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Sorry again to return to this execrable human being, but it keeps getting worse and weirder. This weekend, the "fascist-to-the-core" GOP candidate held an "Ultimate Trump Boat Parade" featuring neo-Nazis flying swastikas and yelling "Make America White Again!" Then he held a garbled "town hall" that mostly featured 40 minutes of him woodenly, inexplicably swaying glassy-eyed on stage to James Brown and Ave Maria. The consensus: "The October surprise is that Trump has completely lost his marbles."
Since the start of his vitriolic political rise, Trump has brazenly trafficked in once-unimaginable racist tropes. But in recent weeks, with his campaign and mind spiraling, he's increasingly embraced outright, blood-and-soil, fascist rhetoric: Brown-skinned migrants are monsters, rapists, stone-cold killers "infecting" our pristine shores with their blood libel against lovable pets while allying with Dems, Jews, queers, people of color and other "enemies from within" to usher in an amorphous apocalypse, ingeniously merging fascism and Marxism, only he can stop. Many note this is Authoritarianism 101, from a time-worn playbook in which a demagogue appeals to a disaffected populace who feel they've lost their political, economic or cultural power and need someone to blame for that loss; a Great Orange Leader gives them that, along with a welcome moral pass, in exchange for their unswerving loyalty in the face of what are often his lunatic, growing flaws and failings. Hence the judgment of Mark Milley, formerly the nation's and his own highest ranking military officer, that Trump is "now the most dangerous person in this country - a fascist to the core."
In one recent move toward totalitarianism, Trump said he'd use the military to quell "very bad people" like Adam Schiff and other dangerous critics, prompting brave GOP pols like Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, when asked about it, to literally stammer in terror, "I don’t think that, again, I can’t speak for him, but I do - I do think that you are misinterpreting his 'thoughts','' even when directly quoted to him. Another dubious move: Announcing an upcoming rally at New York's Madison Square Garden suspiciously akin to an infamous 1939 Nazi rally, also at the Garden, organized by the pro-Hitler German American Bund. It featured an image of George Washington flanked by American flags and swastikas, uniformed Bund members giving the Nazi salute, and rhetoric about the need for a "white gentile America" to protect against "the oriental cunning of the Jew." “If ever there was a moment to make such a comparison," Dems argued, "it’s now." Still, the GOP was faux-outraged. "Shame on you," said one GOP candidate, noting half the country supports Trump. "You just called 150 million voters Nazies (sic)." Not to mention bad spellers.
Given all this, it was less than shocking when a boatload of swastika-flying, skull-masked neo-Nazis joined Sunday's "mother of all TRUMP boat parades" in very rich Jupiter, Florida. Also there, on a boat with a huge bust of a blood-streaked Trump - "Fight Fight Fight" - was Lara Trump, who organized the event, grinning Dumb-and-Dumber Eric, who'd boasted of "flags soaring," and their two kids, without life-jackets. Nearby the Nazis, reportedly led by the head of the hate group Goyim Defense League, gunned their boat, shrieking "Heil Trump!" and ”Lookit those beautiful swastikas! We gotta make America white again!" When MAGA patriots in another boat, evidently queasy about them saying the quiet Nazi part out loud, deliberately splashed the yahoos, they yelled "Sieg Heil!" and "fucking pussies!" Online, several MAGA-ites argued the Nazis were "infiltrators," "agitators," "Antifa scumbag imposters" sent from the left, "just like on Jan. 6." Trump later dismissed them as "liberal activists." Sneered one supporter, "Kamala WISHES she had this much support." Mary Trump, in despair at the ugly, clueless spectacle, wrote, “What the fuck are we even doing?”
Most distressing, of course, is that one of our so-called presidential candidates is not just a fascist, but a fascist with dementia who often seems to be emulating the blithering idiot of Steve Martin's The Jerk: "A cosmetologist? That's unbelievable. Must be tough handling the weightlessness." "For weeks and weeks, I'm up here ranting and raving. Flawless. Ranting and raving," he whined. "Then they'll say he's cognitively impaired...But Biden was obviously cognitively repaired.” In Detroit, he insulted Detroit: "Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president (with) a mess on your hands." Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: "Keep Detroit out of your mouth." In Las Vegas, "stunningly senile,” he told Hispanic voters "crazy" Democrats want to ban cows and windows. After backing out of a 60 Minutes interview - also a second debate and CNBC interview - he raged "Kamala was very crazy or dumb" when she did it. His tirades - sharks, windmills, bacon - are deemed "unhinged," "rambling," "meandering," "absolutely incomprehensible." One pundit: "He's one cloudless night away from baying at the moon."
This weekend, he went to must-win Pennsylvania for a Q&A "Town Hall" moderated by puppy killer Kristi Noem that got so weird even mainstream media called it out. "Trump Sways and Bops to Music for 39 Minutes in Bizarre Town Hall Episode," read the Washington Post headline. (The New York Times, ever hedging, dubbed it "an improvisational departure.”) The event began with a handful of questions from pre-selected attendees that Trump pretended to babble-answer. Then, someone in the room fainted from heat or boredom; during the pause for medical help, Trump mused, "While we're waiting. So we had a beautiful evening." Then, "Let's just listen to music." Cue, randomly, Ave Maria, a perfect choice "if your target voter base is white people who died in 1958." Another pause as another patriot faints. Trump hilariously asks "if anybody else would like to faint." Then, he gives up the ghost and the questions: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” And for 39 minutes he swayed, pointed, stared blankly as Noem nodded along. Nothing to see here.
They ran through nine tracks of his Mar-a-Hell-Go playlist. James Brown sang It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World as a lurching Trump watched Brown on a video screen. Sinéad O’Connor sang Nobody Compares 2 U. More bobbing, interspersed with words - "Great song...This is the most important election in the history of our country...I like it so we will do some songs" - plus an ad for a Trump Combat Knife. Awkward pause, then "a couple of really beauties...Let me hear that music." Andrea Bocelli sang Con Te Partirò, or Time To Say Goodbye. Trump teetered. Online sage: "Goodbye. Forever. You piece of steaming garbage." A nervous Noem: "Sir, do you want to play your song and greet a few people?" Trump: "What song?" Then, "We're gonna have a good time, make our country gayer." Cue YMCA, the 1970s gay cruising anthem: "Nice and loud! Nobody's leaving, what's going on?" The dazed crowd "danced." The old man in the sweaty Joker makeup wobbled. Wonkette: "Go have some pudding." Rufus Wainwright sang Hallelujah. The next day, Leonard Cohen's estate issued a cease and desist order; Wainwright called it all "the height of blasphemy."
When confounded reports of an event charitably dubbed "unorthodox" started emerging, even Fox News deemed it "very strange." But the Trump campaign, masters of alternative reality, wasn't having it. "Total lovefest!" declared repugnant spokesperson Steven Cheung. "Everyone was so excited they were fainting. Nobody wanted to leave and wanted to hear more songs from the famous DJT Spotify playlist!” Bigot and wingnut Laura Loomer also loved it. "Trump jamming out to YMCA at his Town Hall, which he just turned into a concert!" she exclaimed. "There will never be another like him." (For God's sake, let's hope not.) Trump declared the event "amazing!" "When people began fainting from the excitement and heat. We started playing music while we waited, and just kept it going. So different, but it ended up being a GREAT EVENING!" Not, evidently, to a stunned-looking Nicolle Wallace, who described as "meandering and bizarre and uncomfortable to watch" a "town hall if you're still calling it that, but we're certainly not," especially when "the wheels came off" with his "musical fest, oh looky looky." The Harris campaign: "Hope he's okay."
Obviously, by any reasonable measure, he's not. Never mind the bonkers musical interlude. In Aurora, Colorado, he raged against "savage gangs" of migrants, aka poor people seeking safety: ”We have to live with these animals, but we won’t live with them for long." At an economic event in Chicago to talk about worker shortages, he veered uncontrollably into his hatred of immigrants: "These are killers, by the way, these, these, some of these killers are among the most evil killers...They'll look at you and they will kill you." On Sunday, he threatened to sic the military on them and every other "enemy within" - anyone who rejects his rabid racism. "Just a former president suggesting he’ll use the military against his fellow citizens for exercising their freedom of speech," said Jimmy Kimmel. "Nothing to worry about, folks. Seriously, when is he going to grow that little mustache already?" For Tim Walz, he has "crossed a line," one too many. "Just so you're clear," he told students in Wisconsin, "That’s you, that’s what he’s talking about. This is not some mythical thing out there. I tell you that because we need to whip his butt and put this guy behind us." Hallelujah.
Google announced on Monday that it had signed a deal to purchase energy from a set of yet-to-be-built small nuclear energy plants in order to power artificial intelligence.
Google signed a power-purchase agreement with Kairos Power, a California-based startup that will build four small modular reactors (SMRs) by 2035 for the Big Tech company's exclusive use.
AI data centers use astonishingly high levels of electricity, and Big Tech firms, which have made net-zero pledges, have recently been turning to nuclear power as a potentially carbon-free power source.
Though it doesn't emit greenhouse gases during operation, nuclear power comes with high risks and produces long-lasting radioactive waste; scientists and experts are divided on the wisdom of its use, and many environmental and justice-oriented groups are adamantly opposed.
Reinhard Uhrig, a climate and energy expert at WWF Austria, decried the new deal, arguing that renewable energies such as wind and solar are the best way to reduce emissions.
"This is BS, Google," Uhrig wrote on social media, citing an "unproven design."
This is BS @Google
Google goes #nuclear to power AI data centres, says "will see it start using the first reactor this decade"
->unproven design
->not approved by Nuclear Regulator
->and still needs to be built
proven: #renewables work to cut emissionshttps://t.co/FaMUG7Jj98
— Reinhard Uhrig (@reinharduhrig) October 15, 2024
The Google-Kairos deal calls for one 50-megawatt reactor to be online by 2030 and three more 75-megawatt reactors to be operational by 2035. That's far less than a typical conventional nuclear reactor, which produces about 1,000 megawatts of power.
The United States currently gets about 19% of its electricity from nuclear power. Tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act have spurred growth in the sector, with Big Tech showing a particular avarice for nuclear energy.
Last month, a deal was announced to reopen Three Mile Island to power Microsoft's AI data centers. Three Mile Island, which sits on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history when a reactor partially melted down in 1979, for which final cleanup efforts are still ongoing. The plant shuttered in 2019 but, pending regulatory approvals, is scheduled to restart operations in 2028.
Renowned political activist Jane Fonda responded to news of the Three Mile Island reopening by declaring, in an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer, that her "heart sank" and that nuclear is "not a good climate solution."
Google's nuclear play is more experimental than Microsoft's. There are only three operational SMRs in the world—the first opened in China in 2021—and none in North America. SMRs use molten fluoride salt as a coolant, rather than water.
Google and Kairos didn't release any financial details about the deal and the sites for the SMRs haven't been chosen yet. Kairos formed in 2016 with the backing of the U.S. Department of Energy. Google says the SMRs will provide "clean, round-the-clock" energy.
Google, which is owned by Alphabet, lost a major antitrust case in August and faces further federal scrutiny for acting as a monopoly.
The head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a group of Florida representatives said late Tuesday that the federal government must do more to crack down on airlines, hotels, and other companies taking advantage of emergency conditions brought by Hurricanes Helene and Milton to jack up prices and pad their bottom lines.
"Instead of making it easier for people to evacuate, airlines and hotels are exploiting a horrific situation to charge astronomical fares only the rich can afford—from over $600 for a single night in a Hampton Inn to over $1,000 for flights that usually cost around $100," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC, said in a joint statement with Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.).
"Exploiting vulnerable people fleeing a deadly storm for higher profits is a new low," said the CPC members as Hurricane Milton barreled toward Florida as a monstrous Category 5 storm, fueled by record-high ocean temperatures made far more likely by the climate crisis. The hurricane is expected to make landfall in the Tampa area on Wednesday night.
The federal lawmakers' statement came amid a flood of price-gouging reports from Florida residents seeking to escape Milton's path. A spokesperson for Florida's attorney general said earlier this week that the office had received hundreds of complaints about price gouging, particularly for fuel and water.
"There were also scattered instances involving overnight accommodations, including one Airbnb listing of a 'room in Tallahassee' for nearly $6,000 a night," The Tallahassee Democrat reported Tuesday. The outlet noted that "during a storm-related state of emergency, state law prohibits price gouging for equipment, food, gasoline, hotel rooms, ice, lumber, and water needed as a direct result of the event."
The Biden Transportation Department, meanwhile, said it has "been in touch with airlines to get more information about the capacity and affordability of flights in the affected areas" amid reports of sky-high ticket prices. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he is "calling on the airlines and other companies to provide as much service as possible to accommodate evacuations and not to engage in price gouging, to just do it on the level."
The Associated Press reported that "by midafternoon Tuesday on the East Coast, airlines had canceled more than 700 U.S. flights, compared with fewer than 200 cancellations on Monday and fewer than 100 each of the two previous days, according to the FlightAware tracking service."
Major airlines, including Delta and United, said they capped fares under the emergency circumstances, but people seeking last-minute tickets reported dramatically elevated prices. One woman trying to buy a one-way ticket to New York said prices more than tripled "in a matter of seconds" as she examined her options.
"There were prices even as high as $1,000 for one leg. So wrong! So wrong!" the woman told The Associated Press.
In their statement Tuesday, Jayapal and the Florida lawmakers noted that "in North Carolina and Georgia, while families try to recover and rebuild from the devastating impacts of Helene, there have been hundreds of similar incidents of bad actors price gouging residents on everything from groceries to gas to hotel rooms."
"This egregious price gouging hampers evacuations and undermines recovery efforts, while putting vulnerable residents in serious jeopardy," they said.
While welcoming the Transportation Department's efforts to monitor and prevent airline price gouging, the progressive lawmakers said that "we will need a whole-of-government focus" in the coming days and weeks "on protecting the people impacted by these disasters from predatory price gouging."
"Further action is still needed from the federal government to stop the corporate exploitation that impacts all areas of American life, whether at the grocery store or gas station," the lawmakers said. "We need a federal ban on price gouging, more stringent antitrust laws and enforcement, and for Congress to reassert its role and governing power in this space—something CPC is deeply committed to and actively engaged in."
Responding to UnitedHealth Group's third quarter results this week, People's Action highlighted how the insurance giant would benefit from Project 2025, the right-wing policy agenda that critics fear will be implemented if former Republican President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
"The underlying businesses, which generated more than $100 billion in revenue in the quarter, helped overcome $475 million in total cyberattack impacts in the quarter," Forbes noted Tuesday, citing the company earnings report. "Net income was $6.06 billion."
In a series of social media posts about those figures, People's Action said: "What they didn't mention? Much of that is public money. Funds meant to care for seniors and people with disabilities are lining the pockets of their executives and Wall Street investors. Money that instead UnitedHealth Group executives use to build mansions or send to Wall Street."
"UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025."
People's Action also linked to its new report laying out how the company and its subsidiary UnitedHealthcare would likely benefit from the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, an initiative that Trump has tried to disavow even though its policy agenda's authors include at least 140 people who served in his first administration.
Specifically, the Tuesday report focuses on Medicare Advantage, an alternative to the government-run healthcare program that is administered by private companies. As Common Dreams has detailed, Project 2025 proposes making the privatized plans the default option for enrollees.
"UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025, since it is the largest private health insurance corporation in America, the fourth-largest company in the country, and the largest writer of privatized Medicare Advantage plans, with 7.8 million people insured through a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan," People's Action said.
The group pointed out that "UnitedHealthcare's revenue from Medicare Advantage, an estimated $137 billion, could be expected to double to $274 billion annually as a result of Project 2025."
"Because of UnitedHealth's massive scale, the harm it causes through its denials of care is unprecedented—whether through prior authorization denials, claim denials, and inadequate networks that prevent beneficiaries from receiving care or increase the financial strain of receiving care," the report warns. "UnitedHealth would be empowered by Trump's Project 2025 to harm more Americans than virtually any other private corporation, other than fossil fuel companies, that benefits from his plan."
As People's Action explained:
UnitedHealthcare would be expected to cover 15.6 million people via its Medicare Advantage plans as the eventual result of Project 2025's passage with a Trump victory. The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services found that Medicare Advantage organizations (of which UnitedHealthcare is the largest) improperly denied care (prior-authorization denial) 13% of the time and denied payment for care improperly 18% of the time. Because this is a denial rate per procedure, not per person, an estimated 33% of people covered by Medicare Advantage experience a denial by their privatized insurer annually. With Project 2025's implementation that would mean 5.2 million people would be denied care by UnitedHealthcare alone. This figure is well above traditional Medicare denial rates due to inappropriate denials and denials outside the scope of traditional Medicare rules.
On social media, People's Action shared stories of actual patients, emphasizing that denials impact "people like Jenn Coffey, who constantly battles UnitedHealthcare for prior authorizations for the infusions that keep her alive after multiple fights with breast cancer."
"Robin Ginkel, a teacher who needs back surgery to be able to work again, faces the same fight for care," the organization said.
"We can stop this. Fight back against the full privatization of Medicare by corporations like UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group," People's Action urged. "Join us to deep canvass and protect care for ALL."
Underscoring Medicare defenders' warnings about Trump—who is facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election, for which early voting is already underway—Mother Jones reported Wednesday that a pro-Trump super political action committee sent out an alarming mailer to older voters in Arizona saying that Medicare had been canceled.
According to David Corn, the magazine's Washington, D.C. bureau chief:
It had a big red stamp that proclaimed, "Medicare Cancellation Notice." Also emblazoned on its front was this: "Warning: Rates are going up and plans are being canceled. Details enclosed." Its return address was the "Department of Medicare Cancellation, Kamala Harris Administration."
That return address should have been a tip-off that this was not an official notification—along with a scrawled add-on in cursive: "I hope you can afford to lose your insurance! —Kamala Harris XOXO."
It's hard to know whether any recipient saw this and received a shock, fearing their Medicare was being cut off. But the group that sent out this official-looking piece of campaign literature, Make America Great Again, Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, was spreading false and misleading information about Medicare and about Harris.
Sharing the reporting on social media, Corn said that it was "rather odious for oligarchs to be scaring folks."
Labor unions and women's advocacy groups on Monday paid tribute to Lilly Ledbetter, the former Goodyear employee whose fight for equal pay made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress, after her death at the age of 86—with economic justice advocates hailing Ledbetter as "an icon."
"Lilly Ledbetter simply wanted to be paid the same as her male Goodyear co-workers," said the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) on social media. But to workers who have benefited from the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, added the union, "she was a true hero."
Ledbetter began working at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Gadsden, Alabama in 1979, and was initially paid equally to her male counterparts.
But in 1998 she discovered that her compensation had dropped "way out of line" with that of the men who worked alongside her, after someone sent her an anonymous note.
"I felt humiliated. I felt degraded. I had to sort of get my composure back to go ahead to perform my job and then, the first day off, I went to Birmingham, Alabama and filed a charge with the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]," Ledbetter told NPR in 2009.
In 1999, she filed a lawsuit against her employer, and four years later a federal court in Alabama awarded her $3.8 million—a sum that was reduced to a $300,000 cap and $60,000 in back pay.
The case was later appealed and proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Goodyear in 2007, with five of the nine justices agreeing that Ledbetter had filed her lawsuit too late after Goodyear's initial decision to pay her less than her male colleagues.
But in 2009, Ledbetter stood with then-President Barack Obama as he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which gives people more time to file charges regarding unfair pay and affirms that each inequitable paycheck is a violation of the law, an assertion the Supreme Court had rejected.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called on Americans to "honor her legacy by never ceasing in our pursuit of equality and justice for all."
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, noted that after Ledbetter's legal case concluded, "she never gave up the fight to push for equal pay and fairness for everyone who came after her."
"It would have been easy for Lilly to quietly ease into retirement in Alabama after the Supreme Court held that there was no remedy to the decades of pay discrimination that she faced," said Goss Graves. "But Lilly was not built for the easy road. She shared her story because she knew that her experience of being undervalued and shortchanged on the job was the same story that working women of all ages across America shared, whether they had ever heard of the wage gap or not."
"Even into her 80s, Lilly never hesitated to hop on planes to speak to women across the country about why they must actively fight for wage equality," Goss Graves added.
Ledbetter also stood with Obama in the White House in 2014 when he signed two fair pay executive orders, one barring federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their salaries and one instructing the Labor Department to collect data on pay for men and women who work for federal contractors.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), said Ledbetter "leaves behind a legacy that fuels our ongoing fight against pay discrimination, exploitation, and those who would delay progress towards wage justice for all."
Farrell added that with women—particularly women of color—still earning an average of 82 cents for every dollar men earn in the U.S., "the fight for pay equity is far from over."
"We urge the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the implementation of comprehensive pay transparency measures at the federal level," said Farrell.
The Paycheck Fairness Act would add protections to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to eliminate gender-based wage disparities.
"Lilly Ledbetter's courageous fight for fair pay made history and opened a new future for millions of women," said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.). "Let's honor her by continuing to challenge discrimination in all forms—and finally closing the wage gap."
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized fellow Democrat and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday for failing to hold the U.S.-armed Israeli military accountable for killing and harming civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Ocasio-Cortez's remarks came in response to Fetterman's dismissal of her earlier call for an arms embargo on Israel, which has received billions of dollars worth of weapons and other military aid since the Hamas-led October 7 attack.
"The tragedy in Gaza is 100% on Hamas," Fetterman wrote on social media with a screengrab of a Hill headline outlining Ocasio-Cortez's remarks. "Stop using civilians and hospitals as shields, surrender, and release all remaining hostages—and this ends."
Ocasio-Cortez then retweeted Fetterman's words with her own rebuttal.
"I dunno man. I care about little kids dying," the New York lawmaker replied. "I care about human rights. I care that billions of U.S. tax dollars' worth of weapons are carrying out unspeakable atrocities. I care enough for us to do better."
"Hope this bleak dunk attempt gets you whatever it is you're going for," she concluded.
The exchange comes as Israel has intensified its assault on northern Gaza in recent days, bombing homes and schools-turned-shelters in the Jabalia refugee camp and issuing new evacuation orders for the beleaguered region yet placing snipers on roofs and shooting people who try to flee. On Saturday, the Palestinian Deputy Observer to the United Nations Majed Bamya called Israel's escalation in the north a "genocide within the genocide" and the World Food Program said that no food had been able to reach the area since October 1, warning that the ramped up attacks were having "a disastrous impact on food security for thousands of Palestinian families." However, 50 trucks carrying aid including food were allowed to enter the north on Wednesday.
Ocasio-Cortez's remarks that prompted Fetterman's rejoinder came in response to the weekend's atrocities.
"The horrors unfolding in northern Gaza are the result of a completely unrestrained Netanyahu gov, fully armed by the Biden admin while food aid is blocked and patients are bombed in hospitals," she wrote on social media on Monday. "This is a genocide of Palestinians. The U.S. must stop enabling it. Arms embargo now."
Ocasio-Cortez has been an outspoken critic of Israel's assault on Gaza and the U.S. response. She backed a House resolution calling for a cease-fire weeks into the war, and demanded an end to the flow of weapons from the House floor in March, when she described Israel's actions in Gaza as an "unfolding genocide."
Fetterman, meanwhile, has faced protests from some of his more progressive constituents over his hardline pro-Israel stance.
On Tuesday, news broke that the Biden administration had reportedly written a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off the flow of weapons to the country unless it took "urgent and sustained actions" to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days.
"Far from expressing contrition for cashing in on the presidency, Donald Trump has made explicit his intent to expand his commodification of federal office if re-elected."
Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Friday published a staff report detailing how, while in office, former U.S. President Donald Trump—the 2024 Republican nominee—used his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. to enrich himself with hundreds of illegal or questionable payments from federal and state officials, job-seekers, and presidential pardon recipients.
The report—titled Room Rates May Vary: How Donald Trump Violated the Constitution by Fleecing Taxpayers With Unlawful and Exorbitant Hotel Charges—was released by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who in 2021 managed Trump's historic second impeachment for inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
"Trump has used the presidency—and his yearslong pursuit of it—as the world's greatest get-rich-quick scheme."
Offering "a glimpse into President Trump's domestic emoluments rackets," the publication accuses the former president of violating the Constitution's Domestic Emoluments Clause "as he used the Secret Service as his personal ATM and repeatedly took payments that raise the specter of pay-to-play corruption from individuals who sought and, in many cases obtained, favors from the commander-in-chief."
"From the time he became a candidate and launched his campaign as ' the greatest infomercial in political history,' Donald Trump has used the presidency—and his yearslong pursuit of it—as the world's greatest get-rich-quick scheme," the report states.
"Earlier this year, the Democratic staff of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability released a staff report documenting the nearly $8 million former President Trump received through just four of his businesses and over just parts of a two-year period from at least 20 foreign governments that sought—and in many cases received—favors from the Trump administration," the report notes.
"This figure is clearly just a fraction of the total amount of unconstitutional foreign emoluments President Trump collected while in office—a total that still needs to be fully accounted for," the paper contends.
As Common Dreams reported in January, documents from Trump's former accounting firm reviewed by the committee revealed that businesses owned by the former president received payments from at least 20 foreign governments during his White House term, including over $5.5 million from China, $615,422 from Saudi Arabia, $465,744 from Qatar, and $303,372 from Kuwait.
The new report continues:
This follow-up report is based on a single set of records: guest logs for a single Trump property, Donald Trump's Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., covering just an 11-month period between September 2017 and August 2018 (excluding July 2018). Thus, the results would presumably represent less than one-quarter of Trump's ill-gotten gains from a single hotel over the course of his four-year term. While this is an exceedingly small window into the opaque web of more than 500 corporations, limited liability companies, and trusts that Donald Trump carried with him into the presidency, it is enough to reveal hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments he accepted while in office from domestic sources—including a federal agency, numerous federal and state officials, and individuals who sought, and frequently obtained, federal offices as well as presidential pardons from him.
"The Constitution makes clear: Beyond a salary, the president may not receive any additional payments from federal or state governments," Raskin said in a statement. "This is a non-waivable prohibition against exploiting the office to convert and pocket public funds."
"While we still do not know the full extent of the unconstitutional payments Trump pocketed while fleecing American taxpayers, one thing is certain: We must put legal barriers in place now to prevent the kind of ripoff corruption our Founding Fathers so strongly opposed," Raskin added. "Given the need to enforce the U.S. Constitution against both foreign and domestic emoluments corruption, in the coming days, I will work with my Democratic colleagues on a legislative fix and hope that my Republican colleagues will join us in this effort."
The report notes that "Trump was very clear that he did not believe that the Constitution's prohibitions on either foreign or domestic emoluments applied to him. For example, in 2019, when public outrage forced him to reverse his plan to hold the following year's G7 summit at his 'foundering Doral resort,' he publicly denigrated what he called the 'phony Emoluments Clause.'"
"And far from expressing contrition for cashing in on the presidency, Donald Trump has made explicit his intent to expand his commodification of federal office if re-elected—including by gutting the federal civil service and replacing professional, expert, nonpolitical federal employees with a cadre of yes-men, sycophants, and loyalists," the paper adds.
Raskin said that "Trump
has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions—all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his hand-picked Supreme Court justices."
"There is now no justification for further delaying a hostage deal and a cease-fire. And there is absolutely no justification for continued U.S. support for Netanyahu's horrific policies, which are in clear violation of U.S. and international law."
Confirmation that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed by the Israeli military has lifted hopes that new traction can be found for a cease-fire deal in Gaza and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among those who said the development must be exploited to help end the "cruel and illegal war" that has largely targeted innocent Palestinian civilians.
With the death of Sinwar—first claimed by the Israeli military and confirmed publicly by Hamas officials Friday—Sanders said there should be no further obstacles for an end of the fighting and a surge of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
"There is now no justification for Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist government to continue their all-out war against the Palestinian people, which has killed 42,000 Palestinians and injured 100,000—two-thirds of whom are women, children, and the elderly," Sanders said Thursday after the news broke.
"There is no justification for continuing to deny humanitarian aid to the many thousands of children in Gaza who are starving," Sanders continued. "There is no justification for continuing to destroy the housing, healthcare, and infrastructure of Gaza. There is now no justification for further delaying a hostage deal and a cease-fire. And there is absolutely no justification for continued U.S. support for Netanyahu's horrific policies, which are in clear violation of U.S. and international law."
In a statement released from the White House after DNA testing was said to have confirmed the death of Sinwar—believed to have orchestrated Hamas' deadly attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians on October 7 of last year—President Joe Biden said his killing by Israeli forces in Gaza represented "a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world."
In his remarks, Biden added that he would be speaking "soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people."
As many major outlets reported, Sinwar's killing resulted in Biden joining with other world leaders to push for a cease-fire process that Netanyahu has steadfastly sabotaged. According to The Guardian:
Speaking as he arrived in Germany to meet European leaders, Biden said he felt "more hopeful" about the prospects of a cease-fire and would send the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to Israel in the next four or five days.
Biden joined figures including his vice president, Kamala Harris, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in urging progress towards a cease-fire.
Blinken held separate phone calls on Thursday with the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, and the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, on ending the conflict in the Middle East, the U.S. State Department said.
Despite new diplomatic gestures, however, there remains plenty of skepticism that Sinwar's death will change anything on the ground. In his public comments Thursday, Netanyahu promised that the killing of the leader would not alter Israel's commitment to fully crushing the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
While Netanyahu said Israel "settled the score" by killing Sinwar, he promised that the war "will continue" until all the hostages were home. As critics have pointed out repeatedly, it was only a temporary cease-fire deal in November of 2023 that saw the safe return of Israeli hostages. In the meantime, many tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza—men, women, and children—have been killed, maimed, or remain missing.
In a column Friday, Steven Simons, a distinguished fellow at Dartmouth College and senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued that just because it's as good as time as any to reach a cease-fire deal, it doesn't mean the opposing sides will seize the opportunity.
"The question for both the Palestinians and Israelis is what happens next," wrote Simons. "If the two are smart, Sinwar's successors will offer to release all the remaining hostages, dead and alive, in exchange for an immediate cease-fire and a massive influx of humanitarian aid. The Israelis would be well-advised to declare victory and accept such an arrangement."
"The Biden administration, and presumably Vice President [Kamala] Harris, have signaled that Netanyahu’s government is skating on thin ice." he continued. However, Netanyahu "might calculate that he need only wait a few weeks for a president-elect Donald Trump and therefore pocket Sinwar's death and carry on with business as usual."
As far as Sanders is concerned, the only path forward is an immediate end to hostilities and the best way for the U.S. to facilitate that is to stop supplying Israel with weapons and end its political cover for Israel's many alleged war crimes, including the blocking of life-saving aid and indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
"When Congress returns," Sanders said, "the Senate will be voting on my Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel. We must end our complicity in this cruel and illegal war."
"In a gerrymandered state like North Carolina, it means representatives are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives."
A North Carolina woman is running a self-described "built to lose" campaign for a state senate seat in a bid to draw attention to anti-democratic partisan gerrymandering.
Kate Barr, a 42-year-old mother of two, is a Democrat running for North Carolina's 37th Senate District, a seat she says she cannot win because it "is so gerrymandered that I don't stand a chance."
"But we deserve to have two names on the ballot," Barr
says on her campaign website. "If I'm going to lose, we might as well have a little fun, raise a little hell, and shine a light on the impacts of gerrymandering along the way."
Barr's
platform includes protecting abortion rights, fully funding public schools, and "common sense gun laws."
"All of those would be achievable in our purple state if we had a representative democracy instead of this gerrymandered nonsense," she asserted.
"Why am I losing?" Barr asked during a recent campaign speech covered by The Washington Post. "In a gerrymandered state like North Carolina, it means representatives are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives."
As the Post reported last month:
Barr centers her pitch on the principle of giving voters an option, even in deep-red districts where the outcome is all but predetermined. Having Democrats campaign in those conservative areas also gives a political boost to [U.S. vice president and Democratic presidential candidate] Kamala Harris in a state where the presidential race is seen as a toss-up and could prove nationally decisive if Democrats can peel off enough voters to secure North Carolina's 16 electoral votes...
Gerrymandering arrived in Barr's backyard last year when the state legislature redrew Davidson—the liberal, picturesque college town where she lives—into a state Senate district with conservative Iredell County for the 2024 election. Davidson went from being part of a district centered in Mecklenburg County—where Donald Trump lost by 35 percentage points in 2020—to being part of Iredell, which he won by about the same amount.
Last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of partisan gerrymandering in what voting rights advocates called a "blatant attack on democracy."
Barr said in an opinion piece published Tuesday by the Courier that the court decided that "basically, we, the voters in North Carolina, have a right to free elections but not to fair ones."
"That's some real bullshit," she wrote.
Anderson Clayton, who chairs the North Carolina Democratic Party, told the Post that "gerrymandering is a form of voter suppression in every single way, shape, and form."
Clayton added that many North Carolina voters "go into a voting booth every November and they're like, 'Damn, I don't have a Democrat to vote for. You know that means that somebody didn't care, that my vote wasn't worth fighting for.'"
Barr said the fact that she has little chance of winning isn't the point.
"We know we can't win it, because they've made sure we can't," she told one voter, according to the Post. "But that doesn't mean we go down without a fight."