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Weekly-News
'Time to Clear House': Sunrise Movement Launches Major Primary Effort Against Corporate Dems
"For far too long, Democratic leadership has failed to meet the moment," the leader of the youth-led climate movement said.
Nov 13, 2025
Amid growing outrage over corporate Democrats' failure to meaningfully stand up against President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, Sunrise Movement on Thursday launched what it called it "most ambitious" primary campaign to replace feckless incumbents with progressives.
"For far too long, Democratic leadership has failed to meet the moment; it’s time to clear house,” Sunrise Movement executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay said in a statement.
“I’m extremely excited about the crop of candidates running in 2026," Shiney-Ajay added. "This year, we have an unprecedented opportunity to elect a new generation of leaders who are challenging our broken political system and fighting for a livable and affordable country.”
Like many progressive groups, Sunrise Movement has expressed its growing frustration with most congressional Democrats' acquiescence to Trump and Republicans' growing authoritarianism. The youth-led, climate-focused organization was particularly incensed by Senate Democrats' recent capitulation in the government shutdown fight.
"Why the hell would Democrats cave with nothing for the working people? When millions are losing healthcare?" Sunrise asked last week. "If you cave now, you don’t deserve to lead, you deserve to be replaced."
To that end, Sunrise says its new campaign "will include a nationwide field, protest, and communications program targeting over a dozen congressional primaries."
"Sunrise organizers and volunteers will mobilize thousands of young people to knock on doors, make calls, and take direct action to elect progressive champions ready to challenge the Democratic Party’s complacency and reimagine what Democratic leadership can look like," the group continued.
"In the 2026 general election, Sunrise will lead one of the largest youth electoral efforts in the country, organizing students on campuses across the country to ensure young voters turn out to reject authoritarianism at the ballot box and are prepared to mobilize in defense of election results if Trump or his allies attempt to subvert democracy," Sunrise added.
The new Sunrise campaign comes as progressive groups such as Indivisible, MoveOn, and Our Revolution and some Democratic House lawmakers including progressives Ro Khanna (Calif.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) are urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to step down in the wake of the shutdown surrender.
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How Many People Were Charged After DHS Claimed Chicago Building Was Filled With 'Terrorists'? Zero.
“The department I once served is engaging in fascist shows of force,” said Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration.
Nov 13, 2025
Late at night on September 30, over 300 federal agents stormed an apartment building in one of Chicago's lowest-income neighborhoods. After descending from Black Hawk helicopters, they broke down residents' doors, destroyed furniture and belongings, deployed flash-bang grenades, and dragged sleeping people—some naked—out into the cold evening. Dozens of people, including children and American citizens, were held in zip ties and detained for hours.
As part of the highly publicized raid at the South Shore complex, which was filmed and edited into a miniature action film by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), at least 37 Venezuelan residents of the apartment complex were taken into custody.
On Thursday, an investigation by ProPublica revealed that the raid, heralded by the Trump administration as a counterterrorism victory, has resulted in zero charges against the people who were detained.
In the wake of public backlash to the militarized raid’s extraordinary, indiscriminate brutality, the assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, claimed that the operation "successfully resulted in the arrest of two confirmed Tren de Aragua members,“ describing the cartel as ”a terrorist organization.“ She added that ”One of these members was a positive match on the terror screening watchlist.“
She added that others who were detained had their own rap sheets, including "domestic battery, family violence, battery against a public safety official, aggravated unlawful use of a firearm, retail theft, soliciting prostitution, possession of a controlled substance," while another "had an active warrant and was listed as armed and dangerous [with] weapons offenses."
Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump and an architect of his "mass deportation" policy, said that the building was "filled with TdA terrorists" and that the raid had “saved God knows how many lives."
But ProPublica's report called many of the government’s claims into question. The government has not released the names of the 37 Venezuelans detained in the raid, but reporters identified the names of 21 of them and interviewed 12.
The report found that contrary to the government's claims of their rampant criminality, federal prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against a single person who was arrested. They have also not provided any evidence that two of the men arrested were part of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The names of the two supposed gang members have not been made public, but ProPublica managed to track down one of them—24-year-old Ludwing Jeanpier Parra Pérez—using another government press release that described him as a “confirmed member” of the terrorist cartel.
While the release also described him as a “criminal illegal alien,” the only criminal charges ever filed against him—for drug possession and driving without a license after a traffic stop last year—were dropped. No other charges against him, related to gang activity or anything else, have been filed.
"I don’t have anything to do with that,” Parra told ProPublica from the Indiana jail where he's detained along with 17 others nabbed in the raid. “I’m very worried. I don’t know why they are saying that. I came here to find a better future for me and my family.”
ProPublica said its reporters have also observed eight immigration court hearings for the detained individuals, many of whom have asked to be deported back to Venezuela. In not a single one of the hearings has a government attorney mentioned any pending criminal charges against them while arguing for their deportation, nor have they alleged that any of them have affiliations with Tren de Aragua.
Judges have instead ordered them deported or granted voluntary departure, which the outlet noted is "a sign that they are not seen as a serious threat and can apply for return to the United States."
Mark Rotert, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney in Chicago, told ProPublica that if these detainees actually had the long criminal histories the government claimed they do, they would likely pursue charges.
“Do they really believe they have people who are members of a violent organized crime gang?" he said. "If they believe they have people who fit that criteria, I would be very surprised if they were satisfied with only deporting them.”
As far as other crimes, ProPublica found that 18 of the 21 detainees they identified had no criminal charges against them. Meanwhile, the other three, who were charged with offenses “ranging from drug possession to battery,” have all had their charges dropped.
Among those rounded up at the South Shore apartment who spoke to ProPublica were a man with a steady job at a taco restaurant who has a daughter in elementary school, and a construction worker and former Venezuelan army paratrooper who is raising four children.
The investigation's findings are in line with how the Trump administration has attempted to sell its militaristic Operation Midway Blitz and other prongs of its mass deportation crusade to the public.
While the White House has persistently claimed to be targeting “the worst of the worst” criminals, the latest immigration data shows that around 72% of current detainees have no criminal convictions. Previous data from the libertarian Cato Institute has shown that 93% of ICE book-ins were for non-criminals and nonviolent offenders.
Michael D. Baker, an immigration and criminal defense lawyer based in Chicago, described it as laughable that a "300-agent raid" was being "called a terrorist victory" even while it had "zero criminal charges."
"The Trump administration’s showcase anti-gang operation was built on spectacle, not evidence," he said.
In response to the story, Miles Taylor, who served in the DHS from 2017-19, including as its chief of staff, during the first Trump administration, lamented on social media that the department "is no longer recognizable."
"The department I once served is engaging in fascist shows of force," he said, "violating the rights of Americans—only to satiate the creepy desires of an old man who wants to seem macho."
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Under Trump, Inflation Is Costing Average US Family $700 More Per Month
"While President Trump claimed that he would bring down prices, the reality is that Americans have seen their costs soar even higher since he took office."
Nov 13, 2025
Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday detailing how much more the average American family in every US state is having to spend monthly to cover the rising costs of food, shelter, energy, and other necessities under the leadership of President Donald Trump.
The panel released its report on the same day the Trump administration was supposed to publish the October Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. The closely watched CPI report was delayed by the shutdown, and the Trump White House said Wednesday that it's likely the figures will never be released.
Deploying the same methodology that Republicans used to track cost increases under former President Joe Biden, JEC Democrats found that the average US family is spending roughly $700 more per month on basic items since Trump took office in January, pledging to bring prices "way down."
"While President Trump claimed that he would bring down prices, the reality is that Americans have seen their costs soar even higher since he took office," said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the JEC's ranking member. "As families across the country spend more to pay their bills and put food on the table, Democrats and Republicans should be working together to lower costs. Instead, President Trump is pushing ahead with reckless tariffs that continue to fuel inflation and drive prices up even higher."
In some states—including Alaska, California, and Colorado—average families are spending over $1,000 more per month to maintain their living standards as costs continue to rise, in part due to Trump's erratic tariff regime.
The report's findings run directly counter to Trump's triumphant rhetoric on inflation and the US economy more broadly.
CNN's Daniel Dale noted earlier this week that Trump has been on a "lying spree about inflation," falsely claiming that "every price is down" and that "everybody knows that it's far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden."
"None of that is true," Dale wrote. "Prices are up during this administration. Average prices were 1.7% higher in September than they were in January, according to the most recent figures from the federal Consumer Price Index, and 3% higher than they were in September 2024. There has been inflation every month of the term, and far more products have gotten costlier than cheaper."
"Inflation not only very much continues to exist but has been accelerating since the spring," Dale added. "As of September, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months."
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Series of Reports Ignored by Media Show Jeffrey Epstein's Extensive Work With Israeli Intelligence
"It looked like Mossad was working for Epstein instead of Epstein working for Mossad,” said Drop Site News reporter Murtaza Hussain.
Nov 12, 2025
As the US House of Representatives appears poised to vote for a resolution demanding the release of files relating to the late sex criminal and financier Jeffrey Epstein, a new series of investigations is digging into an area of the disgraced financier's life that has largely evaded scrutiny: his extensive ties with Israeli intelligence.
Epstein's relationship with the Israeli government has long been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theorizing. But the extent of the connections has long been difficult to prove. That is, until October 2024, when the Palestinian group Handala released a tranche of more than 100,000 hacked emails from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who led the country from 1999 to 2001.
The emails span the years 2013-16, beginning just before Barak concluded his nearly six-year tenure as Israel's minister of defense. Barak is known to have been one of Epstein's closest associates, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that he visited the financier's estates in Florida and New York more than 30 times between 2013 and 2017, years after Epstein had been convicted for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent victims, who died earlier this year, alleged in her posthumous memoir that a figure, described only as "the Prime Minister," but widely believed to be Barak, violently raped her on Epstein's private Caribbean island when she was 18. In past court filings, Giuffre accused Barak of sexually assaulting her. Barak has categorically denied those allegations and said he was unaware of Epstein's activities with minors during the time of their friendship.
Emails between Barak and Epstein have served as the basis for the ongoing investigative series published since late September by the independent outlet Drop Site News, which used them to unearth Epstein's extensive role in brokering intelligence deals between Israel and other nations.
The emails reveal that between 2013 and 2016, the pair had "intimate, oftentimes daily correspondence," during which they discussed "political and business strategy as Epstein coordinated meetings for Barak with other members of his elite circles."
The investigation comes as President Donald Trump's extensive ties to Epstein face renewed scrutiny in Congress. On Wednesday, just a day after Drop Site published the fourth part of its series, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a new trove of documents from Epstein's private estate.
Among them were emails sent in 2011 from Epstein to his partner and co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell, in which he said the then private-citizen Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of his sex trafficking victims, referring to Trump as a “dog that hasn’t barked.”
Murtaza Hussain, one of the Drop Site reporters who has dug into Epstein's Israel connections, told Democracy Now! on Wednesday that the focus on Trump, while important, has diverted attention from other key tendrils of Epstein's influence.
"There's been a lot of justifiable focus on Epstein's very grave crimes and facilitation of the crimes of others related to sex trafficking and sex abuse," Hussain said. "But one critical aspect of the story that has not been covered is Epstein's own relations to foreign governments, the US government, and particularly foreign intelligence agencies."
The first report shows that Epstein was instrumental in helping Barak develop a formal security agreement between Israel and Mongolia, recruiting powerful friends like Larry Summers, who served as an economist to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, to serve on a Presidential Advisory Board for the Central Asian nation's economy.
Epstein helped to facilitate an agreement for Mongolia to purchase Israeli military equipment and surveillance technology from companies with which the men had financial ties.
Another report shows how Epstein helped Israel to establish a covert backchannel with the Russian government at the height of the Syrian Civil War, during which they attempted to persuade the Kremlin to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a major national security priority for Israel, which had become substantially involved in the conflict.
This process was coordinated with Israeli intelligence and resulted in Barak securing a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In one message, Barak explicitly thanked Epstein for "setting the whole thing together."
Epstein also worked alongside Barak to sell Israeli surveillance tech, which had previously been used extensively in occupied Palestine, to the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire.
In 2014, the pair architected a deal by which the nation's government, led by President Alassane Ouattara, purchased technology used to listen in on phone calls and radio transmissions and monitor points of interest like cybercafes.
In the decade since, the report says, "Ouattara has tightened his grip on power, banning public demonstrations and arresting peaceful protestors," while "his Israeli-backed police state has squashed civic organizations and silenced critics."
On Tuesday, just before the House Oversight Committee dropped its latest batch of documents, the series' latest report revealed that an Israeli spy, Yoni Koren, stayed at Epstein's New York apartment for weeks at a time on three separate occasions between 2013 and 2015. Koren served as an intermediary between the American and Israeli governments, helping Barak organize meetings with top intelligence officials, including former CIA Director Leon Panetta.
Drop Site's reporting has fueled speculation of the longstanding theory that Epstein may have worked as an agent of Mossad, Israel's central intelligence agency. Hussain said that the evidence points to the idea that Epstein was not a formal Mossad agent, but was working as an asset to advance its most hawkish foreign policy goals.
He marveled at the fact that throughout each of these stories, “it’s not Epstein chasing Barak—it’s Barak chasing Epstein," and that at times, "it looked like Mossad was working for Epstein instead of Epstein working for Mossad.”
In a foreword to their latest report, Hussain and co-author Ryan Grim expressed bewilderment at the lack of media attention paid to the publicly available files revealing Epstein's role as a semi-official node in Israel's intelligence apparatus.
While Epstein's relationship with Trump has routinely been front-page news for many outlets, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal have not published a story focused on Epstein's role in Israeli intelligence.
"We’re left wondering why the rest of the media, which has demonstrated no lack of excitement when it comes to the saga of Jeffrey Epstein, has all of a sudden lost its reporting capacity, in the face of reams of publicly available newsworthy documents," the reporters asked. "A question for editors reading this newsletter: What are you doing?"
In the interview, Hussain said he and Grim "are going to continue drilling down on this and not shying away from the political implications of his activities."
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