Friday, November 28, 2025 ■ Today's Top News
TRUMP'S IRRATIONAL EXPLOITATION! A WHITE GUY KILLS SOMEONE....DOES TRUMP STAND ON A SIMILAR SOAPBOX? NO! REFUGEES, IMMIGRANTS HAVE FEWER CRIMES & SAFER COMMUNITIES THAN WHITE SUPREMACISTS! "Exploiting a single incident to cast suspicion on Afghans—people who have already endured decades of displacement and America's forever wars—is both irresponsible and cruel."By Jon Queally
Advocates for refugees in the United States continued to raise alarm Friday after President Donald Trump moved quickly to exploit the murder of one National Guard soldier and the wounding of another—allegedly shot by a national from Afghanistan who worked for the US military and CIA during the war there before seeking asylum in the US—by issuing a sweeping ban against asylum-seekers and halting all immigration from what he termed “all Third World countries” in response to Wednesday’s shooting in Washington, DC. “Regardless of the alleged perpetrator’s nationality, religion or specific legal status,” said Matthew Soerens, a vice president with the faith-based World Relief, speaking with the Associated Press, “we urge our country to recognize these evil actions as those of one person, not to unfairly judge others who happen to share those same characteristics.” Shawn VanDiver, president of the San Diego-based group AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the US during the war in Afghanistan, explained to the AP that many people in the Afghan refugee community that he knows are terrified by the tone which has been set by Trump after the shooting, afraid to leave their homes for fear of being snatched up by federal agents or otherwise targeted. “They’re terrified. It’s insane,” VanDiver told AP. “People are acting xenophobic because of one deranged man. He doesn’t represent all Afghans. He represents himself.” “The perpetrator should face accountability but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual.” —Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan On Thursday it was announced that Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, deployed with the National Guard under orders from Trump, had died from her injuries while Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remained in critical condition in a local hospital. While heartbreak and mourning was widely shared for the victims of the shooting, Trump’s xenophobic response to the violent assault, including his racist social media posts on Truth Social that critics said echoed white nationalist rhetoric, proved for many observers once again his shortcomings as a national leader during times of crisis, but also as a human being. “The perpetrator should face accountability but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual,” said Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, said Thursday. “That would be terribly unjust and complete nonsense. Cool heads must prevail.” Arash Azizzada, co-director of Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, which long-opposed the US war in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 and continues to advocate on behalf of the Afghan-American community, condemned Trump for “using this tragedy as a pretext to demonize, criminalize, and target an entire community. Exploiting a single incident to cast suspicion on Afghans—people who have already endured decades of displacement and America’s forever wars—is both irresponsible and cruel.” Azizzada also pointed out how the alleged gunman now in police custody, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, “worked alongside US Special Operations forces and served in a CIA-backed covert paramilitary group known as ‘Zero Units’ that functioned outside the purview of any accountability and have a documented history of widespread human rights abuses against Afghan civilians over two decades.” “We both condemn the violence by one individual on the streets of Washington, DC as well as the violence perpetrated by the US in Afghanistan and elsewhere,” said Azizzada. “America must confront the decades of violence it inflicted on Afghanistan and acknowledge that its forever wars are a major reason why Afghans seek safety here. Blaming refugees for the consequences of those actions is unjust and we call for the promises to Afghans to be honored, not abandoned.” Journalist Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News, put it this way: “The idea that we should freeze all migration because one of the CIA’s death squad recruits went on a rampage is absurd. Smarter would be to stop training death squads.” Evacuate Our Allies, a group that advocates on behalf of Afghans who helped the US during the war and now seeking to resettle, expressed deep sympathies for the victims of the shooting and their families and condemned the “reprehensible attack.” The group also denounced the “alarming vilification of an entire community based on the actions of a lone individual.”
“No community, Afghan or otherwise, should be judge, demonized, or collectively punished for the behavior of one person,” the group said. “Such narratives cause real harm, inflame tensions, and overlook the truth: one individual does not represent millions. Collective blame is not only unjust but dangerous. It undermines the immense sacrifices our nation’s Afghan allies made, sacrifices that cost many their safety, their homes, their loved ones, and, in too many case, their lives.”
"We are joining Make Amazon Pay to demand the most basic rights: safety, dignity, and the chance to go home alive," said one Amazon worker from India.By Jake Johnson
Amazon workers and their allies worldwide took to the streets on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, to protest the e-commerce behemoth’s exploitation of workers, relentless union-busting, contributions to the worsening climate emergency, and plans to replace employees en masse with robots. “Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and their political allies are betting on a techno-authoritarian future, but this Make Amazon Pay Day, workers everywhere are saying: enough,” said Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union. “For years, Amazon has squashed workers’ right to democracy on the job through a union and the backing of authoritarian political figures. Its model is deepening inequality and undermining the fundamental rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively, and demand safe, fair workplaces.” From Germany to Bangladesh, thousands of workers walked off the job on Friday and marched against Amazon’s labor practices to push for better wages, working conditions, and union protections. Last month, Amazon reported over $21 billion in profits for the third quarter of 2025—a 38% increase compared to the same time last year. “During the heatwaves, the warehouse feels like a furnace—people faint, but the targets never stop,” said Neha Singh, an Amazon worker in Manesar, India, referring to the company’s productivity quotas. “Even if we fainted, we couldn’t take a day off and go home. If we took that day off, our pay would be cut, and if we took three days off, they would fire us. Amazon treats us as expendable.” “We are joining Make Amazon Pay,” said Singh, “to demand the most basic rights: safety, dignity, and the chance to go home alive.” Make Amazon Pay is an alliance of labor unions and advocacy groups organizing to stop Amazon from “squeezing workers, communities and the planet.” The 2025 strikes and protests, which organizers described as the largest mobilization against Amazon to date, mark the sixth consecutive year of global actions organized by the coalition. The strike in Germany was characterized as the largest in Amazon’s history, with around 3,000 workers expected to join picket lines across the country. The union representing Amazon workers in the United States voiced solidarity with striking German workers in a social media post on Friday, crediting them with “inspiring the global Amazon worker movement for over a decade.” “Across the world, Amazon workers are walking off the job, marching through their cities, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with communities to demand what every worker deserves: fair wages, safe conditions, the right to organize—and a future not dictated by algorithms and billionaires,” Progressive International, a member of the alliance, said Friday.
“But the target is not only a company. It is the emerging system that Amazon now anchors: a techno-authoritarian order that fuses the power of Big Tech with the prerogatives of the far right—from Trump’s ICE raids to Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the group added. “This week’s actions point toward another horizon. One in which supply chains become sites of struggle, not submission; where warehouse workers link arms with tech workers, garment workers, Indigenous communities, and migrants; where a global labor movement is capable of confronting a global system of power.”
“We will use every tool in our toolbox to ensure that this pipeline does not go ahead,” said one First Nations leader after the deal struck between PM Mark Carney and the Conservative premier of Alberta.By Jon Queally
First Nations groups backed by environmental and conservationist allies in Canada are denouncing a pipeline and tanker infrastructure agreement announced Thursday between Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, calling the deal a betrayal and promising to fight against its implementation tooth and nail. “We will use every tool in our toolbox to ensure that this pipeline does not go ahead,” said Heiltsuk Nation Chief Marilyn Slett in response to the Carney-Smith deal that would bring tens of millions of barrels of tar sands oil from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia for export by building new pipeline and lifting a moratorium against oil tankers operating in fragile British Columbia coastal water . While Carney, who argues that the pipeline is in Canada’s economic interest, had vowed to secure the support of First Nations before finalizing any agreement with the Alberta, furious reactions to the deal made it clear that promise was not met. Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai, the president of the Haida nation, was emphatic: “This project is not going to happen.” The agreement, according to the New York Times, is part of Carney’s “plan to curb Canada’s trade dependence on the United States, swings Canadian policy away from measures meant to fight climate change to focus instead on growing the oil and gas industry.” In a statement, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) “loudly” voiced its opposition to the memorandum of understanding signed by Carney and Smith. “This MOU is nothing less than a high risk and deeply irresponsible agreement that sacrifices Indigenous peoples, coastal communities, and the environment for political convenience,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the UBCIC. “By explicitly endorsing a new bitumen pipeline to BC’s coast and promising to rewrite the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, the federal government is resurrecting one of the most deeply flawed and divisive ideas in Canadian energy politics.” Slett, who serves as secretary-treasurer of the UBCIC, said the agreement “was negotiated without the involvement of the very Nations who would shoulder those risks, and to suggest ‘Indigenous co-ownership’ of a pipeline while ignoring the clear opposition of Coastal First Nations is unacceptable.” Avi Lewis, running for the leadership of the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP) in upcoming elections, decried the agreement as a failure of historic proportions. “Carney’s deal with Danielle Smith is the sellout of the century: scrapping climate legislation for a pipeline that will never be built,” said Lewis, a veteran journalist and climate activist. “We need power lines, not pipelines. Our path is through climate leadership and building good jobs in the clean economy.” In response to the deal, the minister of Canadian culture, Steven Guilbeault, who formerly served as environment minister under the previous Liberal administration, resigned in protest. “Despite this difficult economic context, I remain one of those for whom environmental issues must remain front and center,” Guilbeault said in a statement. “Over the past few months, several elements of the climate action plan I worked on as Minister of the Environment have been, or are about to be, dismantled,” he said. “In my view, these measures remain essential to our climate action plan.” David Eby, the premier of British Columbia who opposes the new pipeline into his province and was not included in the discussions between Carney and Smith, echoed those who said the project is more dead than alive, despite the MOU, calling it a potential “energy vampire” that would distracts from better energy solutions that don’t carry all the baggage of this proposed project. “With all of the variables that have yet to be fulfilled—no proponent, no route, no money, no First Nations support—that it cannot draw limited federal resources, limited Indigenous governance resources, limited provincial resources away from the real projects that will employ people,” Eby added. Keith Brooks, the programs director at Environmental Defence, decried the deal as “worse than we had anticipated” and “a gift to the oil industry and Alberta Premier Smith, at the expense of practically everyone else.” “Filling this pipeline and expansion would require more oil sands mining, leading to more carbon pollution, more tailings, and worse impacts for communities near the tar sands,” warned Brooks. “The pipeline to BC would have to cross some of the most challenging terrain in Canada. The impacts of construction would be severe, and the impacts of a spill, devastating.” Jessica Green, a professor at the University of Toronto with a focus on environmental politics, equated the “reckless” deal to a “climate dumpster fire” and called the push for more tar sands pipelines in Canada “the energy equivalent [of] investing in VHS tapes in 2025.”
At least the United States under President Donald Trump, she added, “has the cojones to say it doesn’t give a shit about climate” while Carney, despite the contents of the deal with Alberta, “is still pretending that Canada does.”
The move came on the heels of a report detailing how the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts set off a crisis in global AIDS response efforts.By Jake Johnson
The Trump administration drew outrage this week for ending formal US commemoration of World AIDS Day, directing US State Department officials to “refrain from publicly promoting” it through social media or other communication channels. The decision was reported after the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) released an analysis detailing the harms done by the Trump administration’s sweeping foreign assistance cuts. Earlier this year, the Trump administration temporarily halted HIV-related funding, sending global response efforts into “crisis mode,” USAID said. Though President Donald Trump ultimately dropped a proposal to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the administration’s throttling of funds forced clinics to shut down and disrupted key community programs, the report states. “The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “Behind every data point in this report are people—babies and children missed for HIV screening or early HIV diagnosis, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them. We must overcome this disruption and transform the AIDS response.” In its reporting on the Trump administration’s decision to halt official commemoration of World AIDS Day, which is on December 1, the New York Times pointed to studies suggesting that “cuts by the United States and other countries could result in 10 million additional HIV infections, including one million among children, and three million additional deaths over the next five years.” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), head of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, said in a statement that “silence is not neutrality; it is harm.”
“I’m calling on the administration to immediately reverse this decision and recommit our fight against HIV/AIDS,” he added.
A UN official decried the incident as "yet another apparent summary execution" by Israeli forces.By Brad Reed
The United Nations on Friday accused Israeli security forces of carrying out a “brazen” killing of two Palestinian men who were seen surrendering in video footage. The footage, which was first aired by the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation and reposted on X by Drop Site, shows two Palestinian men exiting with their hands raised from a building in the West Bank city of Jenin that had been surrounded by Israeli forces. The two men then crawled out of the building entrance and knelt down with their hands still raised before apparently being instructed by Israeli forces to go back toward the entrance of the building. The two men did so, and were then shot dead by at least one Israeli officer.
According to France 24, United Nations rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters on Friday that the incident was “yet another apparent summary execution” by Israeli forces. “We are appalled at the brazen killing by Israeli border police yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin,” he emphasized. Laurence added that UN rights chief Volker Turk was demanding “independent, prompt, and effective investigations into the killings of Palestinians,” and for those involved in the killings to “be held fully to account.” The Palestinian Authority, which identified the two men killed by Israeli officers as 37-year-old Yussef Ali Asa’sa and 26-year-old Al-Muntasir Billah Mahmud Abdullah, accused Israeli forces of carrying out “brutal” executions that amounted to a “war crime.” In a joint statement, Israeli police and the military said that the “incident is under review by the commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies,” and they claimed that the two men killed were “wanted individuals who had carried out terror activities, including hurling explosives and firing at security forces.” Despite pledges for a review of the incident, BBC reports that Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has already given a thumbs-up to officers’ actions and he responded to footage of the incident by saying, “Terrorists must die.”
"Completely identical language," said one observer.By Jake Johnson
US President Donald Trump wasted little time exploiting the shooting of two National Guard troops to advance his lawless assault on immigrants and refugees, pledging on Thanksgiving Day to “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries” and expedite the removal of people his administration doesn’t see as “a net asset” to the United States. The president announced his proposal in a series of unhinged, racism-laced posts on his social media platform a day after two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot in Washington, DC. The suspect was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who worked with CIA-backed military units in Afghanistan and was granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration. Trump ignored that fact in his Truth Social tirade, blaming his predecessor for Lakanwal’s presence in the US and using the shooting to broadly smear migrants and refugees. “These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process,” Trump wrote. “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for—You won’t be here for long!” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, highlighted Trump’s “outrageous claim” that most of the immigrant population in the US is “on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.” “As insulting as the ‘deplorables’ comment, and on Thanksgiving Day no less,” said Reichlin-Melnick. “This rhetoric is indistinguishable from the stuff you hear coming out of white nationalists. Completely identical language.” How Trump’s rant will be translated into policy is unclear. Reuters reported Thursday that Trump “has ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under former President Joe Biden’s administration and Green Cards issued to citizens of 19 countries.” Like the president, his administration did not provide a specific list of nations, but it pointed Reuters to “a travel ban Trump imposed in June on citizens of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Laos, Togo, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, and Turkmenistan.” Trump’s posts came days after US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced plans to reinterview hundreds of thousands of refugees admitted into the country under former President Joe Biden. The advocacy group Refugees International condemned the move as “a vindictive, harmful, and wasteful attack on people throughout US communities who have fled persecution and cleared some of the most rigorous security checks in the world.”
“The decision retraumatizes families, undermines faith in the legal immigration system, disrupts integration, and misuses taxpayer dollars to scrutinize valuable new members of American communities,” the group added. “This is part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented delegalization of people who arrived on humanitarian pathways and erodes the US as a nation of refuge.”
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Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian-American, was freed on November 27, 2025 after over nine months in Israeli detention. (Photo: @infinite_jaz/X) “Words can’t describe the immense relief we have as a family right now,” said Zeyad Kadur, the uncle of Mohammed Ibrahim, the 16-year-old Palestinian-American who was finally released on Thursday after over nine months in Israeli detention. In February, Israeli forces arrested the Florida resident, then 15, at a family home in the illegally occupied West Bank over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers. Ibrahim’s release follows a monthslong pressure campaign from his relatives, rights groups, and American lawmakers, who have specifically urged President Donald Trump to demand the US citizen’s freedom. “Israeli soldiers had no right to take Mohammed from us in the first place,” said Kadur. “For more than nine months, our family has been living a horrific and endless nightmare, particularly Mohammed’s mother and father, who haven’t been able to see or touch their youngest child for nearly a year, all while knowing Israeli soldiers were beating him and starving him.” “We couldn’t believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe,” he continued. “Right now, we are focused on getting Mohammed the immediate medical attention he needs after being subjected to Israel’s abuse and inhumane conditions for months. We just want Mohammed to be healthy and to have his childhood back.” According to the Guardian, which first exposed Ibrahim’s case in July: “Relatives said he was taken to a hospital for intravenous therapy and blood work immediately after his release, and noted he is severely underweight, pale, and is still suffering from scabies contracted during his detention. Ibrahim had lost a quarter of his body weight in detention, his family said.” Kadur said Thursday that “we’d like to thank the more than a hundred organizations, local Florida community members, volunteers, and members of Congress who continued to speak up for Mohammed and demand his immediate freedom. We are also deeply grateful to the countless people who refused to stop telling Mohammed’s story, and to those who called their representatives every single day to demand they act to free him. Thank you for bringing Mohammed’s story to the American people and the world.” The uncle added: There are hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison, being subjected to Israel’s abuse and torture. No mother, father, parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or child should ever have to go through what Mohammed just went through. As we support Mohammed and are beyond relieved he is free, we will continue to demand justice for Sayfollah Musallet, an American and Mohammed’s first cousin, who was beaten to death and murdered by a mob of Israeli settlers on July 11, 2025. We expect the American government to protect our families.
Mohammed was forced to spend his 16th birthday unjustly imprisoned by Israel, separated from the people who love him. Now that Mohammed is with his family, we can finally wish him a happy birthday. His mom, Muna, can prepare his favorite meal and be with her son. We are proud of Mohammed and love him dearly. The family requests time to be with their son after this painful experience. The Institute for Middle East Understanding shared Kadur’s statement and also called for justice for Musallet. Ibrahim’s freedom came as people in the United States celebrated Thanksgiving. “Something to be thankful for today: Mohammed Ibrahim freed from captivity,” wrote Drop Site News’ Ryan Grim on social media. US Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) similarly said, “On a day of thanksgiving we are so grateful Mohammed Ibrahim is on his way home.” Robert McCaw, government affairs director at the largest US Muslim rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that “Mohamed’s homecoming is a blessing, but it does not erase the torture and suffering he endured.” “The US government has a responsibility to investigate Israel’s abuse of an American citizen and ensure that no other child—American or Palestinian—is subjected to the same treatment,” McCaw added. The US government provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, and has continued to do so over the past two years, as Israeli forces have waged a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip—a genocide that “is not over,” despite last month’s ceasefire agreement, as Amnesty International highlighted in a Thursday briefing. Amid that assault, there has also been a surge in Israeli soldiers’ and settlers’ violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. “Mohammed should have spent this year studying for his learner’s permit and enjoying time with his family—not locked in a military prison, beaten, starved, and terrified. His release is cause for celebration, but it must also be a turning point,” said CAIR’s Florida chapter. “The US cannot continue providing unchecked support to a government that tortures American children.” “CAIR and CAIR-FL are calling on the US State Department, members of Congress, faith leaders, and civil society organizations to press for a full, public accounting of Mohammed’s treatment and to demand concrete consequences for the Israeli officials responsible,” the group added. “The organizations also reaffirm their commitment to supporting Mohamed and his family as he recovers from the trauma of his imprisonment and to advocating for all children subjected to abuse under Israel’s military system.”
A young boy is seen reading on the floor between library shelves on July 8, 2011. (Stephen Simpson/Getty Images) Public libraries in Tennessee have begun to shut down as they carry out an order from state officials to remove children’s books containing LGBTQ+ themes or characters. For Popular Information, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims reported Tuesday that the “book purge” is required to be carried out at all 181 libraries in the Tennessee Regional Library System, which encompasses most of the state, aside from cities like Nashville and Memphis. It comes after Tennessee’s Republican Secretary of State, Tre Hargett, sent a pair of letters earlier this fall. The first, sent on September 8, said that in order to receive state and federal grants, which run through his office, libraries needed to comply with a Tennessee law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices from agencies, as well as President Donald Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology,” which effectively ended the federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary individuals. As the report notes, neither of these orders says anything about library books. However, Hargett argued that compliance with the executive order mandated book bans because it states that “federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.” Not only do executive orders typically not apply to state and local governments, but the federal funds Tennessee’s libraries receive are not used to purchase books at all. Instead, according to the secretary of state’s website, they “provide all state residents with online access to essential library and information resources, including licensed databases, a statewide library catalog and interlibrary loan system, bibliographic services, and materials for the disadvantaged.” The Every Library Institute, an advocacy group that supports federal funding for libraries, said that Hargett’s instructions “contain significant errors, likely exceeding the secretary’s authority and reflecting a political agenda rather than a neutral or accurate interpretation of federal or state law.” “Hargett is setting a dangerous precedent by placing Tennessee’s state and municipal government under the authority of any executive order by any president,” the group continued. “Executive orders are not laws.” But Crosby and Sims argued: “Even if the executive order did apply to Tennessee local libraries, simply having books with LGBTQ stories and characters does not constitute ‘promoting gender ideology.’ The classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood involves a wolf eating a little girl, but does not promote violence. Children’s books are stories, not instruction manuals.” On October 27, Hargett sent another letter, giving libraries 60 days to undertake an “age appropriateness review” of all books in their children’s section to find any books that may be inconsistent either with Tennessee’s age appropriateness law or with Trump’s executive order. As Ken Paulson, the director of Middle Tennessee University’s Free Speech Center, noted, the age appropriateness law, which was last updated in 2024, “is modeled after obscenity laws and prohibits nudity, excessive violence, and explicit sexuality, hardly the stuff of children’s sections. Further, the law applies to school libraries, not public libraries.” Though Hargett provided no criteria for how to assess what books would need to be purged, he did provide an example of one he felt violated both orders: Fred Gets Dressed, a 2021 picture book by the New York Times bestselling author Peter Brown. As Popular Information noted: The book, which was written by a straight, cisgender man, does not feature any LGBTQ characters. Instead it is based on a childhood experience of the author in which he tried on his mother’s clothing and makeup. If a book about a boy trying on his mother’s clothes is the strongest example of “promoting gender ideology” that Hargett could identify, it raises questions about the necessity of the review. Earlier this month, the state’s Rutherford County Library System, which serves the cities of Smyrna and Murfreesboro, shut down several of its library branches for up to a week to “meet new reporting requirements” from Hargett’s office. It’s unclear why the Rutherford County system determined it needed to shut down in order to carry out the review, nor has it been made clear whether other library systems will be expected to do the same. As former librarian Kelly Jensen noted for the blog Book Riot, the Rutherford County system has made its own efforts to ban transgender-friendly books, but backed off from the policy earlier this summer for fear of litigation after a Murfreesboro law branding “homosexuality” as a form of “public indecency” resulted in the city being forced to settle a lawsuit for $500,000. Kelly wrote that for Rutherford library system’s board, Hargett’s order is “a convenient means of subverting their fears of litigation, which drove them to change their anti-trans book policy earlier this summer. If the directive is from the state, then they ‘have to’ comply. The Tennessee secretary of state is granting permission slips to public library boards to ban away.” This week, a group of 33 major publishers, library advocacy groups, and free speech and civil rights organizations signed onto a letter to Hargett expressing “profound concern” over its review mandate. The coalition included PEN America, the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the transgender rights advocacy organization GLAAD. Major publishing houses also signed on, including Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. “These types of reviews create immense administrative burdens for library systems and often lead to illegal censorship, which raises liability risks for local communities and the state,” the groups said. “Many libraries, uncertain about the legal and procedural basis for the mandate, have had to redirect limited resources, with some temporarily closing branches to complete these reviews, which are implied to be necessary for future funding.” “The demands in your letter need immediate clarification, as it is not reasonable to expect libraries to follow directives that would risk violating applicable law, including the US Constitution,” they added. “It is illegal to remove books from public libraries because some people do not like them. This is a well-settled legal principle.” The Rutherford County Library Alliance, which has challenged municipal anti-LGBTQ+ laws as well as the censorship policies of the library’s own board, said that “we have seen firsthand the concrete harm of the Secretary’s directives—library closures during story time, intimidation of professional librarians, and the breakdown of democratic representation in our public library system.” “We hope Secretary Hargett will fulfill their duty to promote library development by supporting our constitutionally-guaranteed rights and our highly trained librarians,” the alliance added, “rather than enabling censorship from 0.001% of our community for 100% of our community.”
Palestinians in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza receive hot meals from a charity on November 27, 2025. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images) Underscoring the conclusion of a new Amnesty International briefing, Middle East Eye reported Thursday that “Israeli aircraft launched a series of raids on the al-Tuffah and al-Shuja’iyya neighborhoods, east of Gaza City,” and conducted strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, despite the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that took effect on October 10. Gaza medical sources said that as of Wednesday, at least 69,799 Palestinians had been killed and another 170,972 injured since Israel launched a genocidal assault after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack—though global researchers have warned the actual toll is likely far higher. Since the ceasefire began last month, Israeli forces have killed at least 352 people and injured 896. “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, in a Thursday statement. “But while Israeli authorities and forces have reduced the scale of their attacks and allowed limited amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.” “Israel has inflicted devastating harm on Palestinians in Gaza through its genocide, including two years of relentless bombardment and deliberate systematic starvation,” she continued. “So far, there is no indication that Israel is taking serious measures to reverse the deadly impact of its crimes and no evidence that its intent has changed. In fact, Israeli authorities are continuing their ruthless policies, restricting access to vital humanitarian aid and essential services, and deliberately imposing conditions calculated to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza.” “The ceasefire must not become a smokescreen for Israel’s ongoing genocide.” Amnesty’s new briefing similarly states that “Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” “Israel severely restricts the entry of supplies and the restoration of services essential for the survival of the civilian population—including nutritious food, medical supplies, and electricity—as well as stringently limiting medical evacuations,” said the human rights group, which first declared the assault a genocide in December 2024, joining scholars and observers around the world. The briefing details: Israeli authorities continue to prohibit the entry of equipment and material necessary to repair life-sustaining infrastructure and required to remove unexploded ordnance, contaminated rubble, and sewage, all of which pose serious and potentially irreversible public health and environmental damage.
The systemic expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and what was once the most arable land continues, with Israeli military deployed across 58% of the Gaza Strip. This expulsion risks becoming permanent. As Common Dreams reported on Wednesday, a new Trump administration plan to temporarily house Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied parts of Gaza in “residential compounds” that they may not be allowed to leave is being condemned as “concentration camps within a mass concentration camp.” Callamard noted that “Palestinians remain held within less than half of the territory of Gaza, in the areas least capable of supporting life,” and pointed to decisions from the United Nations’ top tribunal, the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “Still today, even after repeated warnings by international bodies, three sets of legally binding orders by the ICJ, and two ICJ advisory opinions, and despite Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, both as an occupying power and as a party to an armed conflict, Israel deliberately continues not to provide or allow necessary supplies to reach the civilian population in Gaza,” she said. Although Israel faces a genocide case at the ICJ, there have been “no prosecutions or investigations of acts of genocide by the Israeli authorities, at least none that has been publicly disclosed or acknowledged,” the briefing highlights. “On the contrary, atrocity crimes committed against Palestinians, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and other ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees, continue to receive high-level political support in Israel and within the military ranks.” “Not only has the level of dehumanization of Palestinians seen no decline post-ceasefire and the return of the hostages, but new death penalty legislation has been proposed which in its current wording means that it would be primarily applied against Palestinians,” the publication states. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, gave the bill its first green light earlier this month. “Israel also continues to prevent access to the Gaza Strip to international forensic experts and investigators, including international justice and UN-mandated mechanisms, as well as international human rights organizations, and international media,” the document adds. “This effectively prevents the collection of time-sensitive evidence that would be essential to pursue accountability and provide redress to victims and survivors.” Callamard called on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive of the International Criminal Court—to “lift its inhumane blockade and ensure unfettered access to food, medicine, fuel, reconstruction, and repair materials,” as well as “make concerted efforts to repair critical infrastructure, restore essential services, provide adequate shelter for the displaced, and ensure they can return to their homes.” She also urged international pressure targeting the Netanyahu government, arguing that “world leaders must demonstrate that they truly are committed to upholding their duty to prevent genocide and to ending the impunity that has fuelled decades of Israeli crimes across the occupied Palestinian territory. They must halt all arms transfers to Israel until Israel’s crimes under international law cease. They must press Israeli authorities to grant human rights monitors and journalists access to Gaza to ensure transparent reporting on the impact of Israel’s actions on conditions in Gaza.” “The ceasefire must not become a smokescreen for Israel’s ongoing genocide,” Callamard stressed, also calling on companies worldwide to “immediately suspend any operations that contribute or are directly linked to Israel’s genocide.” “Israeli officials responsible for orchestrating, overseeing, and materially committing genocide remain in power,” she added. “Failing to demonstrate that they or their government will be held accountable effectively gives them free rein to continue the genocide and commit further human rights violations in Gaza and in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” In addition to the airstrikes in Gaza on Thursday, Israel’s troops and police continued for a second day what they called “a broad counterterrorism operation” in Tubas, a governorate in the northern West Bank. Across the illegally occupied territory, Israeli forces and settler-colonists also destroyed Palestinians’ olive trees, and some settlers set fire to a mosque in Biddya. Roland Friedrich, West Bank director for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Affairs (UNWRA), said Thursday that “more than 10 months into operation ‘Iron Wall,’ destruction has been relentless. Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams camps have been completely emptied by Israeli forces, with some 32,000 residents remaining forcibly displaced.” “And yet, even in these ghost towns that were once vibrant camps, Israeli forces still see the need to order demolitions for the sake of so-called ‘military purposes,’” Friedrich continued, pointing to demolitions in Jenin planned for Friday. “This systematic destruction goes against the basic principles of international law, and only serves to tighten the control of Israeli forces over the camps in the long term. The camps need to be rebuilt—not further destroyed—and their residents allowed to return and restore their lives. They must not be trapped in interminable displacement.”
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President Donald Trump participates in a call with U.S. service members from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Thanksgiving Day on November 27, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images) A story from the nation's founding to bring us hope in these terrible times. There is a way out of this.By Thom Hartmann
Yesterday was probably, politically and spiritually, the darkest Thanksgiving for our nation in our lifetimes. So how about a quick story out of America’s earliest history that eerily echoes this moment and may give us some hope? Donald Trump has told us he’s going to use the 1807 Insurrection Act to declare a state of emergency, which will allow him to round up not only undocumented immigrants but also his political opponents, who he refers to as “the enemy within.” He came to power using Willie Horton-style ads trashing trans people and is happy to demonize anybody else who stands up to his hunger for absolute power. In an age-old technique usually employed during wartime, Trump regularly uses the rhetoric America has employed against foreign enemies to characterize Americans who disagree with him and his policies. Remember the “raghead” slurs against Arabs from the Afghan and Iraqi wars? Or politicians referring to Vietnamese in the 1970s as “slants” and “gooks”? My dad, who volunteered to fight in WWII straight out of high school, called Germans and Japanese “krauts” and “Japs” to his dying days; American propaganda during wartime encouraged popular usage of these racist characterizations. America has been burdened by lying presidents before, and even one who tried to destroy our Constitution like Trump is today threatening to do. In this regard, Trump’s trying to lie us into two different wars. The first is an external war against Venezuela, using America’s drug problem as an excuse; the other is something very much like a 21st century version of a second civil war. A war by Americans against Americans, with his masked secret-police ICE army at the forefront. Often history tells us how the future may turn out: Trump isn’t the first American politician to use lies and slanders to whip up a war-like frenzy. Or to use the language of war for political gain. Bush Junior wasn’t the first president to have lied to us about foreign affairs and war, or to use lies to justify eviscerating the Constitution. For example, Lyndon Johnson lied about a non-existent attack on the US warship Maddox in the Vietnamese Gulf of Tonkin. William McKinley (the presidency after which Karl Rove has said he’d modeled the Bush presidency) lied about an attack on the USS Maine to get us into the Spanish-American war in The Philippines and Cuba. But most relevant to today’s situation were John Adams’ version of Trump’s slanders when Adams sent three emissaries to France and criminals soliciting bribes approached them late one evening. Adams referred to these three unidentified Frenchmen as “Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z,” and made them out to represent such an insult and a threat against America that it may presage war. Adams’ use of “The XYZ Affair” to gain political capital — much like Trump demonizes the pilots of small boats off the coast of Venezuela and anti-ICE protestors in his fantasized “war zones” like Portland for political gain — nearly led us to war with France and helped him carve a large (although temporary) hole in the Constitution. Similarly, much like Trump’s anti-media “enemy of the people” rhetoric, John Adams then used that frenzy to jail newspaper editors and average citizens alike who spoke out against him and his policies. The backstory is both fascinating and hopeful. At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they’re known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped “Republican” from their name in the 1820-1830 era). Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a wedge issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through Congress, and even threw into prison Democratic Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont for speaking out against the Federalists on the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams was leading the United States in the direction of a fascistic state with a spectacularly successful strategy of vilifying Jefferson and his Party as anti-American and pro-French. He was America’s first Trump, albeit nowhere near as toxic or psychopathic. Adams’ rhetoric was described as “manly” by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly published dozens of his threatening rants against France, suggesting that Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France that Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was working to avoid. On June 1, 1798 — two weeks before the Alien & Sedition Acts passed Congress by a single vote — Jefferson wrote a thoughtful letter to his old friend John Taylor. “This is not new,” Jefferson said. “It is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.
”But,“ he added, ”our present situation is not a natural one.“
Jefferson knew that Adams’ Federalists did not represent the true heart and soul of America, and commented to Taylor about how Adams had been using divide-and-conquer politics, and fear-mongering about war with France (the XYZ Affair) with some success. “But still I repeat it,” he wrote again to Taylor, “this is not the natural state.”
Jefferson did everything he could to stop that generation’s version of Trump, but Adams had the Federalists in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts. In protest, Jefferson left town the day they were signed, never to return until after Adams left the presidency. Jefferson later wrote in his personal diary how it would — like today, with California and Illinois leading the charge against Trump’s neofascist agenda — fall to the states to prevent the loss of American democracy: “Their usurpations and violations of the Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses of Congress, were so great, so decided, and so daring, that after combating their aggressions, inch by inch, without being able in the least to check their career, the [Democratic] Republican leaders thought it would be best for them to give up their useless efforts there, go home, get into their respective legislatures, embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch.”
Democratic Republican Congressman Albert Gallatin submitted legislation that would repeal the Alien & Sedition Acts, and the Federalist majority in the House refused to even consider the motion, while informing Gallatin that he would be the next to be imprisoned if he kept speaking out against “the national security.” Adams then shut down almost thirty newspapers, throwing their publishers, editors, and writers in prison. The most famous to go to jail was Ben Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache. Within a few months, Adams had effectively silenced the opposition. Then he went after average citizens who spoke out against him. Adams and his wife traveled the country in a fine carriage surrounded by a military contingent. As the Adams’ family entourage, full of pomp and ceremony, passed through Newark, New Jersey, a man named Luther Baldwin was sitting in a tavern and probably quite unaware that he was about to make a fateful comment that would help change history. As Adams rode by, soldiers manning the Newark cannons loudly shouted the Adams-mandated chant, “Behold the chief who now commands!” and fired their salutes.
Hearing the cannon fire as Adams drove by outside the bar, in a moment of drunken candor Luther Baldwin said, “There goes the President and they are firing at his arse.” Baldwin further compounded his sin by adding that, “I do not care if they fire thro’ his arse!”
The tavern’s owner, a Federalist named John Burnet, overheard the remark and turned Baldwin in to Adams’ thought police: The hapless drunk was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for uttering “seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States.” It was the darkest moment in our new nation’s short history. But then a new force arose. When Adams shut down the Democratic Republican newspapers, pamphleteers — that generation’s version of Substack writers not affiliated with national publications — went to work, papering towns from New Hampshire to Georgia with posters and leaflets decrying Adams’ power grab and encouraging the state governments to stand tall with Thomas Jefferson. One of the best was a short screed by George Nicholas of Kentucky, “Justifying the Kentucky Resolution against the Alien & Sedition Laws” and “Correcting Certain False Statements, Which Have Been Made in the Different States” by Adams’ Federalists. On February 13, 1799, then-Vice President Jefferson had a courier hand-deliver a leter and copy of Nicholas’ pamphlet to his old friend Archibald Stuart (a Virginia legislator, fighter in the War of Independence, and leader of Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans). “I avoid writing to my friends because the fidelity of the post office is very much doubted,” he opened his letter to Stuart, concerned that Adams was having his mail inspected because of his anti-war activities.
Jefferson pointed out that “France is sincerely anxious for reconciliation, willing to give us a liberal treaty,” and that even with the Democratic newspapers shut down by Adams and the Federalist-controlled media being unwilling to speak of Adams’ war lies, word was getting out to the people. Jefferson noted: “All these things are working on the public mind. They are getting back to the point where they were when the X. Y. Z. story was passed off on them. A wonderful and rapid change is taking place in Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York. Congress is daily plied with petitions against the alien and sedition laws and standing armies.”
Jefferson then turned to the need for the pamphleteers’ materials to be widely distributed across the states that might resist Adams. “The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness in the course of the present summer,” he wrote, “if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people. Under separate cover you will receive some pamphlets written by George Nicholas on the [Alien & Sedition] acts of the last session. These I would wish you to distribute....”
The pamphleteer — today he would have been called a Substack writer — was James Bradford, and he reprinted tens of thousands of copies of Nicholas’ pamphlet and distributed it far and wide. Hand to hand, as Jefferson did with his by-courier letter to Stuart, was how what would be today’s independent progressive writings are distributed via email. In the face of the pamphleteering and protests, the Federalists fought back with startling venom. It was led by a media machine — the remaining newspapers — largely owned by wealthy Adams backers as the Jefferson-backing newspapers had been shut down and their publishers and editors imprisoned. Vicious personal attacks were launched in the Federalist press against Jefferson, Madison, and others, and President Adams and Vice President Jefferson were no longer on speaking terms. Adams’ goal was nothing short of the complete destruction of Jefferson’s Democratic Party, and he had scared many of them into silence or submission. “All [Democratic Republicans], therefore, retired,” Jefferson wrote in his diary, “leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President.
”Remaining at our posts, and bidding defiance to the brow-beatings and insults by which they endeavored to drive us off also, we kept the mass of [Democratic] Republicans in phalanx together, until the legislature could be brought up to the charge; and nothing on earth is more certain, than that if myself particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President at the head of the [Democratic] Republicans, had given way and withdrawn from my post, the [Democratic] Republicans throughout the Union would have given up in despair; and the cause would have been lost forever.“
But Jefferson in the Senate and Gallatin in the House held their posts and fought back fiercely against Adams, thus saving — quite literally — American democracy. Jefferson and Madison also secretly helped legislators in Virginia and Kentucky submit resolutions in those states’ legislatures decrying the Alien & Sedition Acts. The bill in Virginia, in particular, gained traction. As Jefferson noted in his diary, between his and Gallatin’s resistance in Washington, DC and several state governments standing up against Adams’ having shut down their newspapers and using the army to threaten their protestors: “By holding on, we obtained time for the legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their celebrated resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our country however.
”The spirits of the people were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the XYZ imposture, and other stratagems and machinations, that they would have sunk into apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government which could maintain itself.“
The efforts of that century’s truth-tellers made great gains. The states were fighting back, even challenging Adams’ massive, naked power grab and war-mongering. As Jefferson noted in a February 14, 1799 letter to Virginia’s Edmund Pendleton: “The violations of the Constitution, propensities to war, to expense, and to a particular foreign connection, which we have lately seen, are becoming evident to the people, and are dispelling that mist which X. Y. Z. had spread before their eyes. This State is coming forward with a boldness not yet seen. Even the German counties of York and Lancaster, hitherto the most devoted [to Adams], have come about, and by petitions with four thousand signers remonstrate against the alien and sedition laws, standing armies, and discretionary powers in the President.”
Americans and several state leaders were so angry with Adams, Jefferson noted, that the challenge was to prevent people from taking up arms against Adams’ Federalists. He worried out loud that the resistance may, if it erupted into violence, give Adams an excuse to declare an insurrection and totally end democracy: “New York and Jersey are also getting into great agitation. In this State [of Pennsylvania], we fear that the ill-designing may produce insurrection. Nothing could be so fatal. Anything like force would check the progress of the public opinion and rally them round the government. This is not the kind of opposition the American people will permit.”
Like today’s progressive movement led by people like Bernie Sanders, JB Pritzker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gavin Newsom, and Elizabeth Warren, Jefferson knew that peaceful protests had greater power than police violence or even threats like Trump’s war-mongering against Venezuela today. “But keep away all show of force,” he wrote to Pendleton, “and they will bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the constitutional means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady and proper direction.”
A week later, February 21, 1799, Jefferson wrote to the great Polish general who had fought in the American Revolution, Thaddeus Kosciusko, a close friend who was then living in Russia. War for political purposes was the great enemy of democracy, Jefferson noted, and peace was its champion. And the American people were increasingly siding with peace and rejecting Adams’ call for war. “The wonderful irritation produced in the minds of our citizens by the X. Y. Z. story, has in a great measure subsided,” he noted. “They begin to suspect and to see it coolly in its true light.”
But Adams was still President, and for him and his Federalist Party even a “little war” with France would have helped tremendously with the upcoming election of 1800. And in France some leaders wanted war with America for similar reasons. Jefferson continued: “What course the government will pursue, I know not. But if we are left in peace, I have no doubt the wonderful turn in the public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, will, in the course of this’ summer, become so universal and so weighty, that friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly established by the influence and constitutional powers of the people at large.”
And if Adams’ rhetoric led to an attack on America by France? “If we are forced into war,” Jefferson noted, “we must give up political differences of opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows.”
The tide was turned, to use Jefferson’s phrase, by the election of 1800, as Dan Sisson and I document in our book The American Revolution of 1800: How Jefferson Rescued Democracy from Tyranny and Faction — and What This Means Today. The abuses of the Federalists were so burned into the people’s minds when Jefferson’s party came to power in 1801 and he freed the imprisoned newspaper editors, that the Federalists disintegrated altogether as a party over the next two decades. As may well happen to Trump’s GOP two or four years from now. All because average citizens and pamphleteers — and a handful of progressive politicians and states — stood up and challenged the lies of a fear-mongering president, and politicians of principle were willing to lead. America has been burdened by lying presidents before, and even one who tried to destroy our Constitution like Trump is today threatening to do. But in our era — like in Jefferson’s — we are fortunate to have radical truth-tellers and political allies to warn us of treasonous acts for political gain. If we stand in solidarity with today’s truth-tellers, and more politicians step forward to take a leadership role, then it’s entirely possible that with the elections of 2026 and 2028 American democracy can once again prevail.
This is not about stopping the flow of dangerous drugs, it is about actually increasing the flow of the dangerous drug some pushers want to keep us all hooked on.By Richard Steiner
Homeless people and tents are seen on a sidewalk on July 24, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images) Trump is causing major damage, and his team at the Department of Housing and Urban Development knows it.By Chloe Atkinson
America’s urban landscapes are cursed with skyrocketing rents, evictions, and tent cities—thanks to President Donald Trump. His administration has launched what can only be described as a brutal, scorched-earth attack on federal housing programs. Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is slashing billions from successful programs and proven initiatives that keep people off the streets. Trump clearly prioritizes ideological crusades over human lives. This is not a better policy; it is cruelty and it is exacerbating a housing crisis that has left millions of America’s citizens on the brink. Trump’s war on the vulnerable is forcing 170,000 Americans back into homelessness, gutting local efforts in states like California and New York, while ignoring root causes like unaffordable housing and stagnant wages. At the heart of this disaster is the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, which helps connect homeless people with permanent rental subsidies, shelters, and support services. Under Trump’s HUD, this crucial program is being gutted for fiscal year 2026. More than half of its funding, previously designed for permanent housing, is now being redirected to temporary shelters that come with punitive preconditions such as mandatory drug treatment or work requirements. Support for permanent housing is now limited to just 30% of the budget, a significant drop from the previous 90% that allowed flexibility for real needs. Local nonprofits will now find it harder to secure grants as HUD is also now imposing competitive bidding on nearly all funds. This means that eligibility is being wielded as a political weapon: Agree with the Trump administration on various issues and receive funding. Disagree on the issues and lose funding. Accountability is not the issue here; it’s all about Trump’s culture-war agenda, punishing progressive districts while rewarding red-state sycophants. Trump’s claim to be fixing America is, instead, a brutal bulldozing of the safety net that has helped tens of thousands of citizens and families. Trump is causing major damage, and his team knows it. Internal HUD documents admit these cuts will displace tens of thousands of people across the nation and erase years of progress in reducing chronic homelessness. In California, the epicenter of the crisis, Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued the administration alongside 19 other states and two governors, arguing the changes are illegal. Los Angeles County alone stands to lose subsidies for 5,000 households, including families with children, and veterans. Even some Republicans, like Nebraska’s Rep. Mike Flood, are scrambling for a one-year funding extension, a tacit admission that Trump’s “reforms” are a recipe for chaos. New York faces a similar apocalypse. Homelessness has surged amid post-pandemic evictions, leaving thousands of families in need of assistance. Trump’s pivot to “shelters and rehabilitation centers” over long-term stability directly sabotages the city’s “Housing First” model, which prioritizes rapid placement into homes before tackling addiction or mental health, proven to reduce recidivism and costs. Led by Attorney General Letitia James, the multistate lawsuit filed in Rhode Island’s federal court calls this an unconstitutional power grab, as HUD rewrites congressional spending without approval. Over 1,000 organizations nationwide have begged Congress to intervene, while Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren demand answers on how these cuts will fuel tent encampments from Seattle to Boston. HUD spokesperson Scott Turner has pathetically defended Trump, claiming that the Obama-Biden “Housing First” approach is a failed “homeless industrial complex” enabling addiction without accountability. But the data says otherwise. Housing First programs decreased homelessness by 88% and improved housing stability by 41%, compared to Treatment First programs. But Trump’s “solution” will achieve the opposite, forcing people into transitional housing with strings attached, ignoring that most homelessness stems not from untreated addiction but from poverty. By capping permanent aid and politicizing grants, Trump is inflating costs and dooming the cycle to repeat. Families will fracture even though Trump claims he will make exceptions for those with children, vets, or seniors.
Trump’s claim to be fixing America is, instead, a brutal bulldozing of the safety net that has helped tens of thousands of citizens and families. But as lawsuits mount and bipartisan pleas for extensions grow, perhaps Trump will be prevented from implementing his nefarious plan. By evicting the most vulnerable Americans to score political points, Trump is not draining the swamp; he is flooding the streets. Congress must act now to renew the grants and prevent Trump’s overreach that will affect tens of thousands of needs Americans. Let voters remember that in Trump’s America, there is nothing but evil and despair.
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