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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
Replicating another racist, toxic, unnerving hate fest 75 years ago, Trump held a vitriolic rally Sunday in New York vowing to end "the migrant invasion of our country." His best people echoed him: Puerto Rico is "a floating island of garbage," Harris "the devil," and Dems "degenerates (we) need to slaughter" to create what his Goebbels calls an "America for Americans, and Americans only." In 1945, the feds sent pamphlets to World War ll soldiers to explain what "fascism" is. Now, we should know.
To no one's surprise except a sorry clutch of MAGA goons, the October surprise has been the obvious mental and moral unraveling of an old, sick “fascist to the core” already running the most racist, incoherent election campaign this country has ever seen. The vicious, nativist rhetoric labeling as murderous vermin, savages and terrorists every dark-skinned migrant seeking safety here - along with vilifying any opponent as "the enemy from within" - has now queasily merged with crude rancor - Harris is "a shit vice-president...Kamala, you’re fired. Get the hell out of here" - and daftphantasmagoria. In Trump world, every goose in Springfield, Ohio has "gone missing" like the cats and dogs, he's "got no cognitive," his "response" to a parent's question about improving New York schools is, "We're moving them back from Washington. I never saw....Give a little English. No transgender, no operations... There are some places - your boy leaves the school, comes back a girl, OK?" Dumb and dumber, ugly and uglier.
Inexplicably obsessed with Harris' college stint working at McDonald's, the guy who was a millionaire at 8 and stiffed every low-wage worker since then pretended to make fries at a closed McDonald's for pretend customers and thought it looked cool. Then he went to hurricane-ravaged North Carolina, where he pretended not to know Black Nazi Mark Robinson, proudly accepted a French Fry Certification pin, and lied again about FEMA running out of money that went to Dem-voting "illegals." After 440 mental health providers, citing his "irrationality," wrote Trump "is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office," the psychiatrist who helped craft 1973's "Goldwater rule" that kept providers from opining on his sanity said it shouldn't have, and he'd order dementia tests now. As to the boast by an almost 80-year-old who won't release medical records that he "aced" a cognitive test seven years ago: The test is a screening tool "given to potential nursing home patients to decide which wing to assign them to."
All the venom and madness and apocalyptic fear-mongering reached a fever pitch Sunday night at Trump's rally in New York City's iconic Madison Square Garden, "the epicenter of everything." He explained the choice of location in typically twisted terms, claiming he wants to "make New York great again, create an incentive for New Yorkers to stay...Rich people are leaving - the riches of the people are leaving." But beyond that, the site fed his malignant megalomania, representing a dark dream come true, "one more grand provocation." It offered the chance to achieve a long-sought campaign triumph; to avenge himself in the city that refused to love him and took him down; and, in a sinister echo of the past befitting a tinpot tyrant who's argued "Hitler did some good things," to reenact an infamous 1939 rally at the Garden held by the German American Bund, one of several U.S. groups who supported Hitler with a lethal "cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism."
Over 20,000 people attended the Nazi "Night at the Garden on February 20, 1939. Outside, up to 80,000 anti-Nazi demonstrators gathered, and some 4,700 policemen tried to keep the peace. Inside, the stage featured a towering image of George Washington - the event was disingenuously billed as a "pro-American" celebration of his birthday - flanked by huge swastikas and American flags. Nazi armbands and salutes were everywhere, and the mood was both jubilant and brazenly anti-Semitic. Posters urged, "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America"; speeches denounced "job-taking Jewish refugees" and F.D.R. as a "Rosenfeld" in the pocket of rich Jews. Others argued, distressingly convincingly, that white supremacy is at the core of America's founding. "The spirit which opened the West and built our country is the spirit of the militant white man," said the Bund's P.R. chief, citing Jim Crow laws and immigration quotas. "It has always been very much American to protect the Aryan character of this nation."
"Isadore Greenbaum was a 26-year-old plumber from Brooklyn," notes one account, "and on this night, he was a Jew surrounded by 20,000 Nazis." Greenbaum sat through the three-hour rally, the hateful speeches, the Heil salutes. Eventually, slowly, he started making his way to the front. He arrived at the foot of the stage as Bundesführer Fritz Kuhn began to speak. "You all have heard of me through the Jewish-controlled press," he said to cheers. "Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic and Christians, to demand our government be returned to the people who founded it!" Greenbaum jumped on stage, pulled down Kuhn's mike and yelled "Down with Hitler!" before he was tackled and brutally beaten by Bund thugs. "He had a black eye and a broken nose, but he said he would have done it again," said his grandson years later. Greenbaum was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25. When the U.S. entered the war, he enlisted in the Navy and fought the Nazis. In 1945, Kuhn was indicted on embezzlement charges and deported.
Trump's rally, some said, was less classy than the Nazis' in 1939, though the visuals were comparable: Huge screens showing images of armed gangs with, "Your apartment building under Harris," and news clips about crimes allegedly committed by immigrants, to which Trump sometimes offered grisly narration. On a murder of two young girls in Brentwood, NY: "They knifed them, and they cut them into little pieces...Perfect, perfect, young, beautiful girls were cut up into little pieces by MS-13...And you know who took care of it for us? ICE. We’re not defunding ICE, right?" Cult members reportedly began lining as much as eight hours before the rally's start; engulfed in Stars and Stripes and Trump merch, they said they were there to witness "an iconic American event" and "in solidarity," presumably with fascism. And they got what they came for: Despite all that's come before, the warm-up speakers, evidently told to let it all hang out, managed to be shocking - dark, crass, bestial, venomous.
Radio host Sid Rosenberg: Hillary Clinton is "a sick son of a bitch. The whole fucking party. A bunch of degenerates, lowlives, Jew-haters. Every one of ‘em. And the fucking illegals, they get whatever they want." Some real-estate guy: "(Harris) and her pimp handlers will destroy our country." Giuliani: "Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old - and Harris wants to bring 'em to you." Kamala is "a fascist," "the anti-Christ." On non-Trumpers : "We need to slaughter these people." Tucker Carlson, glad he's "a free man and not a slave," screeched, "As the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ to be elected president, she's not impressive.” Stephen Miller, howling immigrant Nazi ghoul: They tried to sue him, jail him, bankrupt him, imprison him, "and they even tried to kill him." When he wins, "the cartels are gone, the criminal migrants are gone, the gangs are gone. America is for Americans, and Americans only." Coincidentally, Hitler: "Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” Huh. John Pavlovitz: “Miller’s pronouns are He/Himmler.”
The Inadvertently Helping Dems In Swing States award went to bigot and "comedian" Tony Hinchcliffe, who "joked" he and a Black buddy had had fun at a Halloween party: "We carved watermelons together.” Mostly, he trashed Latinos. "They love making babies," he said. "There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country." Then he announced, "There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico." As he spoke, Harris was at a Puerto Rican restaurant talking about her economic plan to help the islands. There are over a million Puerto Ricans in Florida, a half-million in Pennsylvania, many thousands in Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan. AOC posted the comments and Harris' plans; so did Puerto Rican pop superstar Bad Bunny, whose most-streamed album in 2023 got 4.5 billion plays, to his 45 million Instagram followers; so did Jennifer Lopez (250 million), Ariana Grande (376 million) and Ricky Martin (16 million). Waytago Tony.
Trump showed up two hours later, having unsubtly traded his usual blue suit and red tie for the black and gold of the Proud Boys. "Kamala, you’re fired!” he yelled. “Get out!” Recycling his tired them-vs.us trope, he charged she brought in migrants "to prey upon innocent American citizens" and vowed, "The day I take the oath of office, the migrant invasion (ends) and the restoration of our country begins! I will launch the largest deportation program in American history... I will rescue every city that's (been) conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, kick them the hell out of our country...The United States (will) soon be an occupied country no longer." Yawn. As he babbled, people streamed out. Been there, done that. Sunday, even the both-sides New York Times had had enough. In giant caps: “TRUMP (WILL) PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.”
The truth, notes Heather Cox Richardson, like many other historians: We have seen his hateful shtick before, and it's stunningly similar to that spewed by the most famous monster of our era. Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. soldiers fighting in Europe in World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help (Army personnel) become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.” March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!” "You are away from home...,separated from your families, many of you are risking your very lives because of a thing called fascism,” it began. "What is fascism?" Calling it "government by the few and for the few," it describes "seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state...The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people...It is important as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”
The likenesses are telling, and terrifying. "Fascists make their own rules and change them when they choose...They maintain power by use of force (and) propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security...They play political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seize power while these groups struggle...Under the guise of ‘super-patriotism,' they pit groups against one another in a hate campaign against (minorities), deny any need for international cooperation (which disputes) their supporters are the only people (who) count, insist the world has but two choices - fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them (in) the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy." Finally, Americans should not be fooled into thinking fascism could not come to America; after all, “(We) once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache."
Facing tens of thousands of lawsuits after it acquired Monsanto, Bayer promised to remove cancer-linked glyphosate from its commercial Roundup weed killers by 2023. But an analysis published by Friends of the Earth on Tuesday reveals that the replacement is even more dangerous.
The environmental group found that many residential Roundup products still do contain glyphosate, and those that don't have replaced it with a chemical cocktail that is 45 times more toxic to human health following long-term exposure.
"With the new formulations of Roundup, Bayer had the opportunity to make us safer, but it did the opposite," Kendra Klein, deputy director of science for Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. "Bayer's willingness to deceive the public and disregard our health as it continues to cash in on the Roundup brand name is outrageous."
"In short, the new Roundup is not the old Roundup—it's worse."
Roundup weed killer was first commercially released by Monsanto 50 years ago. Since then, tens of thousands of people say they have come down with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma after repeated use of the product and its active ingredient glyphosate, which the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer says is "probably carcinogenic to humans." Despite the risk, it is so widely used that it has been found in 80% of a test of U.S. urine samples.
"The human toll of Roundup is enormous—tens of thousands of people have lost their lives and their health because of this toxic weed killer," Klein said.
In response to both legal challenges and popular pressure, Bayer announced in 2021 that it would remove glyphosate from residential Roundup sold in the U.S. within two years.
To track how well Bayer kept that promise, Friends of the Earth assessed the Roundup products for sale at Lowe's and Home Depot—the largest home and garden stores in the U.S.—between June and October of 2024.
It found that seven of the Roundup products for sale still contained glyphosate, while the eight that did not used chemicals "of dramatically greater concern."
Bayer has replaced glyphosate with a combination of four chemicals—fluazifop-P-butyl, triclopyr, diquat dibromide, and imazapic—the latter two of which are banned in the European Union. All four chemicals are even more dangerous to health than glyphosate on average following chronic exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) analysis of safety studies. The new ingredients have been linked to kidney and liver damage; reproductive, birth, and development problems; and allergic reactions or irritation that impact the eyes, skin, and respiratory system.
While all four are toxic, one stands out: Diquat dibromide is 200 times more toxic than glyphosate and is considered a "highly hazardous pesticide."
The new ingredients also pose a greater risk to the environment. They are, on average, more likely to threaten bees, birds, worms, and fish and other aquatic life. They are also less likely to break down in the environment, and therefore more likely to infiltrate groundwater and pollute rivers and drinking water.
"In short, the new Roundup is not the old Roundup—it's worse," Friends of the Earth concluded in the report.
The environmental group also criticized Bayer for not providing a warning to consumers about the altered ingredients, as well as lax federal law that does not require pesticide makers to alert shoppers when they change the ingredients of a known brand. While pesticide makers do have to list the active ingredients of a pesticide on the container, the average consumer may not be aware of the relative toxicity of these chemicals. A frequent Roundup user is also likely to assume that anything sold under that brand is similarly toxic to products they have used before.
"Drug companies are not allowed to replace the aspirin in a brand-name pain reliever with oxycontin or fentanyl, and for good reason," Friends of the Earth senior campaigner Sarah Starman said. "It is unconscionable that the Environmental Protection Agency allows this toxic sleight of hand and unethical that Bayer is exposing consumers to dramatically greater risks with no warning."
Friends of the Earth called on Bayer to develop safer chemicals and retire toxic brands like Roundup. At the very least, it urged the company to sell the new formulations under a different brand and warn buyers of the new products' health and environmental risks.
Home and garden retailers, the group argued, should also step up by removing all Roundup products from their stores and online catalogs, or at least selling them with clear warnings of the new risks; phase out toxic pesticides; and offer safer and more organic options.
Finally, the group called on the EPA to toughen its regulations by requiring ingredient-specific safety warnings on commercial pesticides, mandating that new formulations be sold under a new brand, and banning chemicals that harm human health and the environment from consumer products.
"Bayer, like other chemical companies, cannot be trusted to protect our health," Starman said. "We need serious reform at the EPA to ensure that the agency does its duty to protect people and the environment from dangerous pesticides."
The 15 largest corporate beneficiaries of former President Donald Trump's 2017 tax law have dumped a combined $839 billion into executive-enriching stock buybacks and dividends since the measure's passage, according to research released Wednesday by the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US.
The new analysis, which cites figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, was published amid an ongoing congressional debate over whether to extend elements of the 2017 law that are set to expire at the end of next year. It also comes as Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is campaigning on a fresh round of tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations.
Republican lawmakers, bolstered by an army of corporate lobbyists, have signaled that they are prepared to quickly ram through new tax breaks if Trump wins the presidency and the GOP secures control of the House and Senate in next month's election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.
"The biggest corporate winners of the Trump tax giveaway used their massive windfall mostly to pad profits and enrich a small group of wealthy investors instead of raising their workers' wages and lowering prices for consumers," Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone said in a statement. "There's nothing to be gained for everyday Americans by doubling down on the Trump corporate tax breaks—a historic mistake that added trillions to the deficit while threatening critical priorities like Social Security and Medicare."
"It's time billionaires, wealthy tax cheats, and price-gouging corporations stop avoiding their fair share of taxes at the expense of everyone else," Ciccone added.
"The Trump administration's giant corporate tax cut mainly resulted in higher executive pay and massive shareholder payouts."
The 15 corporations examined in the new report are Verizon, Walmart, AT&T, Meta, Home Depot, Intel, Comcast, Walt Disney, Visa, Capital One Financial, Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Lowe's, United Parcel Service (UPS), and Texas Instruments.
Collectively, according to the Accountable.US report, those companies saw their profits surge by over $257 billion and have spent over $464 billion on stock buybacks and $374 billion on dividends since the passage of the Trump-GOP tax cuts. Large shareholder payouts in the form of share repurchases—which are on track for a new U.S. record in 2024—have been linked to mass layoffs.
In the years preceding enactment of the 2017 law, which cut the statutory corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, the 15 corporations studied in the new analysis paid an average effective tax rate of 27%. In the four years following the law's passage, the companies paid an average effective rate of 13%.
Meanwhile, the substantial benefits that the law's boosters promised the U.S. working class have not materialized.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted over the summer, "Trump administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would 'very conservatively' lead to a $4,000 boost in household income," but "research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw 'no change in earnings' from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply."
Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council, said Wednesday that "instead of trickling down to higher wages for workers and producing a surge in business investment as they claimed at the time, the Trump administration's giant corporate tax cut mainly resulted in higher executive pay and massive shareholder payouts."
"It was a failed approach," said Ramamurti, "and Congress should use the expiration of key provisions of the Trump tax bill next year to bring in more revenue from corporations and the wealthy."
Bishop and Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. William Barber II joined more than 1,000 religious leaders on Sunday in endorsing U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for president over former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Other prominent faith leaders who have signed on to the endorsement include Rev. Kevin R. Johnson of New York City's Abyssinian Baptist Church; Rev. Teresa L. Smallwood, vice president and dean of academic affairs at North Carolina's United Lutheran Seminary; and the Rev. Andrea C. White, who teaches theology and culture at New York City's Union Theological Seminary. Barber and the other leaders offered their endorsement in their personal capacities and not on behalf of any congregation or institution they are affiliated with.
"In a moment like this, I am compelled to be clear that every voter must make a choice, and my choice is to oppose the dangerous politics that Trump and the MAGA movement have unleashed by supporting the ticket that can defeat this potential for American fascism," Barber wrote in a statement explaining his endorsement on social media.
"I'm endorsing Harris and Walz because we are in the midst of a crisis of civilization and democracy."
Barber gave several reasons for his opposition to Trump, including the former president's frequent lies, embrace of guns, inflammatory anti-immigrant statements, and economic agenda that favors the wealthy over the poor and marginalized. In particular, he blamed Trump for undermining the strong economy he inherited from former President Barack Obama by giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy while refusing to raise the minimum wage
"I must oppose Donald Trump and his policies of catering to the greedy, attacking healthcare, and working against living wages," Barber wrote.
He also alluded to Trump's violent rhetoric, such as his recent threat to deploy the National Guard against his political enemies if elected.
"I must prophetically oppose Trump's candidacy because he is threatening to use the office of the president for retaliation and destruction and refers to himself as the only answer to the troubles of America, which is a form of idolatry," Barber said.
In contrast, Barber said he was endorsing Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz because they "are seeking to speak truthfully about the issues of our nation, and, at the same time, to lead us toward a way of working together on issues that matter."
In particular, Barber praised their economic agenda, such as their commitment to increasing wages and expanding healthcare access. He also said they would offer equal protection to all U.S. residents and tackle the climate crisis.
"I'm endorsing Harris and Walz because we are in the midst of a crisis of civilization and democracy," Barber said. "We don't need more despotism. We must work together for a Third Reconstruction."
Barber, a North-Carolina based preacher and organizer, has criticized both parties for failing to address the needs of poor and low-income voters and mobilized those voters to make the parties heed their concerns. In early October, he blasted the presidential and vice presidential debate organizers and the candidates for not addressing the causes of poverty or offering in-depth solutions. He also joined a vigil outside the White House calling for a cease-fire in Gaza last fall.
"I am not endorsing Harris and Walz because I believe they are perfect," Barber wrote in his statement. "No person of faith should ever do that. I don't endorse them because I agree with them on every issue. I am endorsing them because I, like every American, must make a choice about who will lead this nation and set our public agenda for the next four years."
Barber further explained his decision to CNN.
"There's no middle ground when it comes to fascism," Barber said. "I've got to be clear as an individual and hope that other moral and religious leaders will do the same."
Speaking on the issue of Gaza policy specifically, Barber told CNN that he thought a Harris administration would be easier to negotiate with than a future Trump one.
In his statement, he said he believed Harris and Walz's "commitment to diplomacy offers the best chance of a lasting cease-fire in Gaza and averting wars that will consume untold resources and precious lives."
Decades of mismanagement of water resources, deforestation, and the fossil fuel-driven crisis of global warming have put "unprecedented stress" on the Earth's water systems, according to a new report, and have thrown the world's hydrological cycle out of balance "for the first time in human history."
The Global Commission on the Economics of Water, affiliated with the Dutch government and comprised of global experts, published the study on Thursday, warning that policymakers must urgently "reframe the hydrological cycle as a global common good," recognizing that it is "deeply interlinked with the climate and biodiversity crises."
The hydrological cycle, or water cycle, is the continuous circulation of water between the planet's oceans, land, and atmosphere. The experts involved in the new report warn that rising temperatures and pollution—driven by continued fossil fuel emissions and other industrial impacts—are among the factors that are "undermining an equitable and sustainable future for all" in terms of water access.
The commission said a "new economics of water" is needed, recognizing that water connects countries and regions through atmospheric water flows as well as bodies of water.
"We must reshape our shared relationship with water, across borders and cultures, for sustainable, impactful, and just transitions," the commission said on social media.
Both freshwater and land ecosystems have been damaged by mismanagement and "undervaluation of water around the world," reads the report. "We can no longer count on freshwater availability for our collective future."
Already, more than 1,000 children die each day from illnesses related to a lack of safe drinking water, and more than half of the world's food production takes place in areas where water supplies are expected to decrease in the coming years.
"If this isn't enough for the world to go into emergency mode, then what is?" asked writer Matthew Todd of expected strain on food production. "Think about what that means—billons potentially migrating, war, unprecedented political instability."
A new approach to water governance must be adopted, said the commission, "from local to river basin to global, to ensure it is governed more effectively and efficiently, delivers access and justice for all, and sustains the earth's ecosystems."
Tharman Shanmugaratnam, president of Singapore and a co-chair of the commission, told The Guardian that policymakers must "think radically about how we are going to preserve the sources of fresh water, how we are going to use it far more efficiently, and how we are going to be able to have access to fresh water available to every community, including the vulnerable—in other words, how we preserve equity [between rich and poor]."
The experts found that much of the $700 billion that goes to water and agricultural subsidies annually is misdirected, pushing wealthier farmers to use more water than they need while poorer communities and farmers have not enough.
"Industry is getting a lot of the subsidy, and richer people. So what we need are better targeted subsidies. We need to identify the poor people who really need this," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization and another co-chair of the commission, told The Guardian.
The impact of continued stress of water resources could shrink wealthy countries' gross domestic product by an average of 8% by 2050 and that of lower-income countries by up to 15%.
Stress on the planet's water systems have particularly impacted "green water" that is stored in soil, plants, and forests and ultimately evaporates and becomes rainfall.
"Current policy tends to deal with the 'blue' water we can see—in rivers, lakes, and aquifers—largely overlooking 'green' water," reads the report. "Intact ecosystems and lands managed in ways that do not adversely impact their hydrological functioning are critical to securing terrestrial rainfall. A stable supply of green water in soils is also crucial for carbon sequestration."
The degradation of freshwater systems, including the loss of moisture in soil, has already contributed to "frequent and increasingly severe droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires, playing out across the globe."
The commission mapped the "vast, interconnected network of atmospheric water exchanges that span the entire planet" at an animated storytelling website accompanying the report, providing a visual of how "green water flows connect countries across the globe."
"Managing water as a resource is more than a local matter," said the commission.
The report calls for partnerships to be forged between all stakeholders from the local to global levels, aimed at completing five "missions that address the most important and interconnected challenges of the global water crisis":
"The Chinese economy depends on sustainable forest management in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Baltic region," Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a co-chair of the commission, told The Guardian. "You can make the same case for Brazil supplying fresh water to Argentina. This interconnectedness just shows that we have to place fresh water in the global economy as a global common good."
Israel—which is already waging war on Gaza and Lebanon—said its military struck targets in and near Iran's capital Tehran early Saturday, while explosions believed to be Israeli attacks were also reported in Syria and Iraq.
Numerous explosions were reported in and near the Iranian capital, including at the Imam Khomeini International Airport, as well as in eastern parts of the city and the Sadeghiyeh neighborhood of western Tehran. Israeli targets reportedly included the headquarters of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
"In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the state of Israel—right now the Israel Defense Forces is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran," IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a video posted on social media.
"The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7th—on seven fronts—including direct attacks from Iranian soil," Hagari added. "Like every other sovereign country in the world, the state of Israel has the right and the duty to respond. Our defensive and offensive capabilities are fully mobilized. We will do whatever [is] necessary to defend the state of Israel and the people of Israel."
Iran said it launched the October 1 missile attack in retaliation for Israel's targeted killing of longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah and an IRGC commander who was with him; as well as for the July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
If the Syrian and Iraqi explosions are confirmed as Israeli strikes, it would mean that Israel is simultaneously attacking at least five nations—Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. In Palestine, the IDF is waging a yearlong war which has killed or wounded more than 153,000 people. Israel's bombardment and ground invasion of Lebanon have killed or wounded thousands of people and displaced more than 1.2 million others.
U.S. officials told media outlets that the Biden administration was informed of Saturday's attacks.
Meanwhile, peace groups in the U.S. warned of the risk of escalation.
"The U.S. should stay out of the conflict between Israel and Iran," Massachusetts Peace Action executive director Brian Garvey said in a statement. "Israel is bombing Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen—picking a fight with almost every one of its neighbors—while escalating its genocide in Gaza."
"The U.S. should not provide assistance for Israel's escalations, which would contravene President [Joe] Biden's stated goal of preventing a wider regional conflict," he continued. "Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has long sought to embroil the U.S. in war with Iran, and his efforts to do so now are likely timed to influence the U.S. election."
"The United States should avoid that trap, stop sending weapons into the region, and support urgent talks for ceasefires in Gaza, Lebanon, and between Israel and Iran," Garvey added.
One American eyewitness cited in the case says Israeli occupation forces "directly targeted with intent to kill" Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi.
Turkey's Terror Crimes Investigation Bureau has reportedly filed charges of "premeditated murder" against the Israeli soldiers who, according to eyewitnesses, deliberately targeted a Turkish-American activist who was fatally shot in the head while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Anadolureported Sunday that the Turkish agency is classifying the September 6 killing of 26-year-old International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteer Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi as a "crime against humanity."
The agency submitted evidence including eyewitness statements, photos, video footage, and an autopsy report to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office as part of an effort to identify the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers responsible for Eygi's killing.
Last month, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the country intends to seek international arrest warrants for those who killed Eygi.
Eygi, a recent University of Washington graduate, was shot during a march in Beita against Israel's apartheid settlements. American activist Alex Chabbott said Israeli soldiers fired tear gas immediately after the march began. Chabbott and other witnesses said they heard gunshots coming from a nearby rooftop and then saw Eygi lying on the ground and bleeding profusely from her head.
Chabbott said Eygi was "directly targeted with intent to kill." British activist Dominic Robin Sedol accused IDF soldiers of shooting with "the intent to kill Ayşe directly." Jonathan Pasternak, an Israeli activist who attended the march with Eygi, said the troops "had directly targeted Ayşenur."
While admitting that it is "highly likely" that Israeli troops shot Eygi, IDF officials have called the killing "unintentional," claiming the fatal shot "was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of... a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks" at occupation forces.
Progressive members of U.S. Congress, rights groups, and others including the parents of Rachel Corrie—the U.S. ISM volunteer crushed to death in 2003 by an IDF bulldozer while trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank—have joined Eygi's family in calling for an independent investigation of the activist's killing.
However, U.S. President Joe Biden—who has approved billions of dollars in military aid as part of his "unwavering" support for Israel—was widely denounced for repeating the IDF's claim that Eygi was accidentally killed when a bullet "ricocheted off the ground."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken—who called Eygi's killing "unprovoked and unjustified"—nevertheless signaled that there would be no U.S. probe of the incident, prompting Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in Congress, to lament that the Israeli military "can kill Americans and get away with it."
Last week, a group of Department of Justice lawyers sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for an investigation into Israel's killing of Americans including Eygi, Kamel Ahmad Jawad, Jacob Flickinger, Tawfiq Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Omar Assad, and Shireen Abu Akleh.
On Friday, more than 500 people gathered at the University of Washington in Seattle for an "evening of reflection" on Eygi's life and activism.
"We deserve to know what happened," Özden Bennett, Eygi's older sister, said during the event, according toThe Daily. "We deserve to know who killed her, and we deserve to know why. We're asking once again, for President Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken, who we still have not heard from, to act."
"The glaring genocide in Gaza is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see."
South Africa filed 750 pages of "overwhelming" proof that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands on Monday, the deadline for submitting final evidence in the ongoing trial.
South African Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusi Madonsela delivered the legal document—known as a memorial—to the ICJ headquarters in the Dutch city. Under the court's rules, the contents of the memorial cannot be made public at this time.
According to a statement from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the memorial is a "comprehensive presentation of the overwhelming evidence of genocide in Gaza."
The office said the document "contains evidence which shows how the government of Israel has violated the Genocide Convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance, causing conditions of life which are aimed at their physical destruction, and ignoring and defying several provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, and using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel's aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians."
"The evidence will show that undergirding Israel's genocidal acts is the special intent to commit genocide, a failure by Israel to prevent incitement to genocide, to prevent genocide itself, and its failure to punish those inciting and committing acts of genocide," Ramaphosa's office added.
South Africa's filing comes amid Israel's ongoing 387-day assault on Gaza, which according to Palestinian and international agencies has killed at least 43,020 people—most of them women and children. At least 101,110 others have been wounded and over 10,000 Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed homes and other structures. Millions more Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened by Israel's invasion and "complete siege" of Gaza.
The filing also comes one week after senior members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right Cabinet and national lawmakers spoke at a conference advocating the ethnic cleansing and recolonization of Gaza.
Ramaphosa's office lamented that "Israel has been granted unprecedented impunity to breach international law and norms for as long as the United Nations Charter has been in existence."
"Israel's continued shredding of international law has imperiled the institutions of global governance that were established to hold all states accountable," the presidency's statement asserted. "The glaring genocide in Gaza is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see."
Ramaphosa's statement continues:
The Palestinian struggle against imperialism, Israeli apartheid, and settler colonialism is the daily reality of the Palestinian people. Since 1948, they have faced various forms of colonization, often backed by historical colonial powers and, more recently, by states intent on shaping a world order in their interests. The global fight against settler colonialism persists in some parts of the world, including in occupied Palestine, both in Gaza and the West Bank. The international community cannot stand idly by while innocent civilians—including women, children, hospital workers, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists—are killed for simply being. That is a world we cannot accept.
"We reiterate our appeal for an immediate cease-fire in Palestine, in Lebanon, and entire region, and the start of a political process to ensure a just and lasting peace," Ramaphosa's office added.
South Africa also thanked the more than 30 countries and regional blocs, including the African Union and Arab League, that are supporting its case.
It could take years for the ICJ to deliver judgment in the case. In July, the tribunal issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Palestine—including the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem, Gaza, and Syrian Golan Heights—is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."
South Africa's filing came on the same day that Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, published a report on Israeli "genocide as colonial erasure" in Palestine.
Israel vehemently denies it is committing genocide in Gaza, a position shared by the Biden administration, the country's main benefactor.
Palestine advocates welcomed Monday's filing, with Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad thanking South African leaders "for helping expose the far-right Israeli government's genocide and genocidal intent in Gaza to the world community."
"This detailed submission also further exposes the Biden administration's criminal complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza," Awad added. "President [Joe] Biden should end his complicity with genocide by stopping arms deliveries to Israel and forcing an immediate cease-fire."
The Biden administration and Congress have provided Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover to continue its war.
Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, noted that "Israel has violated three prior orders from the court" and "has also violated the decision on Rafah of May."
"Just after that decision, Biden put out his ridiculous statement that Israel had agreed to a cease-fire, which it obviously didn't," he continued. "The Biden administration's phony 'cease-fire negotiations' maneuvers have simply bought Israel more time to commit more crimes, including its recent annihilation of northern Gaza."
"Given Israel's lack of respect for decisions of the court, it becomes imperative that these decisions have teeth," Boyle added. "The U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council has prevented that body from doing its job. So, the U.N. General Assembly should utilize its Uniting for Peace procedure to take control of the situation and recommend an arms embargo and economic sanctions against Israel as well as other measures. That's what was done to apartheid South Africa because of its illegal occupation of Namibia."
"Make no mistake, an attack on a ballot box is an attack on our democracy and completely unacceptable," said Oregon's secretary of state.
Law enforcement officials in the Pacific Northwest are investigating a pair of Monday morning fires at ballot drop boxes that have heightened concerns about illegal efforts to interfere with the November 5 elections.
One fire occurred around 3:30 am Pacific time on Southeast Morrison Street in Portland, Oregon. The Portland Police Bureau explained that "by the time officers arrived, the fire had already been extinguished by security personnel who work in the area. Officers determined an incendiary device was placed inside the ballot box and used to ignite the fire."
Multnomah County noted in a separate statement that "fire suppressant inside the ballot box protected virtually all the ballots," and the three voters whose ballots were damaged will be contacted by officials so they can receive replacements.
"Make no mistake, an attack on a ballot box is an attack on our democracy and completely unacceptable," declared Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade. "Whatever the motivation behind this incident, there is no justification for any attempt to disenfranchise voters."
Griffin-Valade, a Democrat, commended the Multnomah County Elections Division, thanked first responders, and stressed that the few impacted voters are being contacted, which "shows that our systems are safe and secure."
However, the other fire at Fisher's Landing Transit Center in Vancouver, Washington damaged up to hundreds of ballots. Clark County election officials are urging anyone who dropped off a ballot there after 11:00 am Pacific time on Saturday to contact them.
This year, at the national level, voters are set to choose the next president—Republican former President Donald Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris—and which party controls each chamber of Congress. There is a tight congressional contest in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, which includes Vancouver.
Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, is seeking a second term as the district's representative. Her Republican challenger is the same as the last cycle: Joe Kent.
In response to the apparent arson, Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman pointed out on social media that "in 2022, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) only beat Joe Kent (R) here by 2,629 votes. The rematch is a toss-up."
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, stressed Monday that "we take the safety of our election workers seriously and will not tolerate threats or acts of violence that seek to undermine the democratic process."
"I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state," he added. "Despite this incident, I have complete confidence in our county elections officials' ability to keep Washington's elections safe and secure for all voters."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that it "is coordinating with federal, state, and local partners to actively investigate the two incidents" and "anyone with information is asked to contact the nearest FBI office, provide information through tips.fbi.gov, or call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324)."
As CNNreported Monday:
Last week, a mailbox outside a Phoenix post office was set on fire, damaging an unknown number of ballots. A 35-year-old man was charged with arson in connection with the incident. The Phoenix Police Department said he told them it was not politically motivated.
The fires come after the FBI and Department of Homeland Security recently issued a bulletin raising concerns [about] "election-related grievances," such as a belief in voter fraud, could motivate domestic extremists to engage in violence in the weeks before and after the November election.
In the intelligence bulletin obtained by CNN, the agencies said some domestic violent extremists likely see publicly accessible locations, including ballot drop boxes, as "attractive targets."
Throughout this cycle, Democrats and other Trump critics have expressed concern that the Republican nominee will refuse to accept defeat if Harris wins, emphasizing that after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, he launched a series of unsuccessful legal challenges and incited the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump's campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday night further stoked such fears. Kathleen Belew, a Northwestern University associate professor of history who studies the U.S. white supremacist movement, asserted that at the event, "fascism is on full display, openly: no dog whistles, no plausible deniability."
The blazes at the ballot boxes sparked similar concerns. Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith said that "this is... spoiler alert... the Succession finale, itself drawn from nightmare election scenarios drawn up by wonks."
