SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
");background-position:center;background-size:19px 19px;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-color:var(--button-bg-color);padding:0;width:var(--form-elem-height);height:var(--form-elem-height);font-size:0;}:is(.js-newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper) .widget__body:has(.response:not(:empty)) :is(.widget__headline, .widget__subheadline, #mc_embed_signup .mc-field-group, #mc_embed_signup input[type="submit"]){display:none;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) #mce-responses:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-row:1 / -1;grid-column:1 / -1;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget__body > .snark-line:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-column:1 / -1;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) :is(.newsletter-campaign:has(.response:not(:empty)), .newsletter-and-social:has(.response:not(:empty))){width:100%;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:center;align-items:center;gap:8px 20px;margin:0 auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .text-element{display:flex;color:var(--shares-color);margin:0 !important;font-weight:400 !important;font-size:16px !important;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .whitebar_social{display:flex;gap:12px;width:auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col a{margin:0;background-color:#0000;padding:0;width:32px;height:32px;}.newsletter-wrapper .social_icon:after{display:none;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget article:before, .newsletter-wrapper .widget article:after{display:none;}#sFollow_Block_0_0_1_0_0_0_1{margin:0;}.donation_banner{position:relative;background:#000;}.donation_banner .posts-custom *, .donation_banner .posts-custom :after, .donation_banner .posts-custom :before{margin:0;}.donation_banner .posts-custom .widget{position:absolute;inset:0;}.donation_banner__wrapper{position:relative;z-index:2;pointer-events:none;}.donation_banner .donate_btn{position:relative;z-index:2;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_7_0_0_3_1_0{color:#fff;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_7_0_0_3_1_1{font-weight:normal;}.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper.sidebar{background:linear-gradient(91deg, #005dc7 28%, #1d63b2 65%, #0353ae 85%);}
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Sen. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote yes on Pam Bondi's confirmation, but no Democratic senators objected to unanimous consent that allowed the process to move forward.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to join Republicans late Tuesday in voting to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general, making a corporate lobbyist, election denier, and loyalist of President Donald Trump the nation's top law enforcement official.
But while Fetterman was alone among Democrats in backing Bondi's confirmation, the 54-46 vote took place earlier than initially scheduled as Senate Democrats declined to do everything in their power to hold up the confirmation process.
Some Democratic senators have said publicly that they intend to delay Trump nominees as much as possible in retaliation for billionaire Elon Musk's White House-backed rampage through federal agencies, but no member of the minority party objected to unanimous consent on moving forward with the Bondi proceedings, paving the way for Tuesday's vote.
Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said in a statement that "Pam Bondi's confirmation is just another example of what we've seen from the Trump White House and the Republican-controlled Congress over the last two weeks: a government of, by, and for wealthy special interests."
"I shudder to think what Pam Bondi's response will be when Elon Musk and his band of lost boys wander into the Department of Justice and demand access to computer systems where sensitive information about ongoing criminal investigations is stored," Harvey added. "Bondi's record of caving to big donors and corporate interests is exactly the opposite of what we need right now in an attorney general."
In recent days, as Musk's lieutenants have wreaked havoc across the federal government and moved to shutter entire agencies, Senate Democrats have made a show of opposition, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pumping his fists at a protest Wednesday outside of the Treasury Department building and chanting, "We will win!"
But as The Associated Pressreported, Schumer's chants were "quickly drowned out by chants of, 'Shut down the Senate!'" And even as they've pledged to fight the Trump administration's authoritarianism, Democrats have continued supporting the president's nominees.
"People around the country are asking Senate Dems to fight back," Indivisible's Ezra Levin wrote Tuesday. "But today, 22 Senate Dems voted for yet another Trump nominee (Collins for VA). If yours voted the right way, thank them. If they voted the wrong way, do what you can to let your entire community know and express disapproval."
Our Revolution, a progressive advocacy organization, implored Senate Democrats on Tuesday to "act as a real opposition party" by placing a "blanket hold on all Trump nominees" and "using every procedural tool available" to obstruct business as usual, "from quorum calls to blocking unanimous consent"—a procedure central to the day-to-day functioning of the upper chamber.
"This is not the time for silence or half-measures," said Our Revolution. "Grassroots progressives demand bold, decisive action to protect democracy and halt this authoritarian takeover."
Axiosreported Tuesday that "incensed Democrats are eyeing a wide-scale blockade of nominees that lasts far beyond the confirmation hearings for the boldfaced names in Trump's Cabinet," and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) has vowed to object to unanimous consent on advancing Trump State Department picks over the Musk-led dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
But progressives said anything short of all-out opposition to Trump nominees—including sweeping refusal of unanimous consent—is sufficient.
"What's happening right now is unprecedented, dangerous, and ultimately so far beyond anything approaching acceptable that there's only one real option for congressional Democrats. Not a single vote for anything. Nothing," wrote Stephen Miles, the president of Win Without War. "No more [unanimous consent]. No more votes for noms. Nothing. This has to stop."
"The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it," said A New Policy co-founder Josh Paul, "with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests."
Human rights advocates in the United States and around the world on Monday condemned outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden for continuing to fuel Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip with a pending $8 billion weapons package.
Since
Axoisrevealed late Friday that his administration had notified Congress of the deal, Biden has faced a fresh flood of outrage, with critics calling the president "morally bankrupt" and his decision to keep arming Israel "willful madness."
"Too many kids still alive in Gaza for Joe Biden's liking," Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American political analyst,
said on social media. "This is an administration of cowards and criminals and will go down as a historic worst."
Two men who resigned from the Biden administration over U.S. support for Israel's assault on Gaza—which has
killed at least 45,854 Palestinians and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—shared sharp critiques on Monday.
"The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it," said ex-U.S. State Department official Josh Paul, "with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests."
"The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come."
Paul and former Education Department official Tariq Habash launched the lobbying group A New Policy in October. Habash also took aim at Biden's new effort to arm Israel with missiles for fighter jets and attack helicopters, 155 mm artillery shells, small-diameter bombs, 50-pound warheads, bomb fuzes, and kits used to convert "dumb bombs" into precision-guided munitions.
"Americans continue to struggle here at home, so the notion that the Biden administration would push another $8 billion in weapons to Israel on the backs of American [taxpayers] demonstrates how unmoored this administration has become from its values and its commitments to the American people," said Habash. "The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come."
Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti also denounced the effort, saying in a Monday statement that "these weapon sales won't bring hostages home and don't get us closer to a viable long-term solution that ensures Israelis and Palestinians can live with dignity without the threat of violence."
"Many of the types of weapons reported to be part of this $8 billion package have been used—or are likely to be used—to kill and wound Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in a war that drags on because the president and his advisers refused to exercise real leverage to end it," she noted. "This new tranche of weapons will surely be used to the same horrific ends."
Haghdoosti highlighted that "President Biden and his senior advisers continue skirting U.S. laws that should prohibit the sale of deadly weapons while Israeli officials restrict humanitarian aid and seek to make Gaza uninhabitable."
Despite attempts by progressives in Congress such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block some arms to Israel, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly voted to send more—including with the $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 that they sent to Biden's desk last month.
News of the $8 billion package comes just two weeks away from the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Paul said that "there is no need to rush these sales to completion, but it is clear President Biden and his appointees at the State Department do not have confidence in the Trump administration to follow through on their decision to rush arms to Israel with no questions asked, which is why they are pushing through these sales now."
While the current administration is clearly aiming to push the package through ahead of the looming transition of power in the United States, Trump is widely expected to serve as an ally to Israel, as he did in his first term. Haghdoosti sounded the alarm about the Republican's return to the White House with a GOP-controlled Congress.
"These latest sales mark a bleak handoff to the incoming Trump administration, whose senior nominees openly ally with far-right Israeli government ministers who plan to settle Gaza and annex the West Bank, all but guaranteeing another generation of displacement and deprivation that will undermine security for Palestinians and Israelis alike," she said.
Trump and far-right leaders in Israel—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—"will use these sales to advance that violent project," Haghdoosti added. "It is an utter shame that President Biden has chosen to abet it during his final days in office."
"Unless the Biden administration changes course immediately, the likelihood we see even more violence, more displacement, and tens—if not hundreds—of thousands more lives lost in this conflict will only spike."
Amid reports that the Biden administration has dropped its push for a cease-fire deal on the Lebanon-Israel border, a U.S. peace group said Thursday that the White House "appears both in the dark and in denial about how much worse the current wars in the Middle East could get" and demanded an urgent cease-fire push to avert catastrophe.
"As Palestinians in northern Gaza are displaced by yet another IDF offensive while still contending with a humanitarian crisis, as thousands of people flee Lebanon, as Iranian families wonder whether their cities and towns will be bombed, as children in Syria are killed by the IDF—likely with U.S.-made bombs—and as Israeli civilians continue to flee to shelters and hostages still languish, it's time to admit that a regional war is here," said Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War.
"Right now, tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed across the Middle East are also in acute danger—and the risk the United States is drawn further and more directly into this war is terrifyingly high," Haghdoosti added. "Unless the Biden administration changes course immediately, the likelihood we see even more violence, more displacement, and tens—if not hundreds—of thousands more lives lost in this conflict will only spike."
For the first time in two months, Biden on Wednesday spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly obstructed cease-fire talks with hardline demands and publicly undermined a U.S.-led effort last month to institute a pause along the Lebanon-Israel border.
According to a White House readout of the Wednesday conversation, Biden "emphasized the need for a diplomatic arrangement to safely return both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line" but did not push Netanyahu to stop Israel's large-scale bombardment of Lebanon, which has killed more than 2,100 people since mid-September.
Days before the call, CNNreported that the Biden administration was "not actively trying to revive" the three-week cease-fire proposal that Netanyahu tanked last month and "resigned itself to trying to shape and limit Israeli operations in Lebanon and against Iran rather than halting hostilities."
As Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote for Foreign Policy earlier this week, "The Biden administration has now become an active participant in the very outcome it had spent months warning against and working to prevent."
"Whereas only weeks ago it had been frantically working to negotiate a cease-fire in Lebanon, the administration has now openly embraced an Israeli bombing campaign and invasion that it once cautioned against," Elgindy added. "The Biden administration's single-minded focus on Israeli demands, needs, and pain has blinded it not only to the humanity of Palestinians and Lebanese but to the long-term damage done to the region, U.S. interests, and even Israeli security."
"We have to engage every diplomatic tool available to us for a permanent cease-fire, and we have got to stop sending bombs."
On Thursday, Israel's cabinet met to discuss a response to Iran's ballistic missile attack earlier this month, which was retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The cabinet was expected to authorize Mr. Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, to initiate the response at their discretion," The New York Timesreported, citing unnamed officials. "The results of the meeting were not released."
Gallant pledged Wednesday that Israel's attack on Iran would be "deadly, precise and, above all, surprising."
"They will not understand what happened and how it happened," he added. "They will see the results."
The Israeli government has declined to provide assurances that it does not intend to target Iran's nuclear energy facilities and reportedly has not briefed the U.S.—its principal ally and arms supplier—on the specifics of its plans.
Senior Biden administration officials have also discussed the possibility of "very limited" U.S. strikes "against Iranian targets," according toNBC News.
As the possibility of an Israeli and U.S. attack looms, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that Iran "is fully prepared to take more and stronger defensive measures against any act of aggression, and will have no hesitation in this regard." Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month was limited to military targets and did not kill any Israeli civilians.
Peace advocates and regional experts say Israel's intensifying assaults on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and its looming attack on Iran underscore the need for immediate deescalation and renewed cease-fire talks.
But the prospect of a deal appears as remote as ever—and the Biden administration has refused to use U.S. military aid as leverage to force Netanyahu's hand.
"We can't just pray for peace, we can't just hope for peace—we have to work for peace," U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said earlier this week. "And that's why we have to engage every diplomatic tool available to us for a permanent cease-fire, and we have got to stop sending bombs."