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Nineteen years ago, in March 2003, I resigned as a U.S. diplomat in opposition to the President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. I joined two other U.S diplomats, Brady Kiesling and John Brown, who had resigned in weeks previous to my resignation. We heard from fellow U.S. diplomats assigned to U.S. embassies around the world that they too believed that the decision of the Bush administration would have long term negative consequences for the U.S. and the world, but for a variety of reasons, no one joined us in resignation until later. Several initial critics of our resignations later told us they were wrong and they agreed that the decision of the U.S. government to wage war on Iraq was disastrous.
The U.S. decision to invade Iraq using the manufactured threat of weapons of mass destruction and without the authorization of the United Nations was protested by people in virtually every country. Millions were in the streets in capitals around the world before the invasion demanding that their governments not participate in the U.S. "coalition of the willing."
For the past two decades, Russian President Putin has warned the U.S. and NATO in stark terms that the international rhetoric of "the doors will not close for the possible entry of Ukraine into NATO" was a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation.
Putin cited the 1990s verbal agreement of the George H.W. Bush administration that following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO would not move "one inch" closer to Russia. NATO would not enlist countries from the former Warsaw Pact alliance with the Soviet Union.
However, under the Clinton administration, the U.S. and NATO began its "Partnership for Peace" program that morphed into full entrance into NATO of former Warsaw Pact countries--Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
The U.S. and NATO went one step too far for the Russian Federation with the February 2014 overthrow of the elected, but allegedly corrupt, Russia-leaning government of Ukraine, an overthrow that was encouraged and supported by the U.S. government. Fascist militias joined with ordinary Ukrainian citizens who did not like the corruption in their government. But rather than waiting less than one year for the next elections, riots began and hundreds were killed in Maidan Square in Kyiv by snipers from both the government and the militias.
Violence against ethnic Russians spread in other parts of Ukraine and many were killed by fascist mobs on May 2, 2014 in Odessa. The majority ethnic Russians in the eastern provinces of Ukraine began a separatist rebellion citing violence against them, lack of resources from the government and cancellation of teaching of Russian language and history in schools as reasons for their rebellion. While the Ukrainian military has allowed the extreme right-wing neo-Nazi Azov battalion to be a part of military operations against the separatist provinces, the Ukrainian military is not a fascist organization as alleged by the Russian government.
The Azov participation in politics in Ukraine was not successful with their receiving only 2 percent of the vote in the 2019 election, much less than other right-wing political parties have received in elections in other European countries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is just as wrong in asserting that the Ukrainian President Zelensky heads a fascist government that must be destroyed as my former boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, was wrong in perpetrating the lie that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and therefore must destroyed.
The Russian Federation's annexation of Crimea has been condemned by most of the international community. Crimea was under a special agreement between the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian government in which Russian soldiers and ships were assigned in Crimea to provide the Russian Southern Fleet access to the Black Sea, the Federation's military outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. In March 2014, after eight years of discussions and polling of whether the residents of Crimea wanted to remain as with Ukraine, ethnic Russians (77% of the population of Crimea were Russian speaking) and the remaining Tatar population held a plebiscite in Crimea and voted to ask the Russian Federation to be annexed. 83 percent of the voters in Crimea turned out to vote and 97 percent voted for integration into the Russian Federation. The results of the plebiscite were accepted and implemented by the Russian Federation without a shot being fired. However, the international community applied strong sanctions against Russia and special sanctions against Crimea that destroyed its international tourism industry of hosting tourist ships from Turkey and other Mediterranean countries.
In the next eight years from 2014 to 2022, over 14,000 persons were killed in the separatist movement in the Donbass region. President Putin continued to warn the US and NATO that Ukraine being annexed into the NATO sphere would be a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation. He also warned NATO about the increasing number of military war games conducted on the Russian border including in 2016 a very large war maneuver with the ominous name of "Anaconda," the large snake that kills by wrapping around suffocating its prey, an analogy not lost on the Russian government. New US/NATO bases that were constructed in Poland and location of missile batteries in Romania added to the Russian government's concern about its own national security.
In late 2021 with the U.S. and NATO dismissing the Russian government's concern for its national security, they again stated the "door was never closed to entry into NATO" where upon the Russian Federation responded with a build-up of 125,000 military forces around Ukraine. President Putin and long-standing Russian Federation Foreign Minister Lavrov kept telling the world that this was a large-scale training exercise, similar to military exercises that NATO and the US had conducted along its borders.
However, in a lengthy and wide-ranging televised statement on February 21, 2022, President Putin laid out a historic vison for the Russian Federation including the recognition of the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region as independent entities and declared them allies. Only hours later, President Putin ordered a Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
Acknowledgement of the events of the past eight years, does not absolve a government of its violation of international law when it invades a sovereign country, destroys infrastructure and kills thousands of its citizens in the name of the national security of the invading government.
This is exactly the reason I resigned from the U.S. government nineteen years ago when the Bush administration used the lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a threat to U.S. national security and the basis for invading and occupying Iraq for almost a decade, destroying large amounts of infrastructure and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis.
I didn't resign because I hated my country. I resigned because I thought the decisions being made by elected politicians serving in government were not in the best interests of my country, or the people of Iraq, or the world.
Resignation from one's government in opposition to a decision for war made by one's superiors in the government is a huge decision, particularly with what Russian citizens--much less Russian diplomats--face with the Russian government criminalizing use of the word "war," arresting of thousands protesters on the streets, and shutting down independent media outlets.
With Russian diplomats serving in over 100 Russian Federation embassies all over the world, I know they are watching international news sources and have much more information about the brutal war on the people of the Ukraine than their colleagues at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, much less the average Russian, now that international media has been taken off the air and internet sites disabled.
For those Russian diplomats, a decision to resign from the Russian diplomatic corps would result in much more severe consequences and most certainly would be much more dangerous than what I faced in my resignation in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.
However, from my own experience, I can tell those Russian diplomats that a heavy load will be lifted from their consciences once they make the decision to resign. While they will be ostracized by many of their former diplomatic colleagues, as I found, many more will quietly approve of their courage to resign and face the consequences of the loss of the career that they worked so diligently to create.
Should some Russian diplomats resign, there are organizations and groups in virtually every country where there is a Russian Federation embassy that I think will provide them with aid and assistance as they embark on a new chapter of their lives without the diplomatic corps.
They are facing a momentous decision.
And, if they resign, their voices of conscience, their voices of dissent, will probably be the most important legacy of their lives.
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Nineteen years ago, in March 2003, I resigned as a U.S. diplomat in opposition to the President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. I joined two other U.S diplomats, Brady Kiesling and John Brown, who had resigned in weeks previous to my resignation. We heard from fellow U.S. diplomats assigned to U.S. embassies around the world that they too believed that the decision of the Bush administration would have long term negative consequences for the U.S. and the world, but for a variety of reasons, no one joined us in resignation until later. Several initial critics of our resignations later told us they were wrong and they agreed that the decision of the U.S. government to wage war on Iraq was disastrous.
The U.S. decision to invade Iraq using the manufactured threat of weapons of mass destruction and without the authorization of the United Nations was protested by people in virtually every country. Millions were in the streets in capitals around the world before the invasion demanding that their governments not participate in the U.S. "coalition of the willing."
For the past two decades, Russian President Putin has warned the U.S. and NATO in stark terms that the international rhetoric of "the doors will not close for the possible entry of Ukraine into NATO" was a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation.
Putin cited the 1990s verbal agreement of the George H.W. Bush administration that following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO would not move "one inch" closer to Russia. NATO would not enlist countries from the former Warsaw Pact alliance with the Soviet Union.
However, under the Clinton administration, the U.S. and NATO began its "Partnership for Peace" program that morphed into full entrance into NATO of former Warsaw Pact countries--Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
The U.S. and NATO went one step too far for the Russian Federation with the February 2014 overthrow of the elected, but allegedly corrupt, Russia-leaning government of Ukraine, an overthrow that was encouraged and supported by the U.S. government. Fascist militias joined with ordinary Ukrainian citizens who did not like the corruption in their government. But rather than waiting less than one year for the next elections, riots began and hundreds were killed in Maidan Square in Kyiv by snipers from both the government and the militias.
Violence against ethnic Russians spread in other parts of Ukraine and many were killed by fascist mobs on May 2, 2014 in Odessa. The majority ethnic Russians in the eastern provinces of Ukraine began a separatist rebellion citing violence against them, lack of resources from the government and cancellation of teaching of Russian language and history in schools as reasons for their rebellion. While the Ukrainian military has allowed the extreme right-wing neo-Nazi Azov battalion to be a part of military operations against the separatist provinces, the Ukrainian military is not a fascist organization as alleged by the Russian government.
The Azov participation in politics in Ukraine was not successful with their receiving only 2 percent of the vote in the 2019 election, much less than other right-wing political parties have received in elections in other European countries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is just as wrong in asserting that the Ukrainian President Zelensky heads a fascist government that must be destroyed as my former boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, was wrong in perpetrating the lie that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and therefore must destroyed.
The Russian Federation's annexation of Crimea has been condemned by most of the international community. Crimea was under a special agreement between the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian government in which Russian soldiers and ships were assigned in Crimea to provide the Russian Southern Fleet access to the Black Sea, the Federation's military outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. In March 2014, after eight years of discussions and polling of whether the residents of Crimea wanted to remain as with Ukraine, ethnic Russians (77% of the population of Crimea were Russian speaking) and the remaining Tatar population held a plebiscite in Crimea and voted to ask the Russian Federation to be annexed. 83 percent of the voters in Crimea turned out to vote and 97 percent voted for integration into the Russian Federation. The results of the plebiscite were accepted and implemented by the Russian Federation without a shot being fired. However, the international community applied strong sanctions against Russia and special sanctions against Crimea that destroyed its international tourism industry of hosting tourist ships from Turkey and other Mediterranean countries.
In the next eight years from 2014 to 2022, over 14,000 persons were killed in the separatist movement in the Donbass region. President Putin continued to warn the US and NATO that Ukraine being annexed into the NATO sphere would be a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation. He also warned NATO about the increasing number of military war games conducted on the Russian border including in 2016 a very large war maneuver with the ominous name of "Anaconda," the large snake that kills by wrapping around suffocating its prey, an analogy not lost on the Russian government. New US/NATO bases that were constructed in Poland and location of missile batteries in Romania added to the Russian government's concern about its own national security.
In late 2021 with the U.S. and NATO dismissing the Russian government's concern for its national security, they again stated the "door was never closed to entry into NATO" where upon the Russian Federation responded with a build-up of 125,000 military forces around Ukraine. President Putin and long-standing Russian Federation Foreign Minister Lavrov kept telling the world that this was a large-scale training exercise, similar to military exercises that NATO and the US had conducted along its borders.
However, in a lengthy and wide-ranging televised statement on February 21, 2022, President Putin laid out a historic vison for the Russian Federation including the recognition of the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region as independent entities and declared them allies. Only hours later, President Putin ordered a Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
Acknowledgement of the events of the past eight years, does not absolve a government of its violation of international law when it invades a sovereign country, destroys infrastructure and kills thousands of its citizens in the name of the national security of the invading government.
This is exactly the reason I resigned from the U.S. government nineteen years ago when the Bush administration used the lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a threat to U.S. national security and the basis for invading and occupying Iraq for almost a decade, destroying large amounts of infrastructure and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis.
I didn't resign because I hated my country. I resigned because I thought the decisions being made by elected politicians serving in government were not in the best interests of my country, or the people of Iraq, or the world.
Resignation from one's government in opposition to a decision for war made by one's superiors in the government is a huge decision, particularly with what Russian citizens--much less Russian diplomats--face with the Russian government criminalizing use of the word "war," arresting of thousands protesters on the streets, and shutting down independent media outlets.
With Russian diplomats serving in over 100 Russian Federation embassies all over the world, I know they are watching international news sources and have much more information about the brutal war on the people of the Ukraine than their colleagues at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, much less the average Russian, now that international media has been taken off the air and internet sites disabled.
For those Russian diplomats, a decision to resign from the Russian diplomatic corps would result in much more severe consequences and most certainly would be much more dangerous than what I faced in my resignation in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.
However, from my own experience, I can tell those Russian diplomats that a heavy load will be lifted from their consciences once they make the decision to resign. While they will be ostracized by many of their former diplomatic colleagues, as I found, many more will quietly approve of their courage to resign and face the consequences of the loss of the career that they worked so diligently to create.
Should some Russian diplomats resign, there are organizations and groups in virtually every country where there is a Russian Federation embassy that I think will provide them with aid and assistance as they embark on a new chapter of their lives without the diplomatic corps.
They are facing a momentous decision.
And, if they resign, their voices of conscience, their voices of dissent, will probably be the most important legacy of their lives.
Nineteen years ago, in March 2003, I resigned as a U.S. diplomat in opposition to the President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. I joined two other U.S diplomats, Brady Kiesling and John Brown, who had resigned in weeks previous to my resignation. We heard from fellow U.S. diplomats assigned to U.S. embassies around the world that they too believed that the decision of the Bush administration would have long term negative consequences for the U.S. and the world, but for a variety of reasons, no one joined us in resignation until later. Several initial critics of our resignations later told us they were wrong and they agreed that the decision of the U.S. government to wage war on Iraq was disastrous.
The U.S. decision to invade Iraq using the manufactured threat of weapons of mass destruction and without the authorization of the United Nations was protested by people in virtually every country. Millions were in the streets in capitals around the world before the invasion demanding that their governments not participate in the U.S. "coalition of the willing."
For the past two decades, Russian President Putin has warned the U.S. and NATO in stark terms that the international rhetoric of "the doors will not close for the possible entry of Ukraine into NATO" was a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation.
Putin cited the 1990s verbal agreement of the George H.W. Bush administration that following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO would not move "one inch" closer to Russia. NATO would not enlist countries from the former Warsaw Pact alliance with the Soviet Union.
However, under the Clinton administration, the U.S. and NATO began its "Partnership for Peace" program that morphed into full entrance into NATO of former Warsaw Pact countries--Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
The U.S. and NATO went one step too far for the Russian Federation with the February 2014 overthrow of the elected, but allegedly corrupt, Russia-leaning government of Ukraine, an overthrow that was encouraged and supported by the U.S. government. Fascist militias joined with ordinary Ukrainian citizens who did not like the corruption in their government. But rather than waiting less than one year for the next elections, riots began and hundreds were killed in Maidan Square in Kyiv by snipers from both the government and the militias.
Violence against ethnic Russians spread in other parts of Ukraine and many were killed by fascist mobs on May 2, 2014 in Odessa. The majority ethnic Russians in the eastern provinces of Ukraine began a separatist rebellion citing violence against them, lack of resources from the government and cancellation of teaching of Russian language and history in schools as reasons for their rebellion. While the Ukrainian military has allowed the extreme right-wing neo-Nazi Azov battalion to be a part of military operations against the separatist provinces, the Ukrainian military is not a fascist organization as alleged by the Russian government.
The Azov participation in politics in Ukraine was not successful with their receiving only 2 percent of the vote in the 2019 election, much less than other right-wing political parties have received in elections in other European countries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is just as wrong in asserting that the Ukrainian President Zelensky heads a fascist government that must be destroyed as my former boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, was wrong in perpetrating the lie that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and therefore must destroyed.
The Russian Federation's annexation of Crimea has been condemned by most of the international community. Crimea was under a special agreement between the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian government in which Russian soldiers and ships were assigned in Crimea to provide the Russian Southern Fleet access to the Black Sea, the Federation's military outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. In March 2014, after eight years of discussions and polling of whether the residents of Crimea wanted to remain as with Ukraine, ethnic Russians (77% of the population of Crimea were Russian speaking) and the remaining Tatar population held a plebiscite in Crimea and voted to ask the Russian Federation to be annexed. 83 percent of the voters in Crimea turned out to vote and 97 percent voted for integration into the Russian Federation. The results of the plebiscite were accepted and implemented by the Russian Federation without a shot being fired. However, the international community applied strong sanctions against Russia and special sanctions against Crimea that destroyed its international tourism industry of hosting tourist ships from Turkey and other Mediterranean countries.
In the next eight years from 2014 to 2022, over 14,000 persons were killed in the separatist movement in the Donbass region. President Putin continued to warn the US and NATO that Ukraine being annexed into the NATO sphere would be a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation. He also warned NATO about the increasing number of military war games conducted on the Russian border including in 2016 a very large war maneuver with the ominous name of "Anaconda," the large snake that kills by wrapping around suffocating its prey, an analogy not lost on the Russian government. New US/NATO bases that were constructed in Poland and location of missile batteries in Romania added to the Russian government's concern about its own national security.
In late 2021 with the U.S. and NATO dismissing the Russian government's concern for its national security, they again stated the "door was never closed to entry into NATO" where upon the Russian Federation responded with a build-up of 125,000 military forces around Ukraine. President Putin and long-standing Russian Federation Foreign Minister Lavrov kept telling the world that this was a large-scale training exercise, similar to military exercises that NATO and the US had conducted along its borders.
However, in a lengthy and wide-ranging televised statement on February 21, 2022, President Putin laid out a historic vison for the Russian Federation including the recognition of the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region as independent entities and declared them allies. Only hours later, President Putin ordered a Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
Acknowledgement of the events of the past eight years, does not absolve a government of its violation of international law when it invades a sovereign country, destroys infrastructure and kills thousands of its citizens in the name of the national security of the invading government.
This is exactly the reason I resigned from the U.S. government nineteen years ago when the Bush administration used the lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a threat to U.S. national security and the basis for invading and occupying Iraq for almost a decade, destroying large amounts of infrastructure and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis.
I didn't resign because I hated my country. I resigned because I thought the decisions being made by elected politicians serving in government were not in the best interests of my country, or the people of Iraq, or the world.
Resignation from one's government in opposition to a decision for war made by one's superiors in the government is a huge decision, particularly with what Russian citizens--much less Russian diplomats--face with the Russian government criminalizing use of the word "war," arresting of thousands protesters on the streets, and shutting down independent media outlets.
With Russian diplomats serving in over 100 Russian Federation embassies all over the world, I know they are watching international news sources and have much more information about the brutal war on the people of the Ukraine than their colleagues at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, much less the average Russian, now that international media has been taken off the air and internet sites disabled.
For those Russian diplomats, a decision to resign from the Russian diplomatic corps would result in much more severe consequences and most certainly would be much more dangerous than what I faced in my resignation in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.
However, from my own experience, I can tell those Russian diplomats that a heavy load will be lifted from their consciences once they make the decision to resign. While they will be ostracized by many of their former diplomatic colleagues, as I found, many more will quietly approve of their courage to resign and face the consequences of the loss of the career that they worked so diligently to create.
Should some Russian diplomats resign, there are organizations and groups in virtually every country where there is a Russian Federation embassy that I think will provide them with aid and assistance as they embark on a new chapter of their lives without the diplomatic corps.
They are facing a momentous decision.
And, if they resign, their voices of conscience, their voices of dissent, will probably be the most important legacy of their lives.
The U.N. ambassador nominee also shrugged off the Nazi salutes made by Elon Musk on Inauguration Day.
As U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik faced questioning by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday regarding her nomination for a top diplomatic position, the rights group Jewish Voice for Peace Action called on lawmakers to consider her "record of antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, and anti-democracy rhetoric and policy" and block her confirmation.
Stefanik's (R-N.Y.) record was reinforced at the hearing as she was asked about her views on Palestine, expressions of antisemitism in the United States, and far-right Israeli leaders' political agenda, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) recalling a meeting he had with the congresswoman after President Donald Trump nominated her to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
At the meeting, Van Hollen said, Stefanik had expressed support for the idea that Israel has a Biblical right to control the entire West Bank—a position that is held by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but runs counter to the two-state solution that the U.S. government has long supported.
"Is that your view today?" asked Van Hollen, to which Stefanik replied, "Yes."
Van Hollen noted that Stefanik's viewpoint also flies in the face of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions and international consensus about the Middle East conflict.
"If the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we're going to have to look at the U.N. Security Council resolutions," said the senator. "And it's going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed, which is a view that was not held by the founders of the state of Israel."
Stefanik also refused to answer a direct question from Van Hollen regarding whether Palestinian people have the right to self-determination, saying only that she supports "human rights for all" and pivoting to a call for Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas.
Jenin Younes, litigation counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, said Stefanik expressed "religious fanaticism, pure and simple" at the confirmation hearing—which was held as Israeli settlers and soldiers ramped up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
"That [Stefanik] will now play a major role with respect to our foreign policy in the region is terrifying," said Younes.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action noted that in addition to supporting "the Israeli government's brutal genocide of Palestinians," Stefanik has also "amplified the antisemitic Great Replacement theory"—which claims the influence and power of white Christian Americans is being deliberately diminished by Jewish Americans and immigration policy.
Despite her support for the debunked conspiracy theory, Stefanik made headlines last year for her accusations against college students, faculty, and administrators over the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that exploded across campuses as Americans spoke out against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza. The congresswoman said the protests were expressions of antisemitism and pushed for the resignation of university leaders who declined to discipline students who spoke out against Israel.
The hearings where Stefanik lambasted college leaders "were part of a broader campaign to silence anti-war activism and dissent on college campuses while forwarding the MAGA culture war campaign against [diversity, equity, and inclusion], critical race theory, and LGBTQ+ rights," said JVP Action.
An exchange between Stefanik and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday also raised questions over Stefanik's views on antisemitism. Murphy asked the nominee about the Nazi salute twice displayed by billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk—whom the president has named to lead his proposed Department of Government Efficiency—at an event Monday night.
" Elon Musk did not do those salutes," Stefanik asserted.
Murphy countered by reading several comments from right-wing commentators who applauded Musk's "Heil Hitler" salute.
"Over and over again last night, white supremacist groups and neo-Nazi groups in this country rallied around that visual," said Murphy.
JVP Action said Stefanik has "deeply embraced Trump's anti-democratic agenda."
"Her nomination must be blocked," said the group.
"As long as Citizens United remains the law of the land, our democracy will remain broken," said one campaigner.
As President Donald Trump triumphantly returned to the White House thanks in part to a tsunami of campaign cash from oligarchs and corporate interests, democracy defenders on Tuesday marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that unleashed such spending by urging action to overturn the decision.
In a nation where corporations and moneyed interests already wielded disproportionate power and influence over elections, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission reversed campaign finance restrictions dating back to the era of Gilded Age robber barons. The ruling affirmed that political spending by corporations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other groups is a form of free speech protected by the 1st Amendment that government cannot restrict. The decision ushered in the era of super PACs—which can raise unlimited amounts of money to spend on campaigns—and secret spending on elections with so-called "dark money."
In his Citizens United dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that "in a functioning democracy the public must have faith that its representatives owe their positions to the people, not to the corporations with the deepest pockets," and warned that the ruling "will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the states to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process."
"Over the last 15 years, the American people have watched with disgust as both parties welcomed the unfettered sale of our democracy and elections to the highest bidders."
Since then, nearly $20 billion has been spent on U.S. presidential elections and more than $53 billion on congressional races, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. Spending on 2024 congressional races was double 2010 levels, while presidential campaign contributions were more than 50% higher in 2024 than in 2008, the last election before Citizens United.
Ultrawealthy megadonors played a critical role in Trump's 2024 victory. Some of them have been rewarded with Cabinet nominations and key appointments in "an administration dominated by billionaires and corporate interests," as Americans for Tax Fairness executive director David Kass described it.
"Fifteen years ago today, the Supreme Court gave billionaires and special interests unprecedented power to rig our democracy with its disastrous Citizens United decision. Yesterday, Donald Trump was sworn in, ushering in the wealthiest administration in American history," Tiffany Muller, president of the advocacy group End Citizens United, said on social media Tuesday. "Citizens United paved the way for Trump II."
Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, said in a statement that "over the last 15 years, the American people have watched with disgust as both parties welcomed the unfettered sale of our democracy and elections to the highest bidders."
"Citizens United legalized economic inequality as a political tool for the wealthy to exploit," Rojas added. "A decade-and-a-half later, working-class people cannot afford to run for office and everyday voters' voices are drowned out by billionaire-funded super PACs. As long as Citizens United remains the law of the land, our democracy will remain broken."
Justice Democrats noted: "Yesterday, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in what was maybe one of the most openly corporate-sponsored inaugurations in American history. In just one row seated in front of Trump's Cabinet members, four men had the combined wealth of just under $1 trillion."
"Billionaires and corporations are paying their way to gain influence in the Trump administration and they can expect a massive return on their investment, at the expense of everyday people," the group added.
It's no surprise, say critics, that corporate profits and plutocrat wealth have soared to new heights during the Citizens United era.
"Citizens United allowed corporations to buy candidates and elections. Citizens United legalized political bribery. Citizens United let wealth dominate our elections," the consumer watchdog Public Citizen said Tuesday. "Overturn Citizens United."
Positing that "Citizens United turned our democracy into an auction," Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote on social media Tuesday that "our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people—not corporations and billionaire elites. We must #EndCitizensUnited and put the American people back in charge."
Democratic lawmakers have introduced numerous bills, including proposed constitutional amendments, to reverse Citizens United. While Congress has not been able or willing to address the issue, 22 states and the District of Columbia, as well as more than 800 local governments across the country, have passed measures calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling, according to Public Citizen.
"This is a moment to
usher in a new era in the Democratic Party that rejects the growing oligarchy in this country by rejecting the unprecedented level of billionaire and corporate spending that has a stranglehold over both parties," Justice Democrats said on Tuesday. "Now is the moment to tirelessly center working people and expose the big money corruption that Citizens United has brought onto both parties. By rejecting their influence, working-class people may finally have the promise of a party that actually serves them."
The Republican president "articulated his plan to drastically increase executions, and we all know this is one promise he can't wait to keep," said one death penalty abolitionist.
Delivering on a promise to "vigorously pursue the death penalty," U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday night signed an executive order that reverses his predecessor's moratorium on federal capital punishment and calls for expanding it.
The widely expected order—one of several issued on Inauguration Day—was swiftly criticized on factual and moral grounds.
Attorney and death penalty expert Robert Dunham pointed out that the order "starts with a demonstrable falsehood ('Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes'), signaling that the administration intends not to allow the facts to affect its policy decisions."
"In fact, the death penalty does not contribute anything to public safety," said Dunham, citing a study by the Death Penalty Policy Project, which he directs. "As for 'deterring the most heinous crimes,' see my analysis of the worst of the worst mass shootings in the United States."
"It is essential, with the importance and deadly consequences of this policy, that media coverage report the truth and not just the rhetoric," he stressed. "The executive order is grounded in a false, dark fantasy about deterrence and has nothing to do with making the public safer."
Declaring that "the death penalty is unjust and cruel," the ACLU warned that Trump's order not only directs an expansion of its use at the federal level but also encourages states to do the same.
Specifically, the order says that "in addition to pursuing the death penalty where possible," the attorney general shall seek it "regardless of other factors" for federal cases involving the murder of a law enforcement officer or a capital crime committed by an undocumented immigrant—and shall "encourage state attorneys general and district attorneys to bring state capital charges for all capital crimes with special attention to" those circumstances, "regardless of whether the federal trial results in a capital sentence."
The order further directs the head of the U.S. Department of Justice to "seek the overruling of Supreme Court precedents that limit the authority of state and federal governments to impose" the death penalty and "ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection."
Last week, outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland "withdrew the Justice Department's protocol for federal executions that allowed for single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital, after a government review raised concerns about the potential for 'unnecessary pain and suffering,'" The Associated Press reported. "The protocol could be imposed by Trump's new acting Attorney General James McHenry III, or his pick to lead the Justice Department, Pam Bondi, once she's confirmed by the Senate."
Though Trump's order doesn't name Garland, it explicitly takes aim at former President Joe Biden for his moratorium as well as his attempt to prevent another GOP killing spree like the one that occurred at the end of the Republican's first term, accusing the Democrat of commuting the sentences of "37 of the 40 most vile and sadistic rapists, child molesters, and murderers on federal death row: remorseless criminals who brutalized young children, strangled and drowned their victims, and hunted strangers for sport."
Biden said last month that "in good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted." He left Charleston church gunman Dylann Roof, Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, and Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on death row. The others now face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Trump cannot reverse Biden's commutations, but he directed the attorney general to "evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each" of those 37 men and "take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose."
The president also said that the attorney general "shall further evaluate whether these offenders can be charged with state capital crimes and shall recommend appropriate action to state and local authorities."
Death Penalty Action executive director Abraham Bonowitz said in a Monday statement:
President Trump's executive order demanding capital charges for the murder of law enforcement officers or capital crimes by illegal aliens is unnecessary bluster, because the death penalty already exists for such crimes. But Trump can't help himself. Donald Trump's Agenda2025 articulated his plan to drastically increase executions, and we all know this is one promise he can't wait to keep.
We are also dismayed at President Biden's cynical compromise that commuted 37 federal death sentences while leaving seven prisoners on federal and military death rows. While expressing both his personal opposition to the death penalty and his desire to maintain the moratorium on executions he imposed in 2021, Biden has nevertheless primed the pump for Donald Trump to resume his execution spree.
Social media users also slammed Trump's order, with one saying that "this is extremely disturbing" and another calling it "one of the most ghoulish things I've ever fucking read." Many critics highlighted that the president issued the measure while pardoning over 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which led to the deaths of multiple police officers.
James Goodwin, policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform, noted that it "is straight out of Project 2025," the sweeping Heritage Foundation-led playbook from which Trump unsuccessfully tried to distance himself during the campaign.
Trump has a long history of supporting capital punishment. As journalist Prem Thakker
put it, "On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the man who bought [a] full-page [newspaper] ad calling for the execution of the Central Park Five—five Black and Latino teens wrongfully convicted of rape—makes one of his first acts as president to restore and prioritize the death penalty."