Friday, August 22, 2025
■ Today's Top News
He now awaits trial in what his lawyers argue is a "vindictive prosecution" by the Justice Department.
By Stephen Prager
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man whom the Trump administration wrongfully deported in violation of a judge's order earlier this year, was released from custody in Tennessee on Friday.
"Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free," his attorney, Sean Hecker, said. "He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government's vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration's continuing assault on the rule of law. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process."
The Trump administration acknowledged that its deportation of Garcia to languish in a prison camp in El Salvador in March was the result of an "administrative error." But it fought to keep him there based on unsubstantiated charges that he was a member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, even after the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the administration must facilitate his return.
Abrego Garcia was one of more than 200 people deported to the CECOT prison without trial—the vast majority of whom were found to have never been convicted of or even charged with a crime. While there, he says he endured beatings and psychological torture before being brought back to the United States in June.
The Justice Department hit him with charges for human smuggling, which his lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg has described as "preposterous" and a way for the Trump administration to save face after an egregious miscarriage of justice. Nearly a month after a judge ordered his release from custody, Abrego Garcia is now heading back to Maryland, where he will await trial.
His lawyers argue that the DOJ "has engaged in a vindictive prosecution, seeking to penalize Abrego Garcia for asserting his rights, rather than accepting an unjust outcome."
In a motion to dismiss the case filed this week, the attorneys argued that "such tactics are inconsistent with principles of fairness and justice, and that the prosecution should be dismissed."
As evidence of this, his lawyers have cited a claim from a former Justice Department lawyer who says he was fired after refusing to file a misleading brief claiming Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13.
The Trump administration, which has argued that Abrego Garcia is not entitled to due process because of his immigration status, has threatened to immediately return him to Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) detention and deport him to a third country. However, last month, US District Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing his case, barred ICE from immediately rearresting him.
If he is taken into custody, US Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes has ordered that he be given access to his attorneys.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) has said Abrego Garcia's release was "fantastic news!"
"I am thrilled for Kilmar Abrego Garcia!" she wrote on X. "The Trump administration must stop their unfounded investigations and let his family remain together."
"For those of us focused on progressive social change," says the board chair of Our Revolution, secretive spending by corporations and the ultra-rich "has blocked candidates committed to our entire agenda including workers' rights, Gaza ceasefire, financial reform, rent control, Medicare for All, and renewable energy."
By Julia Conley
Ahead of the Democratic National Committee's upcoming summer meeting in Minneapolis, organizers with the grassroots advocacy group Our Revolution on Thursday delivered a petition with 13,000 signatures calling on committee members to adopt DNC Chair Ken Martin's proposal to take a major step toward banning dark money in presidential primaries.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Martin's proposal directed the DNC Committee on Reforms to identify "real, enforceable steps the DNC can take to eliminate unlimited corporate and dark money in its 2028 presidential primary process."
The panel is set to vote on the issue on August 27 as the DNC wraps up the summer meeting.
The DNC has in the past declined to allow votes on resolutions that sought to ban dark money—undisclosed and corporate funds that can go towards election efforts through issue-advocacy groups—with the committee's resolutions panel refusing to bring the issue up for a vote twice in five months in 2022-23, after super PACs had spent $1.35 billion on the 2022 midterms.
While super PACs are legally required to disclose their donors, many effectively act as dark money groups because the sources of their funding are difficult to trace.
"For too long, billionaires and corporate super PACs have drowned out the voices of working people," said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, on Thursday. "Democrats can't claim to be the party of working people while letting dark money groups and corporate elites choose their presidential nominees. This resolution is about putting power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not billionaire donors."
Paco Fabian, campaign director for Our Revolution, told Common Dreams that Democratic leaders have long been driven by the "fear of scaring away funders that provide a lot of money to the party."
"This resolution is about putting power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not billionaire donors."
Our Revolution backed Martin's run to lead the DNC earlier this year in part because of his call for the party to rein in corporate and dark money spending in elections, said Fabian.
"I think he understands that in the past, especially in Democratic primaries, they haven't necessarily been shared contests," Fabian said. "The DNC can really make it a fairer process where it's not about who spends the most money. It's really about who convinces the most people to support them based on their policy positions."
Martin's proposal does not seek to ban super PACs from Democratic primaries, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has demanded, but the progressive senator—whose 2016 presidential campaign led to the founding of Our Revolution—applauded the step urged by the DNC chair earlier this month.
"Congrats to the DNC for starting the process to ban Big Money from presidential primaries," said Sanders.
Martin's proposal notes that the Democratic Party must "demonstrate its willingness to reject certain types of donations if it hopes to win the trust of voters," according to The New York Times.
"The DNC encourages Democratic officeholders and candidates at all levels of government to support efforts to reduce the influence of corporate and dark money in their campaign policy platforms, and to lead by example in rejecting such donations," reads the resolution, which does not specify how candidates would be held to account for accepting dark money from outside groups.
Larry Cohen, board chair of Our Revolution, wrote in The Nation on Friday that "candidates could be required to sign some version of the 'People's Pledge' agreed to by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown in the 2012 general election for the U.S. Senate," which required a candidate benefiting from "big money independent expenditures [IE] to donate a similar amount, from their campaign funds to a designated charity."
"Campaign funds are far more valuable than IE money, providing a powerful deterrent," wrote Cohen.
Cohen emphasized that in Democratic primaries, "big money has often weighed in on behalf of centrist Democrats and against progressives," with independent expenditures including dark money hitting record highs in 2024 "as millions of dollars poured into several districts in the weeks before primary elections, demonizing leading Democratic candidates" such as former Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).
Cohen added:
For those of us focused on progressive social change, this spending has blocked candidates committed to our entire agenda including workers' rights, Gaza ceasefire, financial reform, rent control, Medicare for All, and renewable energy. The Congressional Progressive Caucus which had been advancing towards a majority of the Democratic Party Caucus, has now seen incumbents defeated and new progressive candidates blocked by the onslaught of money from crypto, fossil fuel, and an endless parade of corporate spending, AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) and other right-wing groups, as well as Republican billionaires.
Our Revolution delivered the 13,000 petition signatures a day after the Times reported on the Democratic Party's plummeting voter registration numbers, with all 30 states that track voter registration by political party finding that Democrats ceded ground to the Republicans between 2020-24.
While Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between those years' presidential elections, the GOP gained 2.4 million.
Fabian expressed hope that Martin's resolution could be the first step towards "a real boon" for the party.
"It can really bring in folks to the party where they're like, 'Okay, it's not about money now. It's about people. And that means I feel like my voice will be heard, as opposed to the current system where my voice will only be heard if I bring a bag of money with me.'"
The attorney general of Washington, DC said recently that contrary to the president's claims, "violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year."
By Brad Reed
US President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to oust Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and to have the federal government fully assume control of the nation's capital.
While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that Washington, DC under Bowser's leadership has been "unsafe" and "horrible."
"Mayor Bowser better get her act straight, or she won't be mayor very long, because we'll take it over with the federal government, running it like it's supposed to be run," said Trump. "It was a crime-infested rat hole, and they do have a lot of rats, and we're getting rid of them too, and we've made a lot of progress."
In reality, crime in Washington, DC had been falling before Trump decided to deploy the National Guard and other federal agents into the city. As Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb recently recounted, "Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year."
Shortly after attacking Washington, DC, the president said he was pushing for the National Guard to be deployed across other American cities.
"After we do [Washington, DC], we'll go to another location and make it safe also," he said. "We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago's a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we'll straighten that one out probably next, that'll be our next one after this, and it won't even be tough."
Trump then suggested sending the National Guard to New York.
Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is currently running for the United States Senate, warned Trump against sending the National Guard to her state's biggest city.
"If Trump wants to take his ego trip on tour, he picked the wrong city," she said. "Chicago doesn't bow down to kings or roll out the red carpet for dictators. As a Black woman from the South Side, I can assure you... your political circus isn't welcome here."
Polling released this week by The Washington Post showed that Trump's National Guard deployment is massively unpopular with DC residents, as 79% of residents surveyed said they disapproved of the deployments, including 69% who said they strongly disapproved.
The new report comes as the world's top authority on hunger crises officially declared a full-blown famine in the Palestinian territory.
By Brett Wilkins
As the world's leading authority on hunger crises officially declared a catastrophic famine in Gaza, a report published Friday details how Israel has dismantled the time-tested civilian aid distribution model and replaced it with a military-based system in which many Palestinians are not only dying from starvation but are also being killed while trying to obtain food.
Forensic Architecture (FA)—a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London—and World Peace Foundation (WPF), a philanthropic organization affiliated with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts—published The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation in Gaza, March-August 2025, "revealing how... Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally-backed 'civilian model' of aid distribution, replacing it with a 'military model' which furthers Israel's military and political objectives in Gaza while starving the region'ss civilian population."
"Aid can be lethal when used in a manipulative way," an introduction to the report states. "We have unpacked the architecture of starvation imposed by Israel in Gaza. It is composed of acts of construction and destruction: the destruction of Palestinian agriculture and food sovereignty, the destruction of Palestinian civil society, and the construction of death traps."
The report opens by noting a March 2024 provisional order by the International Court of Justice in The Hague—a product of the tribunal's ongoing genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—directing the Israeli government to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel ignored the order and ramped up its forced starvation of Gaza.
"In Gaza, under the Israeli system of aid distribution, intentional mass starvation is happening on two levels, the biological starvation of individuals through the provision of starvation rations, or no rations at all," the report's authors wrote, as well as "the destruction of the group as a whole, through collective dehumanization, separating the population from its land, and the disintegration of a functioning Palestinian society in Gaza."
According to the report, Israel has dismantled the "civilian model" of aid distribution by:
- Attacking essential aid infrastructure like warehouses, distribution points, kitchens, and bakeries;
- Restricting the supply of aid into Gaza by international humanitarian organizations; and
- Creating the conditions for aid diversion, including attacking groups tasked with securing aid routes, and failing to intervene in the diversion of aid in areas controlled by the Israeli military.
The report says Israel has implemented a "dangerous and deadly" system in which there are only four ration stations run by the
US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), "all located in military zones."
Described by many as "death traps," GHF's aid points have been the sites of regular Israeli massacres of desperate Palestinian aid-seekers. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed or wounded while trying to obtain aid in Gaza, including more than 850 people slain at or near GHF centers. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) whistleblowers have said they were ordered to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of desperate aid-seekers, even when they posed no security threat—accounts corroborated by a former US special forces colonel who resigned from GHF.
The new report found at least 64 incidents of Palestinian civilians "being attacked by the Israeli military while seeking aid, including 25 incidents at and around GHF ration stations," as well as dozens of attacks on aid infrastructure, humanitarian workers, and police.
Gaza's Government Media Office said earlier this year that more than 1,500 humanitarian workers were killed in Gaza since October 2023, including medical and civil defense personnel. The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said this week that 181 aid workers were killed while working in Gaza last year—accounting for nearly half of all such fatalities worldwide. Israel has baselessly accused many of these slain aid workers—especially employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—of being members of Hamas or other militant groups.
The new report also notes that "airdropped aid landed in active combat zones, or in densely populated areas, where airdrops have killed people, and destroyed shelters." Palestinians have also drowned while trying to reach aid airdropped into the Mediterranean Sea, which the IDF has prohibited Gazans from entering under penalty of death.
Furthermore, the report's authors found that Palestinians must walk an average of more than three-and-a-half miles to the nearest GHF aid point, with such centers being open for an average of just 10 minutes at a time between June 19 and July 4.
The publication also highlights the 58 evacuation orders to which Gazans have been subjected. Critics have called "evacuation" a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. Israeli operations, including Gideon's Chariots and the newly launched Gideon's Chariots 2, are aimed at conquering Gaza and ethnically cleansing its residents to locations including a proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The report concludes that Israel is "instrumentalizing aid" in order to:
- Enforce displacement and reconcentration;
- Make reaching aid deadly and dangerous;
- Undermine civil order, dismantle the social fabric of Palestinian society, and dehumanize Palestinians; and
- Permit and enable the diversion of aid.
"The dehumanization of Palestinians, the stripping of basic dignity, and the tearing apart of the fabric of the community are not accidental byproducts of the mass starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza," the report's authors assert. "There is every reason to believe that these are what Israel intends through its militarized ration system."
The report's publication adds to the body of research on Israel's weaponized starvation—one of the alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Earlier this week, Amnesty International—one of a growing number of human rights defenders around the world accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza—said the country's government is "carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being, and social fabric of Palestinian life."
Last month, WPF executive director Alex de Waal, a leading global authority on famine, asserted that "there is no case since World War II of starvation that is being so minutely designed and controlled" as Israel is doing in Gaza.
"This is preventable starvation. It is entirely man-made," de Waal added. "And every stage of this has been predicted, and at every stage action could have been taken—by Israel, by the international authorities, [the] international community, those who back Israel—to prevent what is happening now... Those steps have simply not been taken."
"This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes," said researcher Hanna Homestead.
By Stephen Prager
Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.
But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and "getting rid of the slums" is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.
Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump's effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.
According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.
She added that "the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years."
According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.
Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump's military deployment.
"Taxpayers like you and me bear the cost of this cruel power grab," Homestead said. "This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes."
Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that over 70 encampments had been cleared since Trump's order to federalize the police. She also said that over 600 people had been arrested, though it was not specified how many of them were homeless.
Trump has sought to conflate homelessness with criminality, suggesting that the nation's capital had been "overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people."
While his solution has been a show of military force against people with nowhere to go, a large body of research suggests that the approach of providing "Housing First"—meaning a stable place to stay with no preconditions for sobriety or treatment—reduces crime.
A 2021 study from UCLA found that providing homeless people with targeted housing assistance reduced the probability of committing a crime by 80%.
"Arresting or ticketing people for sleeping outside makes homelessness worse, wastes taxpayer money, and simply does not work," said Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "The solution to homelessness is housing and supports, not handcuffs and jails."
But in addition to a crackdown on the homeless, the Trump administration is also pushing to eliminate funds for public housing. The White House's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 slashes funding for HUD's Continuum of Care program, which provided cities with funding for initiatives to house the homeless.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the proposal would effectively end funding of permanent supportive housing for 170,000 residents and potentially increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.
"Arresting people for no reason other than the fact that they have no home is inhumane and unjust," said Amber W. Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. "It is particularly cruel to do so knowing that federal and local housing programs have been slashed and that DC does not have enough shelter beds."
"Fines, arrests, and encampment evictions make homelessness worse, further traumatize our homeless neighbors while disconnecting them from community and support," said Dana White, Director of Advocacy at Miriam's Kitchen, a DC-based homeless services organization. "If policing resolved homelessness, we wouldn't have homelessness here in DC or anywhere else in this country."
"This engineered famine is the ultimate and inevitable result of the Government of Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war," said the head of Save the Children International in response to the IPC assessment.
By Jon Queally
The world's top authority on hunger crises officially declared Friday that a famine of the most severe kind is the reality in Gaza—a humanitarian disaster engineered by Israel's relentless blockade of food aid and other life-saving supplies amid a military campaign that makes little to no distinction between civilians and possible Palestinian fighters living in the occupied enclave.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—the multi-stakeholder global initiative which integrates international, regional, and national governments and agencies to monitor and respond to food-related emergencies—issued a "special snapshot" on the situation in Gaza and determined that "Famine (IPC Phase 5)—with reasonable evidence—is confirmed in Gaza Governorate."
Phase 5 is the highest level of its famine emergency categories, which, according to the IPC, which means the situation is beyond Category 4 ("Emergency") and now represents a "Catastrophe."
(Image: The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification)
According to the IPC's snapshot assessment:
After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death. Another 1.07 million people (54 percent) are in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20 percent) are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3).
Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with Famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58 percent). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly.
Through June 2026, at least 132,000 children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition—double the IPC estimates from May 2025. This includes over 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death. Nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women will also require urgent nutrition response.
Despite limited data, conditions in North Gaza Governorate are estimated to be as severe—or worse—than in Gaza Governorate.
Download the complete four-page assessment released Friday. The agency said a more complete assessment of its findings will be put out in the coming weeks.
Humanitarians, human rights groups, and relief organizations, which for months have desperately warned world leaders that starvation and malnutrition were rapidly spreading, reacted to the IPC designation—given the global community's failure to force Israel into compliance with international law—with a mix of fury and frustration.
"Despite warnings in July that famine was imminent, Israel has continued to deprive Palestinians of food, denying almost every request from long-established humanitarian agencies, preventing them from delivering vital food and aid that could have stemmed hunger, malnutrition, and disease," said Helen Stawski, the policy lead for Oxfam International.
(Image: IPC assessment)
Stawski placed the blame squarely on Israel's government for blocking food and other supplies that could otherwise be saving lives.
"Oxfam alone has more than $2.5 million worth of life-saving aid, including high-calorie food packages—now sitting in warehouses outside Gaza," she said. "Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever."
Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, rebuked the inaction of global actors who stood by while Israel and its allies allowed to the famine to take hold.
"The world has been watching as children have suffered the unthinkable for nearly two years in Gaza, and now, we have confirmation that hundreds of thousands are being slowly starved to death. None of us should accept this," said Ashing.
"All of Gaza is being systematically starved by design, and children are paying the highest price. The world has failed to act as their tiny, emaciated bodies have been overcome by hunger and disease and shut down," she added. "This engineered famine is the ultimate and inevitable result of the Government of Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war. The sustained siege on food, medicine, and fuel was bound to lead to this preventable catastrophe. There is no world leader who did not know this was coming, who hasn't been warned again and again."
What's urgently needed now, say experts, is an immediate ceasefire and a return to the UN-backed humanitarian aid distribution system that was sidelined by the Israeli and US governments that put the ill-conceived and euphemistically named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, stocked with private contractors and protected by IDF forces and mercenaries, in charge of food operations that have led to chaos and hundreds of killings around its distribution sites.
The IPC assessment called for the following actions in order to end the famine:
- Immediate and sustained cessation of hostilities
To prevent further loss of life and famine from spreading further, an immediate ceasefire and putting an end to the conflict is critical. - Guarantee unconditional and safe humanitarian access
Safe, stable, and unhindered access must be guaranteed through all entry points, in full respect of international humanitarian law, allowing for lifesaving assistance and essential services to reach all people in need across the Gaza Strip. Access must also be granted urgently to allow for a comprehensive humanitarian assessment, in particular in North Gaza Governorate. - Immediate, large-scale, unobstructed multi-sector humanitarian assistance is needed to avert further destitution, starvation and death. This includes the provision of food, nutrition, health, WASH, shelter, fuel, cooking gas and food production inputs, while safeguarding humanitarian principles. This is also the only way to stop the interception of aid trucks by desperate populations.
- Protect civilians and critical infrastructure
Ensure the safety of civilians and humanitarian personnel across the Gaza Strip. Protect and restore critical infrastructure essential for survival and for the functioning of food, health and WASH systems. - Restore commercial flows at scale, market systems, essential services, and local food production.
"Famine means there are no more breaking points and no more alarm bells," said Ashing. "The Government of Israel must immediately end the use of starvation as a weapon of war and lift the siege of the Gaza Strip, allowing aid, including food and nutrition supplies, into Gaza at the scale required, and restore electricity, fuel, and water."
The international community, she concluded, "must finally take every possible step to stop the Government of Israel from intentionally starving children and families in Gaza."
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