, on the optimistic end of the spectrum, Prashad argues, “China’s industrial capacity would be put at the service of Africa’s need for industrialization through the creation of joint ventures, industrial parks, a cooperation fund, and mechanisms for technology and science transfer. Africa-China trade has increased from $10 billion in 2000 to $282 billion in 2023. In 2024, the Chinese government upgraded its relationship with African states to ‘strategic partnerships’, enabling greater cooperation. We now have a test case for whether South-South cooperation can engender sovereign industrialization that breaks with the old patterns of plunder and dependency.” But on the pessimistic end, there are too many instances of adverse impacts from Chinese capitalism in Africa: deindustrialization through swamping local markets with surpluses (as NUMSA complains), especially as the displacement of Trump’s tariffs; broken promises on Special Economic Zone investments; brazen but unpunished corruption; excessive lending and then sudden cuts in credit lines; and heinous corporate behavior especially in the extractive industries, including extreme ecological damage. Each needs elaboration, in the pages below. And one test case deserves more consideration: the rapid deindustrialization of South Africa underway in recent months thanks to the ‘dumping’ (i.e. sale at below the cost of production) of Chinese overaccumulated capital, according not only to the government in Pretoria – which in recent months punished imported Chinese steel, tyres, washing machines, and nuts and bolts with new tariffs – but also to NUMSA (which wants the same for cars), although it is ordinarily very pro-China. In South Africa, the manufacturing/GDP ratio was 24% in 1990 and has now sunk to 13%. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-395077" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-680x392.png" alt="" width="680" height="392" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-680x392.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-1092x630.png 1092w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-768x443.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-1536x886.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-500x289.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM-600x346.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.12.04-AM.png 1816w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Formidable Chinese product competition means the African economies mentioned by Prashad as the continent’s lead industrial production sites, plus the largest in population (Nigeria), have not improved their manufacturing/GDP ratios since that 2015 FOCAC industrialization hype. Most such ratios, like South Africa’s, had already collapsed in the first round of 1990s-era trade liberalization. The optimal test case that many pointed to during the mid-2010s as Africa’s cutting-edge industrialization site, was Ethiopia, thanks to the sudden emergence of (largely sweatshop) manufacturers mainly in Addis Ababa, whose products benefited from the new train line to the port of Djibouti, built with the assistance of Beijing. As a result of the influx of Chinese firms’ local production of clothing, textiles, footwear and other light-industrial output, Ethiopia’s manufacturing/GDP rose rapidly from 3.4% at the low point in 2012, to 6.2% in 2017. However, that ratio subsequently fell to 4.3% in the period 2021-24. As the International Monetary Fund explained, “The share of manufactured goods such as textiles, leather and meat product in total exports had grown to 13.5% in Fiscal Year 2018/19, from a small base, but declined sharply thereafter to around 4% in the first nine months of FY2024/25, due to the pandemic, conflict, suspension from AGOA, and foreign exchange shortages that limited availability of intermediate imports.” Those hard currency shortages led to a major financial crisis in late 2023, when the Addis Ababa regime declared bankruptcy on foreign loans, just days before the country officially joined the BRICS network. As a result of the default, Ethiopia was initially not permitted to become a formal member of the BRICS New Development Bank, for potential hard-currency credit infusions (nearly 80% of that bank’s lending is in the dollar or euro), although it is scheduled to join, at some stage. Then in mid-2024, a $2.56 billion International Monetary Fund package imposed all the classical Washington Consensus remedies on Ethiopians, including a 50% currency depreciation which was meant to spur manufacturing exports. Indeed a revival of sweatshop exports oriented to Chinese consumer markets apparently began in 2025, and Beijing began talks to potentially convert $5.4 billion of its dollar-denominated loans to Ethiopia into yuan by late 2025, on which a lower interest rate would be paid. Ethiopia was indebtedto China for $7.4 billion of its $28 billion foreign debt in late 2023 (with $15.3 billion owed to international financial institutions). But in Ethiopia, and across Africa more generally, foreign exchange reserves have shrunk due to the vicissitudes of Global North states and multilaterals. For all recipients, aid was cut in 2024 by 9%, and in 2025 by up to 17%. The peak year for Overseas Development Aid to Africa was 2020 at $73 billion, but especially since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, European capitals and London have replaced a great deal of aid for Africa with higher military budgets. Will Beijing step in? In aggregate, Chinese aid, investment and loans to Africa have also fallen since mid-2010s peaks, which also affected states’ foreign exchange reserves. China’s own new public and publicly-guaranteed loans to Africa collapsed from $32 billion in the peak year of 2016, to $1 billion in 2022. The year-end 2025 African foreign debt of $1.3 trillion includes $182 billion in Beijing’s known public and publicly-guaranteed loans. China had taken a decision in 2021, AidData researchers remind, to fund 128 rescue loan operations in 22 low-income countries facing debt distress, costing $240 billion. These included five African states – Angola, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania and Kenya – among which low-income borrowers were “typically offered a debt restructuring that involves a grace period or final repayment date extension but no new money, while middle-income countries tend to receive new money – via balance of payments (BOP) support – to avoid or delay default… These operations include many so-called ‘rollovers,’ in which the same short-term loans are extended again and again to refinance maturing debts.” The 2024 FOCAC did, however, denominate more financial flows in the Chinese currency, which could facilitate trade, alleviate forex shortages, and also lower transactions costs. Yet devils are in the details, for against all the logic argued above, according to the Centre for Global Development (which is generally neoliberal and welcomes Chinese lending): Between 2015 and 2021, commercial creditors contributed about a third of all Chinese lending commitments over that period. These commercial lenders overtook policy banks between 2018 and 2021 … [and] are market-oriented, with loans that are more expensive and with shorter maturity than state-owned counterparts. Their need for risk mitigation, usually through Sinosure, raises the financing costs even higher. Over the next five years, a continuation of this trend where Chinese commercial lenders become an ever-larger segment of lending to Africa at non-concessional rates will only heightens the risks of debt distress. So the overall trends suggest that China’s extreme overaccumulation of manufacturing this year, as Trump’s tariffs cause chaos at a time of Belt & Road Initiative burn-out, there is no reason to expect FOCAC to, as Prashad hopes, “engender sovereign industrialization that breaks with the old patterns of plunder and dependency.” Africans should prepare for the opposite. FOCAC’s declining pledges, 2006-24 <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395075" class="wp-image-395075 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-680x215.png" alt="" width="680" height="215" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-680x215.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-1200x380.png 1200w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-768x243.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-1536x487.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-500x158.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM-600x190.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-8.11.06-AM.png 1812w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Source: http://www.focac.org/eng/ Also adversely affecting Africa’s hard currency revenues, most energy and mineral commodity markets crashed after their May 2022 peaks (with notable exceptions like gold and, recently, platinum). As a result, across the continent, there is less foreign exchange available to repay debt, especially when exacerbated by the higher interest rates imposed by the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2022-24. In 2025, Trump’s new tariffs on African exports to the U.S. represented an overall 10% levy in April, followed by higher amounts for many countries in August (e.g. South Africa at 30%). Annual remittances, generally paid by African migrant workers living in countries abroad to their family back home, rose in this period from $66 billion up to $110 billion in 2024, but are not expected to rise further due to rising Western xenophobia. Are Chinese firms looting Africa? In this desperate context, Ethiopia’s sweatshop experience could not be termed genuinely ‘sovereign industrialization,’ no doubt Prashad would agree. Nor should any African – or sympathetic observer – tolerate the Chinese-led extractive industry plunder of many economies, resulting not only in extreme ecological damage in general terms, but in a series of specific scandals and social resistance. As noted above, there are usually three categories to consider, of ecological reparations due to non-renewable resource depletion, greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of localised pollution. Michael Roberts acknowledges, <a href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/123828041/Marxism_and_the_environment_the_issues-libre.pdf?1752761838=&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3DMarxism_and_the_environment_the_issues.pdf&Expires=1766924139&Signature=WTReY53lgRNSQg5jsQ06io0KeYidu2ffNjKWR8zlT~SdV4dfiT9GT-sopIxHOmnWdnJPHrGsA3wr0tRAVV2aqjGgOexbDCWpQuRYsJZ0lruvGFVgcc7WSZbgFj5TJFxGA5se2hzRpAix8AeYNSZqhpIL-VzJXNo8rWUKkx5Oanw8Xbau0EXcGeQrRSU9WswoRrIOt5voWOK4~WvJLL-BI6AE-u0HT4zL5RIl~gBY9PPJPV4lFjpggPpLLeMox6NnVPXlJilzKn4s4~s3tetRR4eIRVWgQtlEv7nRnCmEKe3qR7a5D3MnGW0UqNpIqEQr5gVqZmfUpAmKCh6dd0dR1g__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA">in a helpful essay on environmentalism, “a continual battle by capital to control and lower rising raw material prices as natural resources are depleted and not renewed, adding another factor tothe tendency of the rate of profit to fall.” And in a 2021 co-authored analysis of the ‘Economics of Modern Imperialism’, Roberts <a href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/77579031/_1569206X_Historical_Materialism_The_Economics_of_Modern_Imperialism_1_-libre.pdf?1640797334=&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3DThe_Economics_of_Modern_Imperialism.pdf&Expires=1766926135&Signature=XrmbqSABNo4CB6r7H1Gnn9Urnea6CvElRgb12p3qdutQMQHjgwiAa6r~P8lg3e1SYUGapfiVb2kMRD~ocuVrBBEXusEnrEHYQLJ2sL~lUGlaNQVO0Nhe0X3-cbg68kkeU2Fz~LdUH0Qv17EhHNK8uJZ-VZyXuDak0PP7~~-hN~WUzI9rVbtkerixpV9cxTDZqXNdI03SsENUzVDixVs7dMsAVyrko1mEjdT923WZtAadtA4Pn9IAOOWVdmnrJjslRZyy3nVRJ9dAqZp6Er2eyh6FQJUq83LyeKZ5O8Zzus3k7tTX4Qm~nFSwJSnyeYTM-1MkL~jx2J~jsCqzTs9N-g__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZAhttps://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/77579031/_1569206X_Historical_Materialism_The_Economics_of_Modern_Imperialism_1_-libre.pdf?1640797334=&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3DThe_Economics_of_Modern_Imperialism.pdf&Expires=1766926135&Signature=XrmbqSABNo4CB6r7H1Gnn9Urnea6CvElRgb12p3qdutQMQHjgwiAa6r~P8lg3e1SYUGapfiVb2kMRD~ocuVrBBEXusEnrEHYQLJ2sL~lUGlaNQVO0Nhe0X3-cbg68kkeU2Fz~LdUH0Qv17EhHNK8uJZ-VZyXuDak0PP7~~-hN~WUzI9rVbtkerixpV9cxTDZqXNdI03SsENUzVDixVs7dMsAVyrko1mEjdT923WZtAadtA4Pn9IAOOWVdmnrJjslRZyy3nVRJ9dAqZp6Er2eyh6FQJUq83LyeKZ5O8Zzus3k7tTX4Qm~nFSwJSnyeYTM-1MkL~jx2J~jsCqzTs9N-g__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA">argues, “Colonialism and modern imperialism do not exclude each other. Colonialism is the appropriation of natural resources, military occupation, the direct state control of colonies and the stealing by the imperialist countries of commodities not produced capitalistically. But colonialism contains in itself the germs of modern imperialism. This is the appropriation by capitals in the imperialist countries of the surplus value produced by capitals in the colonies through the trade of the commodities with high technological content produced in the imperialist countries for the capitalistically produced raw materials or industrial goods produced with lower technological content in the dominated countries. The result is unequal exchange, the appropriation of international surplus value through international trade.” Roberts concludes that the Chinese economy therefore retains a relatively low – and now fast-falling – share of global value chain profits due to unequal exchange processes. The distribution, marketing, financing and research and development departments of Western corporate headquarters squeeze out monies that could otherwise be paid to both Chinese and Congolese laborers and to communities now underpaid for their work in extraction of raw materials, in super-exploitative production systems, and in goods transport. There are some on the left who object to a critique based in part upon imperial-subimperial collaboration in the looting of Africa. Last year, Prashad’s colleagues at Tricontinental offered a different view of the DRC, based on competition between the Chinese on the one hand; and on the other, Western firms like Swiss-headquartered, London-listed Glencore (whose largest share of its $70 billion capitalization is actually registered on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange) and Canada’s Ivanhoe. Tricontinental authors claim that “Chinese interests therefore lie in keeping mineral and metal processing within the DRC and building an industrial base for the country.” This counter-intuitive conclusion is based on how, in Tricontinental’s interpretation, “The entry of the Chinese state and private Chinese companies into Africa over the past two decades has provided competition against the Global North countries and their mining companies. This was the first time that these multinational corporations faced direct competition, a shift that provided the space for the Congolese government to amend the mining code in 2018 on more beneficial terms.” Admitting that, in the process, Chinese firms gained “control of fifteen of the DRC’s seventeen mining complexes,” Tricontinental authors turn to this justification: “In the extractivism debate, the Global North, its eyes set on furthering its own agenda, has fixated on China’s role in the region as the world’s leading consumer of cobalt, nearly 80% of which it uses in its rechargeable battery industry. What is often left out of the discussion, however, is that, as the largest manufacturing country in the world, China uses Congolese minerals and metals to produce goods that are consumed across the globe, including in the DRC and the Global North.” Indeed this subimperial location within global value chains makes China subject to an unequal ecological exchange critique. For behind the general need for resource extraction and (limited) processing of minerals that goes on in Africa, are scandalous conditions. Without sinking into Sinophobia, it is useful to recall some of the highest-profile cases, because Beijing simply fails to respond to the obvious need to curtail Belt and Road abuse by Chinese firms: + in the DRC in November, Congo Dongfang International Mining leaked toxic pollution into the Lubumbashi River near the country’s second largest city, while nearby at Kalando, informal miners (75% of whom across the DRC sell their wares to Chinese buyers) suffered at least 50 deaths in a mountainside collapse that compelled the government to ban artisanal copper and cobalt mineral processing, in the wake of non-payment of billions of dollars’ worth of royalties to the government by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Ningxia Orient, JiuJiang JinXin and Jiujiang Tanbre smelters – all within Apple’s supply chain –which in turn resulted in a major lawsuit by the Kinshasa regime and by a S. public interest agencyagainst the California corporation, and similar non-payment accusations were made by Kinshasa officials against China Molybdenum’s super-exploitative Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine; + in Zambia’s copperbelt in February, negligence by Sino-Metals Leach and NFC Africa Mining caused a slime-dam break – of 5 million tonnes of cyanide- and arsenic-laced sludge – into the Kafue River, resulting in an $80 billion lawsuit by some of the 700,000 affected residents adjacent to Zambia’s main internal waterway and second-largest urban region; + in the Central African Republic’s mines, there was slave-like human trafficking of Nigerians – who went unpaid for a year in 2024-25 – by Rado Central Coal Mining Company; + in Ghana, Shaanxi Mining extracted gold in a manner that amplified the ‘galamsey’ artisanal mining crisis; + in Zimbabwe, there are countless complaints against Chinese mines, for looting $13 billion of Marange diamonds by the military-owned parastatal Anjin (as even President Robert Mugabe alleged in 2016), for the murder of a dozen Mutare artisanal gold miners in 2020 by Zhondin Investments, for mass displacement and pollution at the Hwange coal mine by Beifa Investments, for illegal mining in national parks by Afrochine Energy and Zimbabwe Zhongxin Coal Mining Group, and for Sinomine Resource Group’s failure to respect beneficiation requirements at the continent’s largest lithium mine, in Bikita, in addition to other Chinese lithium miners at Kamaviti, where as a result, Centre for Natural Resource Governance director Farai Maguwu alleged in late December, “Zim is the biggest donor to China, and not the other way round”; + in South Africa, the corruption of rail parastatal Transnet by Chinese locomotive suppliers empowered the notorious Gupta ‘state capture’ family, while at two chaotic Special Economic Zones, Chinese investors included an Interpol red-listed looter of a Zimbabwean mine and two auto producers (FAW and BAIC) whose job creation and production promises were not kept; and + in the two main oil and gas controversies in Africa, state-owned China National Overseas Oil Corporationis building a heated pipeline (the world’s longest) from western Uganda to Tanzania’s port of Dar es Salaam, and state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation’s participation (with partners ExxonMobil and ENI) invested in a long-delayed northern Mozambican ‘blood methane‘ gas extraction project, in the midst of a civil war with Islamic guerrillas that since 2017 has displaced one million people and killed many thousand – and in both cases, the ultra-corrupt TotalEnergies leads the projects. In addition to often-extreme human rights violations, these represent obvious forms of unequal ecological exchange, in which African economies lose net wealth, even if Chinese purchases of raw materials raise levels of foreign exchange and national income, creating (low-paid) jobs and providing a modicum of royalties, taxes and infrastructure. Typically outweighing such benefits, though, damage is not limited to local pollution and displacement, or to permanent depletion of non-renewable resources that leave both current and future generations impoverished. For example, instead of burning coal, gas and oil, their hydrocarbons should be left underground and only later, if needed, exploited for non-combustible purposes (lubricants, synthetic materials, pharmaceutical products, etc). On top of this damage, the extraction and processing of minerals also entail an enormous ‘social cost of carbon’ caused by CO2 and methane emissions in mines and smelters. This should be priced (by taxation not carbon trading) in the region of $1584/tonne of CO2 (according to a recent National Bureau of Economic Research study), rendering a great deal of the pollution-intensive extractive+processing activity as uneconomic. The latter damage will create new ‘polluter-pays’ climate debtors out of low-income African economies, if the International Court of Justice’s July 2025 advisory opinion on liabilities for socio-ecological reparations is to be taken seriously. Following the court’s finding against states which do not limit their firms’ emissions, much more climate-debt litigation is inevitable. In late 2024, Beijing and many other high-polluting countries’ governments had opposed any liability judgement because, as the imperialist and subimperial powers together insisted, the Paris Climate Agreement “does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.” The best opportunity for a Chinese climate debt payment to Africa arose in September 2021 when Xi Jinping announced, “China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.” However, not only is renewable energy still a for-profit commodity, unaffordable for the vast majority. In addition, in Zimbabwe, residents of the wretched coal-mining town of Hwange (near Victoria Falls) know that Xi’s was just one more broken climate promise, what with several Chinese coal-fired power plants under construction there. In sum, unless the Chinese state suddenly begins regulating its firms’ emissions and abuse of African resources and people, and finds creative ways to pay a wide range of ecological reparations, it appears extremely unlikely that a genuine industrialization initiative will emanate from Chinese investors. But having set the context of blame for Africa’s recent bout of underdevelopment both in Chinese overproduction and Trump’s tariffs – among the main new factors that amplify existing problems of commodity export dependency, excessive debt, structural adjustment policies and climate damage – the next essay will have to assess various strategies emerging among some leading African activists, ranging from nationalistic dirty growth to internationalist degrowth en route to eco-socialism. The post Africa Deindustrializes Due to China’s Overproduction and Trump’s Tariffs appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Bond.
Killjoy Was Here: Monument Envy and the Trump Regime
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said – “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped More The post Killjoy Was Here: Monument Envy and the Trump Regime appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="514" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1996px) 100vw, 1996px" /> <img loading="lazy" 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src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1996px) 100vw, 1996px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1996" height="1508" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1996px) 100vw, 1996px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1996" height="1508" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1996px) 100vw, 1996px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1996" height="1508" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1996px) 100vw, 1996px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="834" height="630" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w" sizes="(max-width: 834px) 100vw, 834px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-368435" class="size-medium wp-image-368435" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png" alt="" width="680" height="514" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-680x514.png 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-834x630.png 834w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-768x580.png 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-1536x1160.png 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-500x378.png 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM-600x453.png 600w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-6.12.09-PM.png 1996w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said – “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. –Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” “It’s a monument. I’m building a monument to myself because no one else will.” —Donald J. Trump, as quoted by Fox News propagandist Jesse Watters, on his “big beautiful ballroom” Donald J. Trump is ubiquitous and inescapable. He appears in our newspapers and on our televisions, cellphones, and computer screens almost every single day. Ever the Killjoy, leaving his mark on every institution he touches. Ever the Killjoy, he uses every public speaking engagement to boast of his achievements and air his endless list of grievances, turning turkey pardons and Christmas tree lightings into joyless spectacles of self-promotion and score-settling. He – and his resentments – are everywhere. As are his monuments, real and proposed. In less than a year in office, Trump has succeeded in paying tribute to himself where others have refused. He is like a feral animal marking its territory or a delinquent child graffitiing public property with a golden Sharpie. His name now adorns the United States Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center – the latter named for a real war hero who, unlike the White House’s current occupant, did not receive a deferment because of bogus “bone spurs” or describe STDs as his “own personal Vietnam.” His followers, for their part, are afflicted with TDS – Trump Devotion Syndrome, not to be confused with the more commonly discussed Trump Derangement Syndrome – a malady plaguing his cabinet members, Republican members of Congress, and his MAGA base, which demands unquestioned fealty. Trump wants his name on everything, excluding, of course, the Epstein files. Like Ozymandias, his frowning, sneering visage glowers at us from federal buildings, National Park Service America the Beautiful Annual Resident passes, and million-dollar Trump Gold Cards. (Don’t leave home without them, or risk being deported unless you also purchase the Trump Gold ICE Millionaire Pass Card for another million or two or three…). If he had his way – and who’s to stop him? – he would put his name on football stadiums, airports, state roadways, and “golden fleet” battleship classes. That fleet may prove necessary as Trump pursues new forever wars. It may be only a matter of time before Trump unveils a “Trump Doctrine” rationalizing the annexation of Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela, while striking “deals” to secure the critical minerals and rare earths of Australia, Japan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, and other countries deemed “important to national security” – not only to counter China, but also to enrich his circle of billionaire AI cronies. There are, however, moments when honesty escapes the black hole of Killjoy’s ego, as when, in the epigraph, he admits he erects monuments to himself since no one else will. Well, at least public monuments. Since his second term, Trump has been showered with golden trophies and ceremonial baubles from Apple CEO Tim Cook, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, President of South Korea, and a host of others – all eager to polish the ego of the man who would be king. And through his legion of sycophants – including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who is sponsoring a bill (H.R. 5789), the President Donald J. Trump Congressional Gold Medal Act,which would award him the medal in “recognition of his exceptional leadership and dedication to strengthening America’s diplomatic relations during his presidency” – he continues to receive a steady stream of golden laurels. Others, including Luna, have proposed adding Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore (despite the resulting damage it would do to the monument – built on stolen and sacred Native American land). Meanwhile Trump himself, in yet another gesture of onanistic hubris we have come to expect from the orange Albert Speer, has announced plans to erect what he has variously called a “Memorial Circle/Independence Triumphal Arch,” or what CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe dubbed the “Arc de Trump.” No doubt this will be followed by a new Amazon documentary, The Trump of the Will, perhaps directed by Brett Ratner (if he can schedule it before he helms Rush Hour 4), Trump-pardoned felon Dinesh D’Souza, or “Special Ambassador” to Hollywood Mel Gibson, an apt choice given the Leni Riefenstahl overtones of his oeuvre. While all of this may sound like satire, most of it is not. Trump has already reshaped federal spaces to suit his own narcissistic aesthetic. He has turned the Oval Office into a nouveau riche trophy room, remodeled White House hallways into portrait-lined corridors, complete with self-aggrandizing Truth Social-inspired plaques that pillory his predecessors and praise his own petty achievements. The purportedly phallic-challenged Trump has torn down the East Wing to erect – like another allegedly small-d dictator – a bunker-topping ballroom. How long before the White House becomes the “Trump House,” with the title emblazoned in his favored gold Shelley Script font along the building’s pediment? But Trump’s destructive excesses don’t end with the federal buildings he has demolished and degraded. There has been a human toll as well. At home, he has ravaged the health care system as he fiddles with his “concept” of one. His Department of Justice has terminated hundreds of public safety and victim services grants and implemented policies that severely undermine the nation’s public health. He has unleashed goon squads that have sent people to ICE and other facilities where they are sexually abused, brutalized, and killed, unpunished abuses that tellingly predate theTrump regime. Indeed, that fact ultimately explains why we are where we are. Abroad, Trump has obliterated USAID, armed the genocidal government of a war criminal who has slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and overseen operations coordinated by his own Secretary of War Crimes that have killed over 100 people in boat strikes in the Caribbean, as he prepares to repeat Gulf War II by declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” and send Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the UN, where, one imagines, he will dramatically wave a vial of the substance before the Security Council. After all, it worked for George W. Bush and Colin Powell, didn’t it? And we’ve seen how many days they spent in lockup because of their murderous lies. In government, as in finance, the elites are all Alfred E. Neuman: “What, me worry?” And so the mad American farce continues, which, again, is why we are where we are. This is also why they continue to violate the law with impunity. By now we should expect that the rule of law – domestic and international – and the rules of war mean nothing. Not only to Trump and his enablers, but also those who say they stand to protect them but refrain from doing so. How does one explain their inertia? The calculation seems to be that once Trump’s economic agenda fails, the misery index rises, and his approval ratings tank, Democrats will ride to victory in the midterms (assuming, of course, elections are held), regain the White House in 2028 (ditto), and perhaps even reclaim the House and Senate. They will then remove his abominations and the nation will drift back toward a semblance of normalcy. If you believe that, I have a “ceasefire” deal for you in Gaza. Genocides don’t begin with terrorist attacks, and dictatorships don’t thrive in a vacuum; they require conditions that lay the groundwork – a series of uncorrected transgressions that allow them to take root. They require institutions that look the other way, officials and bureaucrats who shrink from their responsibilities, soldiers who simply obey orders, and citizens who no longer care because fear and hatred of the Other is not only normalized but celebrated, as the public proves itself all too ready to accept each new breach of the social contract as the cost of living out its version of the American Dream. Institutional checks and balances are only as strong as the people entrusted to uphold them. This is unlikely in a political climate in which those who grift on hateful rhetoric are made cultural heroes and canonized as the second coming of Martin Luther King. Unfortunately, those who contest such deceptions are sadly ineffective. This is why a 34-count felon and adjudicated sexual abuser sits in the Oval Office. Impeachment? Been there, done that. And while there have been a few lonely souls in Congress – Reps. Shri Thanedar and Al Green – who have called for Trump’s impeachment – there has been no momentum. The courts? Yes, they have ruled against Trump repeatedly, but he ignores them, filing countersuits of his own to gum up the process. The 25th Amendment? An obviously mentally addled president who uses every speaking engagement to rant and rave at ear-shattering volume about everything except coherent policy – who rambles endlessly about his press secretary’s filler-injected lips and his wife’s “drawers,” who boasts about acing his cognitive tests but doesn’t know which part of his anatomy was scanned during his MRI – somehow manages to escape its invocation. This is due in part to a Cabinet and, potentially, a Republican-controlled Congress that lack the courage to invoke it, not only out of devotion to their Dear Leader but also because they sense that making America white again has become a national priority, even if the charge is led by a sociopath with a self-professed (confessed?) “love for minors.” Sure, maybe he meant “miners.” But we won’t know for certain until the unredacted Epstein files are released, even though Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles have already confirmed that he is in them – that Killjoy was there. But, as Wiles put it, Trump and his beastly bestie “were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever – I know it’s a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together.” Dictatorships emerge not out of darkness, but from dismissal and denial. The post Killjoy Was Here: Monument Envy and the Trump Regime appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Russell.
The National Security Strategy Paper on China
The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy paper, released this month, is filled with nasty, nativist language and half-truths straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. But amidst the bluster about historic success in strengthening national security and claims about resolving wars is a stark reminder of the direction US foreign policy is taking, which looks More The post The National Security Strategy Paper on China appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-394832" class="wp-image-394832 size-medium" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-680x382.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="382" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-680x382.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-1120x630.jpg 1120w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-500x281.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/winston-chen-SDlrYaBQjiM-unsplash-600x337.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Image by Winston Chen. The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy paper, released this month, is filled with nasty, nativist language and half-truths straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. But amidst the bluster about historic success in strengthening national security and claims about resolving wars is a stark reminder of the direction US foreign policy is taking, which looks to be a world divided into American, Chinese, and Russian spheres of influence. That would explain why Latin America receives so much more attention in the NSS paper than China or Russia. The theme of strategic competition with those two countries that was emphasized in Trump’s first national security overview has vanished. Now, China is viewed mainly as an economic rival. That is surely welcome news in Beijing. Competing with China The NSS paper, like Project 2025, decries previous Democratic efforts to bring China into a “rules-based” international system. The NSS offers an alternative that really isn’t: to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence.” In other words, seek what previous administrations have sought with China: get it to abide by rules of fair competition. The paper offers complaints we’ve heard before: China’s “unfair trade policies” such as state subsidies, intellectual property theft, industrial espionage, and “threats against our supply chains that risk U.S. access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements.” To counter China, the NSS says the administration will work with partners such as India (no reference to US tariffs that have undermined that relationship), protect critical infrastructure, invest in “research to preserve and advance our advantage in cutting-edge military and dual-use technology . . . ,” and urge Europe and Asian partners to adopt “trade policies that help rebalance China’s economy toward household consumption . . . ” Nothing new there. Despite those statements, the Trump administration has removed export restrictions on one of Nvidia’s most advanced AI computer chips, the H200, apparently in anticipation of a “big deal” on trade. Those are not the most powerful Nvidia chips, but they might have military as well as commercial value. Yet, in announcing the deal, which includes giving the US government 25% of sales, Trump assured one and all that the deal will be “under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security.” Evidently, not strong enough: The announcement coincided with another one from the US attorney for the southern district of Texas: interception of $160 million worth of Nvidia H100s and H200s that were destined, he said, for China and other countries. Further undercutting the Nvidia sale is China’s reported decision to turn down the H200, preferring to use semiconductor chips it has developed on its own. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia who would be the chief beneficiary of the deal, blamed the last two US administrations for this unexpected Chinese decision. “It’s clear that three years of overbroad export controls fueled America’s foreign competitors and cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,” Nvidia said. In other words, Trump, like Biden, hasn’t paid attention to the Chinese push for greater self-reliance in advanced technologies. Deterrence By Other Means Economic competition, the NSS says, “must be accompanied by a robust and ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific” and “preventing domination [in Asia] by any single competitor nation.” Achieving those goals is largely left to Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other partners: “America’s diplomatic efforts should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the U.S. military greater access to their ports and other facilities, to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.” What is new here is not the goals but the means to achieve them as the US shifts naval power away from Asia and into Latin America. What does that shift mean for the two main arenas of tension with China: Taiwan and the South China Sea? Trump has wavered on US policy on Taiwan. Sometimes he has aligned with traditional strategic ambiguity over what the US might do if China sought to absorb Taiwan. And just the other day the administration proposed a $10 billion arms sale to Taiwan, larger than any under Biden. At other times, however, Trump has said that Taiwan wasn’t doing enough in its own defense while raking in money from its dominance in the semiconductor trade. The NSS paper recognizes Taiwan’s economic value to the US; hence “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” But that’s not what Trump said as recently as a week ago when Xi Jinping thanked him for supporting “one China,” or what Trump did when he restrained Japan’s prime minister from repeating her unprecedented pledge to counter a Chinese attack on Taiwan. The Taiwan leadership is pressing for a major increase in military spending, both to satisfy Trump and to hedge against uncertainty about US support. As for the South China Sea, its value to the US is also cast in economic terms: the sea lanes that run through it. Thus: “Strong measures must be developed along with the deterrence necessary to keep those lanes open, free of ‘tolls,’ and not subject to arbitrary closure by one country. This will require not just further investment in our military—especially naval—capabilities, but also strong cooperation with every nation that stands to suffer, from India to Japan and beyond, if this problem is not addressed.” Nothing new here. So What’s New? Two things strike me about the China section of this NSS. One, as mentioned, is that it is more consistent with the China policy of recent Democratic administrations than it cares to admit with respect to trade and deterrence. Where Trump has diverged from past policies is a willingness to engage in a tariff war with China (which he has clearly lost) and a lower valuation of traditional allies such as Japan and South Korea. Even personal diplomacy with China, favored by Trump’s predecessors, is back in vogue as Trump anticipates a visit to China in April 2026. The second point has to do with strategic papers in general. All administrations issue them, but whether or not they are followed is another matter. The previous Trump NSS gave no hint of Trump’s leanings toward Russia or his strongly negative views of the EU and NATO. The current NSS is surely accurate about the administration’s absorption with commercial factors: tariffs, investments, technology, and defense spending. But as a guide to policy of the moment, especially concerning China, the strategy paper must be considered of limited value. We have a president who is capable of 180-degree policy turns at any moment. If Trump gets his big trade deal with China, he’ll abide by the main guidelines in the NSS. But if not, expect a return to Cold War-style competition and tariff hikes. The post The National Security Strategy Paper on China appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mel Gurtov.
The US Doesn’t Need a Party, It Needs a Revolution
Two hundred and fifty years ago, European colonists mostly from Britain were conspiring to chase the elements of the British monarchy from the shores of what we now call the United States. Many of those in the conspiracy were mostly interested in personal financial gain, whether it was measured in stolen land, enslaved humans or More The post The US Doesn’t Need a Party, It Needs a Revolution appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="alignleft wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="aligncenter wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="680" height="510" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="" 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https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-387141" class="size-medium wp-image-387141" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="510" srcset="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-680x510.jpg 680w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-840x630.jpg 840w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-500x375.jpg 500w, https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_3946-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /> Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Two hundred and fifty years ago, European colonists mostly from Britain were conspiring to chase the elements of the British monarchy from the shores of what we now call the United States. Many of those in the conspiracy were mostly interested in personal financial gain, whether it was measured in stolen land, enslaved humans or actual coinage. Freedom for all was not on the agenda for most of the men involved. However, freedom to keep their profits was. Over the years, the struggle by the humans left out of the founding fathers’ intentions has waxed and waned, occasionally winning those freedoms only to see them become weakened over time, mostly via the courts but almost as often through legislation and white supremacists in the White House. Fifty years ago—1976—the year began with Washington and its media machine hyping the two hundredth birthday of the United States. The resignation of President Richard Nixon some seventeen months earlier was celebrated as proof of the superiority of the US way of governance. You know, no one was above the law and all that stuff. To top it all off, the year 1976 was also a presidential election year; another example of the durability of the “experiment in democracy” being touted by the mainstream media no matter what its political leaning. The then liberal Washington Post and New York Times shouted the same misleading malarkey about the land of the free and the home of the brave as New Hampshire’s right-wing Manchester Union Leader (now New Hampshire Union Leader) and William F. Buckley, Jr.’s National Review. Tributes to the nation’s history never seemed to mention the genocide of the indigenous that paved the highways and laid the rails across the amber waves of grain, while the fate of the millions forced to take the Atlantic crossing into slavery that consumed their descendants as well was most often framed in terms of denouement as a result of civil war. Rarely, if ever, was the situation of most African-American working people in the 1970s touted as proof of the success of the white man’s American dream. That dream had, as Langston Hughes reminded us, been deferred for far too long. Indeed, it had exploded only a few years before the big Bicentennial bash and been put down by thousands of cops and troops. I was working as a short order cook at an IHOP in 1976. The best thing about the job was the access to food and the fac that my paycheck—as paltry as it was—covered my expenses and left me with money to spend on various entertainments, from beer to weed and concerts. This had a lot more to do with the price of things (and my side gig of selling weed to friends) in the mid-1970s than it had to do with the $2.50 an hour I was making for my fifty-hour work weeks. The US Left, which was in disarray but still capable of raising a fuss, was planning protest actions for the big day when the Bicentennial party would climax in a spasm of nationalist celebration from sea to shining sea. If Irving Berlin were alive, his royalties would certainly jump in the year to come. Francis Scott Key’s paean to the rocket’s red glare would be set on permanent repeat. The rulers were still convinced that God was on their side and that this land was their land. And don’t you forget it. The ultraleft in the form of the Maoists of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the remnants and political allies of the Weather Underground were looking towards Philadelphia for their marches, while the more mainstream Left formed a coalition called the Peoples’ Bicentennial Commission and began acquiring permits for their rally in DC. Meanwhile, the official celebration that took place every July Fourth on the National Mall was booking bands and musicians. The myth became ever more magnified. It’s now 2026. Fifty years later. The nation intends to celebrate its two hundred fiftieth birthday even as it becomes a mere shadow of what it proclaimed it wanted to be. If nothing else, we can see the emptiness of words in the wake of history, although this might be the place to note that some of the finest words we hear repeated regarding the founders of the nation were first written by men who owned slaves and celebrated the murders of the indigenous. Francis Scott Key was an attorney who represented slavers in cases challenging their abductions of runaways while he traded in slaves himself. And we know the rap sheet on Thomas Jefferson. Pretty words can only hide ugly truths for so long. 1976 was the historical moment just before the advent of neoliberal capitalism. The free marketeers’ ongoing attack on the so-called welfare state was enjoined in Britain and the United States. Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter made speeches that claimed the private sector could do many, if not most, things better than the public sector. Those sentiments were magnified by Ronald Reagan, the ultra-right’s candidate in the Republican party. It’s a reasonable argument that Reagan’s 1976 campaign was the beginning of his successful 1980 campaign for the White House. It’s also quite reasonable to conclude that that campaign began at least back in 1964 with Barry Goldwater who, at least had the wisdom to reject the support of the so-called Christian right wing. It would be Reagan’s embrace of that bunch of zealots (calling themselves the Moral Majority) that would propel the US into the long dark night of Reagan’s morning in America. Just like the champions of capital had proclaimed a hundred years earlier, the Christian god and the god of capital were united in their own pursuit of happiness at everyone else’s expense. When the nascent racism of the US white nation was added into the mixture, a new Trinity was conceived. Like they say on the TV, “Praise the Lord©.” And like they say in the Pentagon: “and pass the ammunition.” Despite the ravings of countless cheerleaders, neoliberalism was never a unique economics untethered to the history of capitalism; it is a logical step in capitalism’s destructive thrust. Fascist government is the political means by which capital and those who operate within its mechanism ensure their pursuit of profit proceeds. This is where we are currently at—the government of the United States operates primarily, if not yet completely, in the service of capital and those who hold the bulk of that capital. Marxists and capitalists alike agree that this 250th birthday is the anniversary of a nation that put the capitalists in charge, transferring power to a capitalist class and unleashing market forces through debt, land reform, and institutions designed serve that market. As far as I’m concerned there isn’t much to celebrate when it comes to this national birthday. Washington’s military is murdering people on the high seas and bombing Africans under the guise of religion. Domestically, unaccountable enforcers kidnap citizens and non-citizens alike in scenes reminiscent of police states around the world. Its war industry arms a genocide while provoking conflict across the globe. The rich and the super-rich profit from the rampage. The world can ill afford another twenty years of this, much less two hundred and fifty. The post The US Doesn’t Need a Party, It Needs a Revolution appeared first on CounterPunch.org. This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ron Jacobs.