Posts Tagged ‘donald-trump’

Trump Should Be Impeached, Removed From Office for Illegal War on Iran

March 2, 2026

A demonstrator holds a 'Stop Trump's Wars' placard

A demonstrator holds a ‘Stop Trump’s Wars’ placard during a protest against the war with Iran in Parliament Square, as USA and Israel launch attacks on Iran.

(Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional war on Iran is not only a moral and humanitarian disaster, but also a profound constitutional crisis.

Mike HershAlan Minsky

Mar 01, 2026 Common Dreams

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) condemns Donald Trump and the Trump Administration, as well as their enablers in Congress, the media, and elsewhere for launching and supporting a reckless, illegal, unprovoked, and unconstitutional war on Iran over the past 24 hours.

Last June, we issued a statement denouncing Trump’s bombing of Iran because it posed risks of “spiraling into a regional or even global conflict that could shatter fragile economies and displace millions.” Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran is now confirming our worst fears.

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This war is already inflicting significant humanitarian suffering, causing chaotic economic disruption, and risking grave damage to the international order.

The War on Iran has also precipitated a constitutional crisis, attacking the foundational principles of our democratic republic by blatantly violating the separation of powers. It also violates the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

We the People must not fail to meet this crisis. This latest precedent of unchecked abuse of power imperils our democracy, potentially fatally.

The US Constitution vests in Congress the sole authority to declare war (Article I, Section 8). Members of both parties have already acknowledged that Trump’s war against Iran without prior authorization from Congress is unconstitutional.

Senator Jeff Merkley, (D-Oregon), a veteran member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations said this war “shreds our Constitution, which assigns decisions of war to Congress.”

Member of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called the war “blatantly unconstitutional.” Rep. Khanna co‑authored a bipartisan War Powers Resolution that would restrain Trump from launching such illegal, immoral, and reckless military operations.

Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) described Trump’s attacks as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.” He is also leading the effort for the War Powers Resolution.

Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sponsored a similar Resolution. Sadly, Republican congressional leaders continue to block Rep. Khanna’s and his colleagues’ efforts to enact a War Powers Resolution in the House.

This unconstitutional, illegal war continues an alarming pattern of the Trump regime’s contempt for the Constitution, Congress, U.S. law, and international norms, as well as basic ethics and morality. Trump has previously ordered illegal attacks against Iran and Venezuela without lawful authorization.

The Trump administration has routinely trampled basic human and civil rights through violent, even deadly operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting US citizens and lawful residents. We cannot tolerate fascistic policies including fatal shootings, abusive raids, indefinite detentions, and family separations.

Trump, his Department of Justice, and other appointees have escalated their contempt for Congress and the constitutional separation of powers by publicly attacking members of Congress during hearings, by stonewalling and ignoring subpoenas, and by defying oversight powers, and by implementing illegal orders and lawless policies.

Trump’s illegal war on Iran and the rule of law establish an intolerable pattern of egregious abuses of power, directly threatening our constitutional order, our safety, and our way of life. These intertwined crises cry out for an immediate, decisive response by the Congress and the US public.

Therefore, PDA demands that all members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike, uphold their oath of office to defend our constitutional republic. The Constitution offers one and only one remedy when President a repeatedly breaks the law and arrogantly refuses to abide by the limits on the power clearly laid out in the Constitution. That remedy is impeachment, followed by removal from office.

To effectuate that, PDA calls upon its hundred of thousands of supporters across the country—as well as every American who wants to preserve our constitutional democratic republic—to contact their Senators and Representatives by phone, email, social media, and in‑person visits to demand two things: 1. An immediate end to the War on Iran, and 2. The initiation of impeachment proceedings against Trump and all complicit Trump Administration officials.

Furthermore, we urge organizations and individuals across the country to launch protests and other forms of nonviolent civil disobedience to demand an end to the war. These could include boycotts, or a refusal to purchase any non‑essential goods and services, or some form of intentional non-participation, or any other lawful means until all US military operations against Iran cease and Congress initiates efforts to remove all lawless Trump officials from power.

Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional war on Iran is not only a moral and humanitarian disaster, but also a profound constitutional crisis. The Congress and the American people must oppose, rebuke, and punish Trump and all those complicit in the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on our liberty, our Constitution, and the rule of law. We the People must not fail to meet this crisis. This latest precedent of unchecked abuse of power imperils our democracy, potentially fatally. We can and must overcome these clear and present threats to our lives, liberty, and way of life.

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Trump’s Concentration Camp Build-Out Includes Nearly $40 Billion for Warehouse Conversions

February 16, 2026

Chester New York Proposed ICE Facility

An empty warehouse is seen in Chester, New York on February 8, 2026. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement proposes a facility at a warehouse roughly two hours from New York City, but many locals and officials have objected to the plan.

(Photo by Matthew Hoen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours,” wrote talk show host Thom Hartmann recently. “History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”

Julia Conley

Common Dreams, Feb 13, 2026

President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda has supercharged opposition in cities where he has deployed federal agents to conduct raids, and communities in states including New York and Missouri are already working to block the next step the Department of Homeland Security plans to take in its push for mass deportations: acquiring massive warehouses across the country to use as immigrant detention centers.

US immigration and Customs Enforcement documents that were provided to Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire—one of the states where ICE aims to acquire a building and retrofit it to house at least 1,000 people at a time—show that the administration plans to spend $38.3 billion on its mass detention plan.

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It would buy 16 buildings across the country to use as “regional processing centers” that could hold 1,000-1,500 people. Another eight detention centers would hold as many as 10,000 people at a time, with the detainees awaiting deportation.

The Washington Post reported that a review of state budget data showed that the amount of money the White House intends to pour into the project over the next several months is larger than the total annual spending of 22 US states.

“Thirty-eight billion dollars,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). “That’s what Trump is spending to turn warehouses into human holding facilities. Not on schools. Not on healthcare. Not on veterans. On warehousing humans.”

Moulton also condemned ICE’s claim that the new network of detention facilities will ensure the “safe and humane civil detention” of immigrants.

At least six people died in ICE detention centers in January, and one of the deaths, that of Geraldo Lunas Campos at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, was ruled a homicide.

Medical neglect and abusive treatment—including some that amounts to torture—has been reported at multiple facilities.

ICE has already spent more than $690 million purchasing at least eight warehouses in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in recent weeks. Documents posted on Ayotte’s website show the agency is pursuing additional acquisitions in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.

Communities are already rallying against the plan and questioning whether the small towns ICE has selected have sufficient water and sewer infrastructure to support thousands of people detained in a warehouse.

In New York, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said last week that 25,000 people in his district have signed a petition opposing the use of a local warehouse to house immigrants and pointed to the “major corruption and graft” evident in the plan to purchase and run the warehouses.

“The site in my district that’s proposed is owned by one of Trump’s multibillionaire donors, who would directly financially benefit from this site,” said Ryan, referring to former Trump adviser Carl Icahn.

As Common Dreams reported Friday, private prison firm GEO Group raked in a record $254 million in profits last year as it secured contracts with the Trump administration to build new ICE facilities across the US.

ICE has attempted to make purchases in Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Missouri; and in Virginia, but those plans have fallen through, with the Kansas City Council passing a five-year ban on new nonmunicipal detention centers after the public learned that DHS was the potential buyer of a warehouse in the city.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also joined his constituents in speaking out against ICE’s $100 million purchase of a warehouse in his state to house at least 1,000 people at a time.

“This administration is spitting in the face of communities from Minneapolis to Maryland and wasting our tax dollars. We won’t back down,” said Van Hollen late last month.

The details of the administration’s planned conversion of warehouses were reported less than two weeks after Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insider revealed that a US Navy contract originally valued at $10 billion “has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ agenda” and to help build “a sprawling network of migrant detention centers across the US.”

At Common Dreams last week, talk show host and author Thom Hartmann wrote that the warehouses Trump plans to use to hold people—purchased by an agency whose own data shows it has largely been detaining people with no criminal records—are best described as concentration camps like those used in Nazi Germany.

“By the end of his first year, [Adolf] Hitler had around 50,000 people held in his roughly 70 concentration camps, facilities that were often improvised in factories, prisons, castles, and other buildings,” wrote Hartmann. “By comparison, today ICE is holding over 70,000 people in 225 concentration camps across America,” with hopes to “more than double both numbers in the coming months.”

“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem. And that’s exactly what ICE is building now,” he continued. “History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”

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Every Nation in the World Should Reject Trump’s Absurd and Dangerous ‘Board of Peace’

January 23, 2026
Refusal to join will be an act of national self-respect. The UN-based international order, however flawed, should be repaired through law and cooperation, not replaced by a gilded caricature.

Jeffrey D. Sachs & Sybil Fares

Jan 22, 2026, Common Dreams

The so-called “Board of Peace” being created by President Donald Trump is profoundly degrading to the pursuit of peace and to any nation that would lend it legitimacy. This is a trojan horse to dismantle the United Nations. It should be refused outright by every nation invited to join.

In its Charter, the Board of Peace (BoP) claims to be an “international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” If this sounds familiar, it should, because this is the mandate of the United Nations. Created in the aftermath of World War II, the UN has as its central mission the maintenance of international peace and security.

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It is no secret that Trump holds open contempt for international law and the United Nations. He said so himself during his September 2025 speech at the General Assembly, and has recently withdrawn from 31 UN entities. Following a long tradition of US foreign policy, he has consistently violated international law, including the bombing of seven countries in the past year, none of which were authorized by the Security Council and none of which was undertaken in lawful self-defense under the Charter (Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Venezuela). He is now claiming Greenland, with brazen and open hostility towards the US allies in Europe.

So, what about this Board of Peace?

It is, to put it simply, a pledge of allegiance to Trump, who seeks the role of world chairman and the world’s ultimate arbiter. The BoP will have as its Executive Board none other than Trump’s political donors, family members, and courtiers. The leaders of nations that sign up will get to rub shoulders with, and take orders from, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Tony Blair. Hedge Fund owner and Republican Party mega-donor Marc Rowan also gets to play. More to the point, any decisions taken by the BoP will be subject to Trump’s approval.

If the charade of representatives isn’t enough, nations will have to pay $1 billion for a “permanent seat” on the Board. Any nation that participates should know what it is “buying.” It is certainly not buying peace or a solution for the Palestinian people (as the money supposedly goes to Gaza’s reconstruction). It is buying ostensible access to Trump for as long as it serves his interests. It is buying an illusion of momentary influence in a system where Trump’s rules are enforced by personal whim.

The proposal is absurd not least because it purports to “solve” a problem that already has an 80-year-old global solution. The United Nations exists precisely to prevent the personalization of war and peace. It was designed after the wreckage of two world wars to global base peace on collective rules and international law. The UN’s authority, rightly, derives from the UN Charter ratified by 193 member states (including the US, as ratified by the US Senate in July 1945) and grounded in international law. If the US doesn’t want to abide by the Charter, the UN General Assembly should suspend the US credentials, as it once did with Apartheid South Africa.

Trump’s “Board of Peace” is a blatant repudiation of the United Nations. Trump has made that explicit, recently declaring that the Board of Peace “might” indeed replace the United Nations. This statement alone should end the conversation for any serious national leader. Participation after such a declaration is a conscious decision to subordinate one’s country to Trump’s personalized global authority. It is to accept, in advance, that peace is no longer governed by the UN Charter, but by Trump.

Still, some nations, desperate to get on the right side of the US, may take the bait. They should remember the wise words of President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address “ those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

The record shows that loyalty to Trump is never enough to salve his ego. Just look at the long parade of Trump’s former allies, advisers, and appointees who were humiliated, discarded, and attacked by him the moment they ceased to be useful to him.

For any nation, participation on the Board of Peace would be strategically foolish. Joining this body will create long-lasting reputational damage. Long after Trump himself is no longer President, a past association with this travesty will be a mark of poor judgment. It will remain as sad evidence that, at a critical moment, a national political system mistook a vanity project for statesmanship, squandering $1 billion of funds in the process.

Ultimately, refusal to join the “Board of Peace” will be an act of national self-respect. Peace is a global public good. The UN-based international order, however flawed, should be repaired through law and cooperation, not replaced by a gilded caricature. Any nation that values international law, and the respect for the United Nations, should decline immediately to be associated with this travesty of international law.

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Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of “A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism” (2020). Other books include: “Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable” (2017) and “The Age of Sustainable Development,” (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

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Sybil Fares

Sybil Fares is a specialist and advisor in Middle East policy and sustainable development at SDSN

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‘The Actions of a Rogue State’: US Lawmakers Demand Emergency Vote to Stop Trump War on Venezuela

January 5, 2026

President Trump Holds News Conference After US Captures Venezuelan President Maduro

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine listen as President Donald Trump addresses the media on January 3, 2026.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Rep. Greg Casar. “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop him.”

Jake Johnson

Jan 03, 2026

Members of the US Congress on Saturday demanded emergency legislative action to prevent the Trump administration from taking further military action in Venezuela after the president threatened a “second wave” of attacks and said the US will control the South American country’s government indefinitely.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said that “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop” President Donald Trump, whose administration has for months unlawfully bombed boats in international waters and threatened a direct military assault on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

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“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Casar. “My entire life, politicians have been sending other people’s kids to die in reckless regime change wars. Enough. No new wars.”

Another prominent CPC member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), said in response to the bombing of Venezuela and capture of its president that “these are the actions of a rogue state.”

“Trump’s illegal and unprovoked bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president are grave violations of international law and the US Constitution,” Tlaib wrote on social media. “The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.”

Progressives weren’t alone in criticizing the administration’s unauthorized military action in Venezuela. Establishment Democrats, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and others, also called for urgent congressional action in the face of Trump’s latest unlawful bombing campaign.

“Without congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” Schiff said in a statement. “Congress must bring up a new War Powers Resolution and reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so. We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he will force a Senate vote next week on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block additional US military action in Venezuela.

“Where will this go next?” Kaine asked in a statement. “Will the president deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk.”

“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy, and trade,” Kaine added. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.”

The lawmakers’ push for legislative action came as Trump clearly indicated that his administration isn’t done intervening in Venezuela’s internal politics—and plans to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves.

During a press conference on Saturday, Trump said that the US “is going to run” Venezuela, signaling the possibility of a troop deployment.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question, adding vaguely that his administration is “designating various people” to run the government.

Whether the GOP-controlled Congress acts to constrain the Trump administration will depend on support from Republicans, who have largely applauded the US attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro. In separate statements, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described the operation as “decisive” and justified.

Ahead of Saturday’s assault, the Republican-controlled Congress rejected War Powers Resolutions aimed at preventing Trump from launching a war on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

One Republican lawmaker who had raised constitutional concerns about Saturday’s actions, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, appeared to drop them after a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) noted in a statement that both Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “looked every senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change.”

“I didn’t trust them then, and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” said Kim. “Trump rejected our constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”

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𝐍𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩’𝐬 𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞! 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐳𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐚

January 4, 2026

Below is a statement by the International Socialist Tendency, which the Socialist Workers Party is part of, in response to Trump’s attacks on Venezuela

1. The US raids on Venezuela on the night of 2-3 January and the kidnapping and imprisonment of President Nicolás Maduro are naked acts of imperialist aggression. Donald Trump’s declaration that ‘we are going to run Venezuela’ sums up the arrogance of US power. His justifications – that Maduro is the boss of a drug cartel, that his regime is undemocratic, etc – are, to use one of his favourite words, fake. This is about removing a regime that, especially under Hugo Chávez, has long been a thorn in Washington’s side and seizing the largest oil reserves in the world. Trump gloats: ‘We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in.’ He has exposed the hollowness of his denunciations of previous US administrations’ ‘forever wars’ and attempts at regime change.

2. The assault on Venezuela must be seen against the background of Trump’s reaffirmation of the Monroe doctrine in his new National Security Strategy. This policy warning European powers to stay away from the Americas expressed the early United States’ aim to dominate the Western Hemisphere. Only in the late 19th century did Washington become strong enough to start displacing Britain, hitherto the dominant imperialist power in Latin America. This process was accompanied by war with Spain and numerous military interventions in Central America.

3. After the Second World War, the US responded to the advance of the left in Latin America by helping to engineer numerous military coups (Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Argentina), invading the Dominican Republic and Grenada, and underwriting bloody counter-revolutionary wars (Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua). In 1989 a US invasion removed and imprisoned the former CIA asset Manuel Noriega, President of Panama.

4. Now, however, the global dominance of US imperialism is under growing pressure. China has emerged as its greatest military and technological rival and the biggest market for Latin America’s raw materials and agricultural exports. The Trump administration has made reinforcing US domination of the Western Hemisphere and its resources its most important strategic priority. Hence the threats to Panama, Greenland, and Canada. Hence also the financial support for Javier Milei’s ultra-neoliberal government in Argentina. And hence now the attack on Venezuela.

5. By overthrowing Maduro Trump is pointing a gun at the head of every other Latin American president. If the US succeeds in imposing regime change on Venezuela, Cuba may be the next target. Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles, want to eradicate all remnants of revolutionary challenges to US imperialism in the Americas. Most governments will probably confine themselves to verbal protests and seek to ingratiate themselves with Trump. We demand that every state that claims to support democracy should unequivocally condemn the US intervention and take steps to isolate the aggressor.

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‘This Is State Terrorism’: Global Outrage as Trump Launches Illegal Assault on Venezuela

January 3, 2026
A woman watches a public television broadcast by Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino

A woman watches a public television broadcast by Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino in Caracas, Venezuela on January 03, 2026.

(Photo by Boris Vergara/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“It is brutal imperialist aggression,” said former Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, Jan 03, 2026

The Trump administration’s military assault on Venezuela and apparent capture of the country’s president in the early hours of Saturday morning sparked immediate backlash from leaders in Latin America and across the globe, with lawmakers, activists, and experts accusing the US of launching yet another illegal war of aggression.

Latin American leaders portrayed the assault as a continuation of the long, bloody history of US intervention in the region, which has included vicious military coups and material support for genocidal right-wing forces.

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“This is state terrorism against the brave Venezuelan people and against Our America,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote in a social media post, demanding urgent action from the international community in response to the “criminal attack.”

Evo Morales, the leftist former president of Bolivia, said that “we strongly and unequivocally repudiate” the US attack on Venezuela.

“It is brutal imperialist aggression that violates its sovereignty,” Morales added. “All our solidarity with the Venezuelan people in resistance.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, one of the first world leaders to respond to Saturday’s developments, decried US “aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” Petro said Colombian forces “are being deployed” to the nation’s border with Venezuela and that “all available support forces will be deployed in the event of a massive influx of refugees.”

“Without sovereignty, there is no nation,” said Petro. “Peace is the way, and dialogue between peoples is fundamental for national unity. Dialogue and more dialogue is our proposal.”

One Latin American leader, far-right Argentine president and Trump ally Javier Milei, openly celebrated the alleged US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, declaring on social media, “FREEDOM ADVANCES.”

Leaders and lawmakers in Europe also reacted to the US bombings. Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, issued a cautious statement calling for “deescalation and responsibility.”

British MP Zarah Sultana was far more forceful, writing on social media that “Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves—and that’s no coincidence.”

“This is naked US imperialism: an illegal assault on Caracas aimed at overthrowing a sovereign government and plundering its resources,” Sultana added.

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When anti-war protesters are called national security threats

March 13, 2025

Mahmoud Khalil

Is this what VP Vance meant by free speech ‘in retreat’? Case of detained green card holder shows how ‘brittle’ our rights are here, too.

Analysis | Washington Politics

  1. washington politics
  2. israel-palestine

Lora Lumpe

Mar 11, 2025

Vice President JD Vance stunned Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February by calling the continent out for serious backsliding on core democratic principles.

He cited annulled elections when the wrong candidate appeared slated to win, digital censorship of opinions that run afoul of the majority or established perspective, and the policing of silent thought (prayer) as exhibits A, B, and C. “In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”

After acknowledging similar trends in President Biden’s America, Vance boasted that, “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”

Unless you are a green card holder talking about Israel.

At an Oval Office memo signing/media spray the day of Vance’s Munich speech, the New Sheriff said he completely agreed with Vance’s assessment about the importance of free speech. Less than a month later, though, President Trump dispatched Department of Homeland Security immigration agents to arrest and abduct Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent and lawful resident of the United States, married to an American citizen, when he and his wife returned home from dinner.

His “crime”: participating in the non-violent demonstrations at Columbia University that inspired students across the country to stand up and demand that the U.S. government stop aiding and abetting mass killing in Gaza, including of tens of thousands of women and children.

While anti-war demonstrations have almost always been viewed as — and are — squarely protected by the First Amendment’s free speech and right of assembly guarantees, Trump is painting demonstrations against the Gaza war as “pro-terrorist, anti-semitic, anti-American activity.”

The pro-Israel Free Press quoted an unnamed White House official as acknowledging that “the allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” but that Khalil “is a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.”

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This was echoed in remarks by White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who said Tuesday in an answer to a question about the administration’s basis for deporting Khalil that, “under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who … are adversarial to the foreign policy and the national security interests of the United States of America.” She added then that Khalil “sided with terrorists” by organizing protests that disrupted classes and harassed Jewish-American students and made them “feel unsafe.” She also accused protesters of handing out fliers “with the logo of Hamas.”

Jewish groups were among those protesting in New York City against Khalil’s pending deportation on Tuesday. Reports dating back to last year indicate that Khalil was not an organizer, but had served as a negotiator on behalf of students who had erected an encampment on campus.

Quite the opposite of strengthening free speech and our democracy, Trump appears to be leading us into a new McCarthyism. The president blasted out on his Truth Social account that, “this is the first of more [arrests and deportations] to come…We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country…We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”

Leavitt also ominously foreshadowed a looming clash on Columbia’s campus, saying that university officials are refusing to help DHS identify a list of other individuals on campus the administration has identified — reportedly through a search of students’ social media accounts. “[A]s the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that.”

Meanwhile, Khalil was whisked far away from his wife in New York, who is eight months pregnant, to the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, a private prison, according to reports. He would likely have been deported already if not for a fast-acting federal judge in New York who blocked his removal from the United States until after a hearing, expressly forbidding deportation without approval by the court. The initial hearing is slated for Wednesday. Critics worry the administration “shopped” for a judge more sympathetic to its case.

We still do not know what he has been charged with, if anything, or any of the evidence against him.

The prohibition of free speech by student visa holders and permanent citizen green card holders in the United States is a clear and fundamental assault on our democracy — an effort to squelch and chill freedom of speech. It sends the same signal to the rest of the world that Vance and Trump accused Europe of sending: weakness and fear. If peaceful protest by students against a policy poses such a threat to our “national security,” how strong can we really be?

Back at the Munich Security Conference, Vance said: “the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear, and I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still.” The Vice President was right. And now is the time for vehement and loud assertion that free speech is not in retreat in America.

Lora Lumpe

Lora Lumpe is the CEO of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. 

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

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‘The Next President of the United States, Donald Trump, Is a Felon’: Trump Sentenced

January 10, 2025

“Donald Trump will have no penalty for criminal wrongdoing, which is an affront to accountability and to a system where no one is above the law, though the judge had little alternative,” said one ethics expert.

Jessica Corbett, common Dreams, Jan 10, 2025

After being convicted of 34 felonies in New York last year, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday received an unconditional discharge during a sentencing hearing that came just over a week before the Republican’s second inauguration.

Just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court—which includes three Trump appointees—allowed the hearing to proceed, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan declined to impose fines or sentence Trump to prison for his crimes, which related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

“Donald Trump will have no penalty for criminal wrongdoing, which is an affront to accountability and to a system where no one is above the law, though the judge had little alternative,” said Noah Bookbinder, president and CEO of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “But now, formally, the next president of the United States is a felon.”

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Trump 2.0 will strip away the illusions of the ‘rules-based order’

January 8, 2025

Richard Falk

Published date: 2 January 2025 11:10 GMT | Last update:5 days 3 hours ago

The incoming US president’s transactional approach to politics will see immigrants suffer, while suppport for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians will continue

A person shows support for US president-elect Donald Trump near his Mar-a-Lago resort on 14 December 2024 (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images/AFP)

A man shows support for US president-elect Donald Trump near his Mar-a-Lago resort on 14 December 2024 (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images/AFP)

Given his mercurial nature, shifting from the politics of revenge to the politics of accommodation without explanation or changed circumstances, it is foolhardy to predict what lies ahead as Donald Trump prepares to be US president for a second time. 

His rhetoric and ideology seem untamed and extreme – and this time around, he enters the White House with a strong electoral mandate as Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, and the support of an ultra-conservative majority on the Supreme Court. 

This would seem to ensure the prospect of Trump’s total control over the governing process in the US, but there are some daunting bumps in the road ahead.

Some of the contours of Trump’s presidency have become clear even before he officially returns to the White House. Firstly, it seems certain that he will make millions of undocumented immigrants in the US miserable from day one.It is not a good sign that Trump blamed the New Orleans car incident on weak border security considering it was the work of an American army veteran who recently converted to the Islamic State group.

His obsession with stopping asylum-seekers and immigrants from crossing the border without proper papers is certain to be acted upon. Already, the man Trump has selected as “border czar” has indicated his intention to deport entire families of undocumented persons, including naturalised citizens.

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Trump could get away with this approach, however cruel in application, for a while – but the economics of the labour market will soon pose a challenge, creating strategic labour shortages in such critical sectors as agriculture in the southwestern US, exacerbating inflationary pressures. 

There are also considerations around the growing need for skilled workers in the high-tech sector, which will increasingly shape the country’s economic future. These workers have been given high priority in relation to robust economic development, as Trump’s chief adviser, Elon Musk, keeps reminding him. 

These concerns will be magnified if Trump goes ahead with his announced plans to place 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, along with punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. Such policies are the surest way to start a mutually destructive trade war.

Global dangers

On foreign policy, the outlook for a Trump presidency is more mixed, but uncertain and globally dangerous. In the beginning, Trump will probably seek to portray himself as a peacemaker, particularly in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

This conflict is both an example of the type of “forever war” he rejected during his first term in office, and an opportunity to explore whether a cooperative relationship with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia could circumvent the Atlantic alliance that has been a centrepiece of American foreign policy since the end of World War II. 

Pushing for a ceasefire and diplomatic compromise was a grossly negligent missed opportunity during Joe Biden’s presidency, which seemed determined to inflict a geopolitical defeat on Russia, even at the cost of causing a disaster for Ukraine and its people. 

Where does Donald Trump stand on Israel, Palestine and the Middle East?

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If this change of direction occurs, Nato loyalists will have to rethink European security arrangements, and the American deep state will have to swallow defeat, or use its untested leverage to back the primacy of the US in geopolitical realms by keeping Russia out and Nato in.

When it comes to the Middle East, the story is different in terms of policy priority.

Trump has given every indication of wanting to exceed Biden’s unconditional support for Israel, including through the genocidal onslaught on Gaza, land grabbing, ethnic-cleansing operations and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, and escalating unlawful violence against regional adversaries. 

Trump, by his political appointments and undisciplined commentary, seems determined to “finish the job” in Gaza, which can only be understood as erasing Palestine and Palestinians as obstacles to the rapid establishment of Greater Israel from “the river to the sea”. 

Beyond this, he seems determined to confront Iran in a more muscular manner, possibly by destroying its nuclear facilities and taking more overt steps to provoke regime change in Tehran.

These policies, if actualised, would have many risks and adverse consequences, including the possibility of a wider regional war and a surge of anti-US sentiments. They would also cement Israel as the pariah state of our time, which could weaken it to the point of emboldening the peoples of the Arab world to rise up against their western-oriented repressive regimes, and unite behind the cause of liberating Palestine from settler-colonialism.

Contempt for internationalism 

Finally, in every way, Trump and his entourage have signalled their opposition to internationalism. Trump has long displayed an unwavering commitment to an ultra-nationalist and transactional world view. He exhibits contempt for addressing global challenges, and for the benefits of cooperative problem-solving, even in the context of climate change. 

In this sense, the UN will be valued only to the extent that it fully backs American strategic priorities – and should it dare to censure or oppose these priorities, Trump will surely threaten, and then cut, US funding, or even withdraw US participation. 

Given such attitudes, it is not surprising that Trump is dismissive of the regulatory role of international law, especially if directed at restraining the US. Say goodbye to the cynical pretensions of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s “rules-based world order”, which has seemed more a synonym for US-led geopolitics than a genuine submission to universally applicable principles. 

In the end, the Trump presidency may be forced to choose between a form of neo-isolationism and neo-imperialism

Trump may unintentionally provide a service to humanity by stripping away the liberal illusions shielding the reality that the US and its friends habitually avoid the constraints of international law that their rivals are bound to obey. In effect, Trump’s nihilism may be preferable to Biden’s hypocrisy.

In the end, the Trump presidency may be forced to choose between a form of neo-isolationism and neo-imperialism. If the isolationist alternative prevails, then an accelerated transition will likely occur from the post-Cold War world of unipolarity to a new era of complex multipolarity. 

If the neo-imperialist model prevails, due to a compromise between the ultra-nationalist Trumpists and the globally ambitious American deep state, tensions will emerge between antagonistic forms of multipolarity and competing alliance networks, resembling in structure the Cold War, yet with differences, including the agenda of geopolitical rivalries. 

The de-centring of conflict that includes the partial bypassing of Europe is all but certain. Europe is no longer the chief geopolitical prize, as it was in the three 20th-century global wars (including the Cold War).

Whatever else, the Trump presidency is likely to confound expectations, including these, while keeping busy the world’s most influential media platforms.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. In 2008 he was also appointed by the UN to serve a six-year term as the Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

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On the election of Donald Trump

November 7, 2024

WSWS Editorial Board

The election of Donald Trump is a critical event in the protracted crisis of American democracy, whose shattering repercussions will be felt throughout the world. A fascist demagogue—who attempted in January 2021 to violently overthrow the last presidential election—has decisively won the 2024 election with both an electoral and popular vote majority. He will be re-installed in the White House in little more than 70 days.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gestures at a campaign rally at the Santander Arena, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, in Reading, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump owes his political triumph to the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, whose fixation with the identity politics of the affluent middle class, arrogant indifference to the devastating impact of inflation on workers’ living standards, and unrelenting support for war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza prepared the ground for the election debacle.

The major pillars of the capitalist press are already attempting to downplay the political implications of Trump’s victory. “Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat,” writes the New York Times, “but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy.” The Times reassures its readers that Trump will be a lame-duck president because he is barred by the Constitution from seeking another term.

This is wishful thinking. Trump openly proclaimed that this would be the last election, and that his supporters would not have to vote again. The political reality is that the election of Trump sets the stage for an unprecedented wave of social counterrevolution, which he plans to enforce with an iron heel.

Trump has pledged to become “dictator” and deploy the military to crush “the enemy within.” He plans to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, an operation that would require placing major American cities under martial law. He has floated eliminating the income tax and promises to slash taxes for the rich and end corporate regulations. The devastating impact that these policies will have on the working class cannot be overstated.

He is not a political accident. However it was achieved—and this is not to minimize the political complicity of the Democratic Party—the coming to power of a second Trump administration represents the violent realignment of the American political superstructure to correspond with the real social relations that exist in the United States.

Donald Trump speaks not simply as one criminal individual but as the representative of a powerful capitalist oligarchy that has taken shape over the last three to four decades. Mega-millionaires and billionaires—led by the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison—are utilizing Trump to effect in their interests a reactionary restructuring of American society. They will use the time leading up to the January 20 inauguration to prepare the barrage of repressive and socially reactionary measures that will be unleashed as soon as Trump is once again ensconced in the White House.

He was able to exploit the absence within the political establishment of any articulation of the interests of the vast majority of the population. The Harris campaign was opposed to making any social appeal to the working class. They pitched their campaign to the most affluent voters, promoting hated warmongers like Liz Cheney and promising to place Republicans in the cabinet. 

Harris, Barack Obama and other Democratic surrogates traveled the country haranguing voters that a failure to turn out for Harris would be proof of misogyny or racism. They combined incessant appeals to racial and gender identity with full-throated endorsement of war abroad. The Democrats pledged further support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and called for an escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

The Democrats offered nothing to address the escalating social crisis in the United States, instead presenting the country as “on the right track” to a population which almost unanimously believes the opposite. Figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presented the absurd lie that the Biden-Harris administration had improved conditions for working people and that Harris would challenge the domination of “the billionaire class.” Mimicking Hillary Clinton’s 2016 claim that the working class consists of “a basket of deplorables,” Biden called Trump’s supporters “garbage” in the final days of the election.

The vote totals show not a surge in support for Trump, who appears to have lost votes compared to his 2020 totals, but a staggering collapse in support for the Democrats, with Harris winning somewhere between 10 and 15 million fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020.

Harris underperformed Biden in every single region of the country. The Democratic Party’s efforts to cajole various racial and gender groups behind the Harris campaign on the basis of an appeal to identity fell completely flat. Trump saw the largest increase in vote margins in counties where over 50 percent of the population is non-white, and exit poll data shows that Harris lost Latino men nationally by a 54-44 percent margin, a reversal from 2020, when Biden won that demographic by a 59-39 percent margin.

The margin by which the Democrats won young voters also fell substantially from 2020, as countless young people refused to vote for the candidate complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Harris won the youngest voters by only 56-41 percent versus Biden’s 65-31 percent margin. Trump won a majority of votes among first-time voters, a sign that the Democrats were unable to activate voters beyond the affluent upper-middle class.

In fact, Harris improved only among the affluent. Among voters with an income of $200,000 or more, she won 52-44 percent, reversing a narrow Trump win in that income bracket in 2020. Trump won voters with an income between $100,000 and $200,000 in 2020 by a 58-41 percent margin, but Harris won by 53-45 percent. Democrats simultaneously saw a collapse in support from working people, with Harris losing those making between $30,000 and $100,000, a wide swath of the population which Biden won by a roughly 57-43 percent margin in 2020.

The electorate was driven by deep social anger. Among the 43 percent of voters who said they were “dissatisfied” with “the way things are going in the country today,” Trump won 54-44 percent. Among the 29 percent who answered that they were “angry,” Trump won 71-27 percent. Harris won 89-10 percent among the tiny sliver of the population who are “enthusiastic” about economic and social conditions today. The total percentage of the population who said their financial situation is “worse” today versus four years ago more than doubled to 45 percent, with Trump winning those voters by an 80-17 percent margin.

Trump and the Republicans are well aware that they will preside over a social powder keg, and that the right-wing policies they plan to implement will only deepen the social anger. Their strategy is to combine massive police state repression with a fascist campaign to scapegoat immigrants for all social ills. Though exit polling does not suggest that voters were taken in by Trump’s vile attacks on immigrants, and though large majorities say they believe immigrants deserve a pathway to citizenship rather than face mass deportation, the stage is set for a massive and violent attack on immigrant workers on a scale that will make even his first administration appear like child’s play.

And while Trump’s demagogic claims to oppose war might have won votes away from the inveterate warmongers in the Democratic Party, Trump is himself a ruthless imperialist politician who advocates escalatory confrontation with China, Iran and North Korea.

The response of the Democrats to Trump’s electoral victory will be to seek compromise and coalition, already evident in Harris’ capitulatory statement Wednesday afternoon. She made no warnings about the dictatorial character of the incoming Trump regime and pledged to cooperate with the transition to the would-be American Führer. The Democrats will shift even further to the right, while seeking to forge an agreement with the Republicans on their central priority, the escalation of war.

The reactionary character of Trump’s political and social program will become clear enough. As the ruling class seeks to restructure the state, there has to be a restructuring of politics, along class lines. As WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North wrote, Trump’s election “is the disastrous outcome of the long-term and very deliberate repudiation by the Democratic Party of any programmatic orientation to the working class…

In the United States, the new anti-Marxism blended with the longstanding tradition of anti-communism. Left-wing politics, of the sort connected to working class militancy, disappeared. The grievances related to identity displaced any serious concern with the massive concentration of wealth in a small segment of society at the expense of the working class.

Those who have promoted this form of right-wing politics, promoted by the Democratic Party, now resort to the most bankrupt of all responses to the election: blaming the population.

In fact, the past year has seen an explosive growth of political and social opposition, from the mass protests against the genocide in Gaza to a steady growth of strike action by workers, who are striving to break free from the control of the corporatist trade union apparatus. Immense social struggles are on the horizon.

These struggles must be politically directed, and they must be guided by an understanding that fascism can only be stopped by the development of an independent movement of the working class against the source of political reaction and oligarchy: the capitalist system. There must be “a new birth” of genuinely socialist politics, based on the working class and animated by an international strategy.

The Socialist Equality Party, through its presidential election campaign of Joseph Kishore and Jerry White, set out to mobilize the working class on an international, socialist program in opposition to war, inequality and the capitalist system that produces them. This program now takes on an even greater urgency. In the period ahead, the Socialist Equality Party and International Committee of the Fourth International will fight to win the leadership of a growing movement of workers and youth against war, dictatorship and inequality and for the socialist transformation of society.

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