Scandal-Plagued Prison Company Celebrates “Pivotal Opportunity” Under Trump


CoreCivic’s CEO says the “Big Beautiful Bill” has “changed dramatically the activity of ICE and securing bed capacity.”

By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg , 

Truthout

August 7, 2025

Security fencing surrounds the CoreCivic, Inc. California City Immigration Processing Center in the Kern County desert ahead of the facility reopening as a federal immigrant detention facility.

PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP via Getty Images

On CoreCivic’s second quarterly earnings call, the private prison company’s CEO told participants that they’re in an “unprecedented environment” due to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

“Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,” said CoreCivic CEO Damon T. Hininger. “We are in an unprecedented environment with rapid increases in federal detention populations nationwide and a continuing need for solutions.”

Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda has given the private prison industry much to celebrate. During the second quarter of 2025, CoreCivic’s revenue from its contracts with ICE rose about 17 percent from last year’s second quarter, from $151 million to over $176 million. The company’s net income for the second quarter was over $38 million, an increase of more than 100 percent from last year.

“Nationwide ICE detention populations were 57,861, the highest detention populations ever recorded by ICE, which has been our largest customer for over 10 years,” Hininger said. “We know the demand from ICE will increase.”

The company says it expects the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act to bring in even more business. The legislation provides U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with $45 billion for building new immigration jails, including lock-ups to detain families.

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“Congress reached final resolution on federal funding for border security through the ‘One Big Beautiful Act’ that is historically unmatched,” Hininger told participants, adding that the legislation is “a pivotal moment for funding related to our industry.”

“The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has changed dramatically the activity of ICE and securing bed capacity,” he went on.

ICE’s campaign to hire 10,000 employees is “very important for two reasons,” Hininger said. “One, it is another sign of the intensity of ICE behavior with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Two, this increase in law enforcement personnel will obviously raise the level of individuals arrested and the requirement for detention capacity.”

Many human rights advocates have warned that the legislation would be a financial boon to the private prison industry, which, as the Brennan Center for Justice pointed out, includes “significant financial supporters of GOP candidates for Congress as well as the president’s election campaign.” In 2024, Hininger donated more than $300,000 to Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to Truthout’s analysis of Open Secrets’ data.

CoreCivic has been repeatedly accused of operating inhumane and dangerous lock-ups. A bombshell investigation by The Guardian revealed that the FBI is investigating an alleged drug smuggling ring at CoreCivic’s Cibola County Correctional Center (CCCC) in New Mexico. People in ICE custody make up about 30 percent of the lock-up’s population. An investigation by The Guardian also revealed that at least 15 people detained at the facility died “prematurely.”

One person detained at CCCC told The Guardian that he and a friend were threatened by another detainee when they were accidentally given an envelope that contained “strips of paper” that were likely Suboxone.

“He told us, ‘This paper is mine,’” the man recounted to The Guardian. “He then said, ‘I’ll give each of you $500. Accept it, or I’ll kill you.’”

Just days before CoreCivic’s earnings call, the mother of a man incarcerated at CoreCivic’s South Central Correctional Facility in Tennessee sued the company, alleging that they failed to protect her son who was killed by another detainee the day before he was scheduled to go home. In April, a jury awarded a man over $27 million after he was severely beaten by another incarcerated person while imprisoned at CoreCivic’s Crossroads Correctional Center, also in Tennessee.

The FBI investigation and deaths were not mentioned on CoreCivic’s earnings call, which focused on celebrating the company’s growing opportunities to lock up record numbers of people.

“We have had a tremendous, tremendous first half of 2025 as you see from the financial performance,” Hininger said in his closing remarks. “We’re going to have a very strong year as we end 2025 and going into 2026.”

Journalist Detained From Gaza-Bound Aid Ship Reports Israel for Kidnapping


Antonio Mazzeo filed a complaint against the Israeli government at the Rome Tribunal for kidnapping and mistreatment.

By Andrea Umbrello , 

Truthout

August 8, 2025

People gather with Palestinian flags around the Freedom Flotilla ship "Handala" ahead of the boat's departure for Gaza at a port in Syracuse, Sicily, southern Italy, on July 13, 2025.GIOVANNI ISOLINO / AFP via Getty Images


The Handala, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship, set sail to Gaza from Gallipoli, an Italian city on the coast of Puglia, on July 20. Its aim was to bring humanitarian aid — including food, medicine, and toys — to the Palestinian population under Israeli siege. Twenty-one people from around the world took part in the mission, attempting to break the naval blockade that Tel Aviv has maintained for nearly two decades. Just weeks earlier, Israeli naval forces had boarded and seized another vessel from the same group, the Madleen, with Greta Thunberg on board, in international waters. On the night of July 26 to 27, Israeli forces repeated the action, intercepting the Handala and illegally deporting the entire crew. Antonio Mazzeo, an Italian journalist, was among those on board. In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Mazzeo discusses his experience, the crew’s journey, and what motivated the difficult and dangerous mission. The interview that follows has been edited for clarity and length.

Andrea Umbrello: Can you describe what happened on the Handala’s final day, before and after the Israeli navy arrived?

Antonio Mazzeo

Photo: Courtesy of Antonio Mazzeo

Antonio Mazzeo: Saturday, [July] 26 was quiet. We knew it would be a long day, but we stayed calm. In the afternoon, an Israeli Heron drone circled low over the boat for more than an hour. Only then did we realize for certain that Israel was watching us closely. Soon after, we learned two ships carrying special forces had left Haifa. We prepared for anything, even an armed attack. We tried to steer the ship south, asking the Egyptian authorities for permission to enter their territorial waters to reach Gaza. We were given permission to land in Egypt, but that wasn’t our goal. When the Israeli ships became visible on the horizon, we sat on the deck wearing our life jackets, ready to face what was to come. The commandos arrived on fast rubber boats and boarded the Handala. They found us sitting side by side, our hands open as a sign of peace, singing the famous Italian resistance song “Bella Ciao.” There was no violence or abuse; in fact, the soldiers tried to be courteous. The journey aboard the Handala, now occupied by about 30 commandos, lasted nearly 12 hours. We were taken to the port of Ashdod, where the police took us into custody. From that moment on, everything changed, and the ongoing harassment, mistreatment, insults, and violations of our most basic rights began.

What happened after you landed in Israel?

We were taken to a large hall for the first of many body searches, the seizure of our backpacks, and photo identification. Then 18 of us were made to sit in a semi-circular room, watched over by brutal and violent police. It was the last time we were able to share the Handala mission together. One by one, they took us to interrogation booths where the interrogations took place and we were notified of our arrest. Then we were transferred to cramped cells at police stations near Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, or in a maximum-security detention center that has housed thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

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The interrogations were conducted by police with strong ideological prejudices, who did not hold back insults or threats. My interrogator tried to belittle the political and humanitarian value of our mission. “But do you know how many children Hamas has killed?” he yelled at me when I explained that the Handala wanted to deliver aid and stuffed animals to Palestinian children. “Have you ever taken aid to Syria or Africa?” When I replied that I didn’t have to justify to the Israeli state what I had done or planned to do, he screamed incomprehensible phrases for over five minutes. I asked the translator and my lawyer for a summary, but they advised me to let it go. For me, it was important to formally contest the accusation and declare that I would report Israel for kidnapping upon my return to Italy. I left Israel as soon as I could because I had set out to get to Gaza to see the eyes of the children of Gaza, not the hate-filled eyes of Israel’s fascio-Zionist police. I spent another 24 hours in detention, in three different cells in Ashdod, at a police station near Ben Gurion Airport, and in a police center on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Everywhere I was stripped, searched, and completely deprived of my personal belongings. In 24 hours, I was offered two glasses of water and a sandwich.

What were the conditions of your detention?

The first detention facility where I spent almost three hours, two of which were in total isolation, was a cage inside a two-by-two-meter cell. It was hot and there was a noisy air conditioner that did little good. The second cell was in a police station, a cramped, windowless room with a concrete bed and a filthy toilet. It was myself, Jacob Berger, another U.S. activist, and two journalists from Al Jazeera. There were insects everywhere and the air felt suffocating. After a couple of hours, Jacob and I were transferred to Tel Aviv to a cell we ironically called a “five-star hotel” compared to the previous ones. A reinforced concrete bunk bed was the only furniture. We stayed there until 4:00 in the morning. Then they took us to the airport, to a large room where, under guard, we slept on blankets and sofas with about 10 immigrants without legal status, most of them from Asia. With us was also Emma Fourreau, a French parliamentarian and a member of the Handala crew.

In those hours, my only thought was for my Palestinian brothers, for thousands of minors who have spent entire parts of their lives imprisoned, tortured and often without even an accusation to defend themselves against.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirmed that U.S. human rights defender Christian Smalls was physically attacked by seven uniformed officers immediately upon entering Israeli custody. They choked him and kicked his legs, leaving clear marks of violence. Did you witness similar acts of violence against him or other activists?

I know what the legal team that visited Chris in the detention center reported, and I can attest to the especially violent behavior of the police during the landing in Ashdod. There was a strong sense of racism among the police at the port. The most vulnerable were him, being of African descent, and the other activists of Arab origin. If U.S. citizens received different treatment, it’s perhaps because they lacked adequate consular assistance. A country that declares war against anyone who “offends” its citizens or interests has abandoned the seven American activists. Chris was one of them and we unfortunately know the level of violence he suffered. This indifference finds its reason in the fact that Washington — along with Brussels, Strasbourg, Paris, Berlin, and Rome — have the blood of the Palestinian people on their hands. [These countries] provide the weapons for the genocide, and make key facilities available, like the U.S. base in Sigonella in my Sicily, which offers operational, logistical, and strategic support. [These countries] also support [Israel] politically and diplomatically, legitimizing crimes, abuses, and unheard-of violations.

What’s next for you?

I will continue to do what I have done my whole life: analyze and denounce Israel’s crimes, the military-industrial-financial-academic system that governs it and feeds apartheid and genocide, and especially the very serious responsibilities of partner countries, first and foremost my own: Italy…. I would do a mission like the Handala’s again, with the utmost conviction and the same hope of reaching Gaza.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.


Andrea Umbrello
An Italian multimedia journalist, Andrea Umbrello tells frontline stories through articles published in international outlets, podcasts, and photojournalism. Balancing rigor and empathy, they’ve spent years documenting Palestinian issues, human rights violations, and social injustices worldwide. Their work on human migration and discrimination aims to foster critical reflection on frequently overlooked subjects.

FEMA Tells Staff to Work for ICE or Risk Getting Fired

Trump has previously said that disaster relief should fall to the states and that he hopes to eliminate FEMA altogether.

By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg , 

Truthout

August 8, 2025

A civilian search and rescue team member, left, gives a hand to a member of a FEMA urban search and rescue team as they hike along the Broad River in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on October 2, 2024 near Chimney Rock, North Carolina.Sean Rayford / Getty Images

On August 5, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, told approximately 100 staffers that they had been reassigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and that if they refused to comply with their reassignment, they could be fired.

“If you choose to decline this reassignment, or accept but fail to report for duty, you may be subject to removal from Federal service as provided in 5 U.S.C. § 7513,” the email reads.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told The American Prospect that “select FEMA employees will temporarily be detailed to ICE for 90 days to assist with hiring and vetting” of new ICE agents. The department has said it plans to hire 10,000 new agents, and is offering new recruits a signing bonus of up to $50,000 and student loan forgiveness of up to $60,000. Although the agency claims it’s been inundated with applications, soon after launching the recruitment campaign, DHS removed age restrictions on all positions. During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Noem encouraged 18-year-olds to apply.

While ICE receives unprecedented levels of funding and embarks on a hiring spree, the Trump administration has shredded virtually every other federal agency and fired thousands of federal workers.

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When it comes to FEMA, President Trump has said that disaster relief work should fall to the states and that he plans to eliminate the agency altogether. President Jimmy Carter created FEMA in 1979, and in 2003, it was moved to DHS.

“We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said in June. “A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”

In April, the Trump administration eliminated FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, and sought to reallocate $4 billion in unspent funds that Congress had authorized for the program. On August 5, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s plans. The program, the judge wrote in his ruling, “is designed to protect against natural disasters and save lives.” An investigation by CBS News revealed that two-thirds of the counties that lost BRIC funding went to President Trump in the 2024 election.

FEMA’s response to the deadly flash floods that tore through Central Texas on July 4 was catastrophic, in part because Noem had instituted a policy that requires her to personally sign off on expenditures over $100,000.

The New York Times reported that DHS let contracts to the companies that staff its disaster relief hotline lapse on July 5, which led to hundreds of contractors being fired. The funding for the call centers was finally restored on July 10, but by then thousands of flood victims had been unable to access assistance from the hotline. An NPR investigation revealed that on July 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 FEMA answered just over 15,000 of the approximately 55,000 calls it received.

“Put yourself in the shoes of a survivor: You’ve lost everything, you’re trying to find out what’s insured and what’s not, and you’re navigating multiple aid programs,” Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told the Times. “One of the most important services in disaster recovery is being able to call someone and walk through these processes and paperwork.”

During this time, on July 6, Noem posted images of herself on Instagram, The Daily Beast reported. She asked her followers: “Which one do you like for the official Governor’s portrait to hang in the South Dakota State Capitol?”

Noem also delayed search and rescue efforts. Multiple sources told CNN that Noem did not approve the deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until July 7, and delayed approving the use of aerial imagery. More than 130 people died in the flooding.

“She broke it on purpose,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida), a former emergency manager, said of Noem during an appearance on MSNBC. “So that when it fails this summer, she can say, ‘Oh, see, we told you — FEMA doesn’t work.’”

Hegseth under fire for endorsing Christian nationalist

Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth departs following a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 21, 2024. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

David Badash

August 08, 2025  

ALTERNET

In his short time as U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth has tested the boundaries of the separation between church and state at the Pentagon. On Thursday night, he took things a step further by promoting an interview of Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson—the leader of the church Hegseth follows—who has called for America to become a Christian nation, and the world a Christian one.

“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth posted on social media, from an account marked with a grey checkmark that says, “This account is verified because it’s an affiliate of @DeptofDefense on X.”

That post accompanied a CNN interview (below) of Pastor Wilson. CNN billed the segment as “The Christian nationalist pastor with ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”

“Women are the kind of people that people come out of,” Wilson unapologetically told CNN.

“It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically,” he continued. “The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls.”

Wilson also believes women should not have certain leadership roles, and should not be allowed to vote.

Secretary Hegseth has brought his religious worldview into the Defense Department, literally, holding and hosting a specifically Christian monthly prayer meeting during work hours inside the Pentagon. During the first meeting, called “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service,” Hegseth’s pastor from Tennessee, Brooks Potteiger, was the main speaker, according to a New York Times report.

The Times also reported that “the service is part of an increasing infusion of overt Christian evangelization in official government events during Mr. Trump’s second term.”

In their interview with Pastor Wilson, CNN reported, “Wilson is part of a broader Christian nationalist movement making inroads with the Trump administration, with a newly created faith office led by evangelical pastor Paula White-Cain, and people seen right outside the White House entrance, praying and speaking in tongues.”

Critics expressed concern and outrage over Secretary Hegseth’s post.

Attorney Barbara Comstock, a Republican and former U.S. Congresswoman, wrote: “Not unnoticed that @petehegseth, the most unqualified and insecure SecDef, has retweeted this piece that includes extremist men advocating that the right to vote be taken away from women and women must submit to men (apparently even if they are cheaters?) This is the Hegseth worldview.”

“Here’s the United States Secretary of Defense seemingly endorsing a call for the repeal of the 19th Amendment & and an end to women voting? Not surprising when you consider his very well documented views,” remarked Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.

“It’s incredibly disturbing that Pete Hegseth attends a church, and openly praises its leadership, which advocates for repealing women’s right to vote and re-criminalizing homosexuality. If you want to live in an authoritarian, theocratic state, move to the Middle East. I hear it’s lovely there,” commented journalist Brad Polumbo.

“As an American Jew, I do not feel comfortable when the Secretary of Defense posts messages like this. America is a majority Christian country, but the America I want to live in is not an explicitly Christian country,” wrote Barron’s columnist, CBS News contributor, and CEO Isaac Stone Fish.

“The Secretary of Defense is literally promoting a Christian Nationalist. We are losing our country right before our eyes,” remarked radio host and legal analyst Barry Markson.

See Secretary Hegseth’s social media post and video below or at this link.

'A travesty': Outrage grows as leak shows Trump admin scrubbing out human rights violations

Brad Reed
Common Dreams

August 09, 2025 

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration earned condemnation from Amnesty International on Thursday over its leaked plans to downplay human rights violations in countries favored by the American government.

News of the plan was originally reported on Wednesday by The Washington Post, which documented how the administration has been revising State Department reports on human rights in El Salvador, Israel, and Russia to "strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them." The Post also added that "the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened."

In the case of El Salvador, where the administration earlier this year began lawlessly shipping immigrants deported from the United States, the administration's report stated that were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" there, even though a State Department report under former President Joe Biden's administration issued last year documented "significant human rights issues" in the country.

Human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people were deleted from the State Department's report on Russia, while the report on Israel deleted references to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial and to his government's threats to the country's independent judiciary.

Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director of government relations and advocacy, ripped the administration for selectively whitewashing human rights records of nations favored by the president.

"The leaked chapters of the latest Annual Human Rights Report reveal a disturbing effort by the Trump administration to purposefully fail to fully capture the alarming and growing attacks on human rights in certain countries around the globe," she said. "Alarmingly, we understand that the mandate from Secretary Rubio was... to go back and wipe out portions of the reports that had already been written—to delete stories from survivors of human rights violations."

Klasing went on to accuse the administration of turning the human rights report "into yet another tool to obscure facts to push forward anti-rights policy choices."

She also emphasized that "it would be a travesty and subversion of congressional intent to downplay or ignore human rights violations faced by marginalized populations including refugees and asylum seekers, women and girls, Indigenous people, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQI+ people throughout the world."

An unnamed State Department official this week told the Post that the administration was merely simplifying the human rights reports to make them more "readable."

"The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability, and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report," the official said. "The human rights report focuses on core issues."

Kamchatka earthquake is among top 10 strongest ever recorded. Here’s what they have in common

Kamchatka Krai earthquake location. USGS

The Conversation

July 30, 2025 

Today at about 11:30am local time, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s far east.

Originating at a depth of roughly 20 kilometres, today’s powerful earthquake – among the ten strongest in recorded history and the largest worldwide since 2011 – has caused building damage and injuries in the largest nearby city, Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky, just 119 kilometres from the epicentre.

Tsunami warnings and evacuations have reverberated through Russia, Japan and Hawaii, with advisories issued for the Philippines, Indonesia, and as far away as New Zealand and Peru.

The Pacific region is highly prone to powerful earthquakes and resulting tsunamis because it’s located in the so-called Ring of Fire, a region of heightened seismic and volcanic activity. All ten most powerful earthquakes recorded in modern history were located on the Ring of Fire.

Here’s why the underlying structure of our planet makes this part of the world so volatile.

Why does Kamchatka get such strong earthquakes?

Immediately offshore the Kamchatka Peninsula is the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, a tectonic plate boundary where the Pacific Plate is being thrust beneath the Okhotsk Plate.

While tectonic plates move continuously relative to one another, the interface at tectonic plates is often “stuck”. The strain related to plate motion builds up until it exceeds the strength of the plate interface, at which point it is released as a sudden rupture – an earthquake.

Because of the large areas of interface at plate boundaries, both in length and depth, the rupture can span large areas of the plate boundary. This results in some of the largest and potentially most damaging earthquakes on earth.

Another factor that affects the rates and sizes of subduction zone earthquakes is the speed at which the two plates are moving relative to each other.

In the case of Kamchatka, the Pacific Plate is moving at approximately 75 millimetres per year relative to the Okhotsk plate. This is a relatively high speed by tectonic standards, and causes large earthquakes to happen more frequently here than in some other subduction zones. In 1952, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred in the same subduction zone, only about 30 kilometres away from today’s magnitude 8.8 earthquake.

Other examples of subduction plate boundary earthquakes include the 2011 magnitude 9.1 Tohoku-Oki Japan earthquake, and the 2004 magnitude 9.3 Sumatra-Andaman Indonesia “Boxing Day” earthquake. Both of these initiated at a relatively shallow depth and ruptured the plate boundary right to the surface.

They uplifted one side of the sea floor relative to the other, displacing the ocean above it and resulting in devastating tsunamis. In the case of the Boxing Day earthquake, the sea floor rupture happened along a length spanning roughly 1,400km.

What is likely to happen next?

At time of writing, approximately six hours after the earthquake struck, there have already been 35 aftershocks larger than magnitude 5.0, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Aftershocks happen when stress within Earth’s crust is redistributed following the mainshock. They are often as large as one magnitude unit smaller than the mainshock. In the case of today’s earthquake, that means aftershocks larger than magnitude 7.5 are possible.

For an earthquake of this size, aftershocks can continue for weeks to months or longer, but they typically will reduce in both magnitude and frequency over time.

Today’s earthquake also produced a tsunami, which has already affected coastal communities on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kurile Islands, and Hokkaido, Japan.

Over the coming hours, the tsunami will propagate across the Pacific, reaching Hawaii approximately six hours after the earthquake struck and continuing as far as Chile and Peru.

Tsunami scientists will continue to refine their models of the tsunami’s effects as it propagates, and civil defence authorities will provide authoritative advice on the expected local effects.

What are the lessons from this earthquake for other parts of the world?

Fortunately, earthquakes as large as today’s occur infrequently. However, their effects locally and across the globe can be devastating.

Apart from its magnitude, several aspects of today’s Kamchatka earthquake will make it a particularly important focus of research.

For instance, the area has been seismically very active in recent months, and a magnitude 7.4 earthquake occurred on 20 July. How this previous activity affected the location and timing of today’s earthquake will be a crucial focus of that research.

Like Kamchatka and northern Japan, New Zealand also sits above a subduction zone – in fact, above two subduction zones. The larger of these, the Hikurangi subduction zone, extends offshore along the east coast of the North Island.

Based on the characteristics of this plate interface, and geological records of past earthquakes, it is likely the Hikurangi subduction zone is capable of producing earthquakes at magnitude 9. It hasn’t done so in historic times, but if that happened it would produce a tsunami.

The threat of a major subduction zone earthquake never goes away. Today’s earthquake in Kamchatka is an important reminder to everyone living in such earthquake-prone areas to stay safe and heed warnings from civil defence authorities.

Dee Ninis, Earthquake Scientist, Monash University and John Townend, Professor of Geophysics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sanders Takes Oligarchy Fight to Appalachia With Standing-Room-Only Crowd in West Virginia

"Whoever said West Virginia was a conservative state?" Sanders asked the crowd in Wheeling. "Somebody got it wrong."

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to a crowd in Wheeling, West Virginia on August 9, 2025.
(Photo: Bernie Sanders/X)

Julia Conley
Aug 09, 2025

COMMON DREAMS

On the latest leg of his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders headed to West Virginia for rallies on Friday and Saturday where he continued to speak out against the billionaire class's control over the political system and the Republican Party's cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and other social programs for millions of Americans—and prove that his message resonates with working people even in solidly red districts.

"Whoever said West Virginia was a conservative state?" Sanders (I-Vt.) asked a roaring, standing-room-only crowd at the Capitol Theater in Wheeling. "Somebody got it wrong."

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, some in the crowd sported red bandanas around their necks—a nod to the state's long history of labor organizing and the thousands of coal mine workers who formed a multiracial coalition in 1921 and marched wearing bandanas for the right to join a union with fair pay and safety protections.

Sanders spoke to the crowd about how President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was supported by all five Republican lawmakers who represent the districts Sanders is visiting this weekend, could impact their families and neighbors.

"Fifteen million Americans, including 50,000 right here in West Virginia, are going to lose their healthcare," Sanders said of the Medicaid cuts that are projected to amount to more than $1 trillion over the next decade. "Cuts to nutrition—literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids."

Seven hospitals are expected to shut down in the state as a result of the law's Medicaid cuts, and 84,000 West Virginians will lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, according to estimates.

Sanders continued his West Virginia tour with a stop in the small town of Lenore on Saturday afternoon and was scheduled to address a crowd in Charleston Saturday evening before heading to North Carolina for more rallies on Sunday.

The event in Lenore was a town hall, where the senator heard from residents of the area—which Trump won with 74% of the vote in 2024. Anna Bahr, Sanders' communications director, said more than 400 people came to hear the senator speak—equivalent to about a third of Lenore's population.



Sanders invited one young attendee on stage after she asked how Trump's domestic policy law's cuts to education are likely to affect poverty rates in West Virginia, which are some of the highest in the nation.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes a federal voucher program which education advocates warn will further drain funding from public schools, and the loss of Medicaid funding for states could lead to staff cuts in K-12 schools. The law also impacts higher education, imposing new limits for federal student loans.

"Sometimes I am attacked by my opponents for being far-left, fringe, out of touch with where America is," said Sanders. "Actually, much of what I talk about is exactly where America is... You are living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and if we had good policy and the courage to take on the billionaire class, there is no reason that every kid in this country could not get an excellent higher education, regardless of his or her income. That is not a radical idea."

Sanders' events scheduled for Sunday in North Carolina include a rally at 2:00 pm ET at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts in Greensboro and one at 6:00 pm ET at the Harrah Cherokee Center in Asheville.

COPLAND CONDUCTS COPLAND; APPALCHIAN SPRING

 

'Are You Worried the Billionaires Are Going to Go Hungry?' Warren Asks Mamdani Critic


"Do you know how many working families are chased out of New York City every day because they can't afford housing, they can't afford groceries?"

 said the Democratic senator.


U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks during a rally on May 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Families Over Billionaires)

Julia Conley
Aug 04, 2025

COMMON DREAMS

Before joining New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani at an event focusing on childcare in the largest city in the U.S., Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared on CNBC where she feigned concern for New York's richest residents—those who aren't being centered in Mamdani's campaign focused on making housing, groceries, and other essentials more affordable for the city's working class.

"Oh dear, are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?" the Massachusetts Democratic senator asked anchor Dan Faber when he inquired whether raising taxes on the richest residents is how Mamdani's far-reaching economic justice initiatives should be funded.

Faber responded that rich New Yorkers will leave the city if Mamdani becomes mayor and succeeds in establishing city-owned grocery stores and universal childcare by raising the corporate tax rate to 11.5%—the rate that already exists in neighboring New Jersey and that would raise $5 billion—and instituting a 2% tax on households earning above $1 million annually.

"Do you know how many working families are chased out of New York City every day because they can't afford housing, they can't afford groceries, they can't afford groceries?" Warren asked Faber.

She later added that billionaires have repeatedly threatened to leave the city at various times. Real estate brokers have expressed doubt that wealthy New Yorkers like Gristedes magnate John Catsimatidis and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman will follow through on their threats, and state tax data has shown that recent shocks like the coronavirus pandemic and tax code changes have not pushed the rich away.

Data also backs up Mamdani's warnings that more and more families in New York are having an increasingly hard time affording life in the city, with Columbia University and the anti-poverty group Robin Hood reporting earlier this year that 1 in 4 New Yorkers can't afford essentials like housing and food.

"You want to have a workable city?" asked Warren. "You want to have a city that's vibrant, you want to have a city where the streets are full, where there are things for sale 24 hours a day, then you need people who can live here and work here."



Warren's comments preceded her appearance with Mamdani, currently a state assemblymember who represents parts of Queens, at the headquarters of District Council 37, the city's largest public employees union, where they spoke about childcare challenges for families in New York. Parents in the city pay nearly $3,000 per month on average for full-time childcare, and more for an infant.

"We know that it is our responsibility to move beyond the broken politics of the past, of our city and our state, and start to offer an alternative across this country to what it could look like to be a people that fight for the families that raise us," said Mamdani at the event.

The progressive candidate has pledged to make childcare free for all New York City families with children aged 6 weeks to 5 years.

Warren said at the event that following Mamdani's surprise victory against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June, the city "is the place to start the conversation for Democrats on how affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat, and that delivering on it in meaningful, tangible ways that will touch working families is why we're here."

The senator endorsed Mamdani days after his primary victory—a step that powerful establishment Democratic figures in the assemblyman's home state, such as U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Gov. Kathy Hochul—have yet to take.

"The way I see it, Zohran ran a campaign that inspired people, that actually got people on their feet," said Warren on Monday. "And the issue he focused on? Affordability."



Mamdani's primary success, said Warren, raises the question: "Why are billionaires and Wall Street CEOs pouring millions of dollars into a race to stop Zohran?"

In an article in Rolling Stone, the senator noted that Mayor Eric Adams—who is running as an independent and is currently in fourth place in general election polls, with just over 12% of the vote compared to Mamdani's 35%—"raised $1 million in a single night from donors with ties to big law firms, commercial brokerages, and big real estate developers who could lose their iron-fisted grip on New York in a Mamdani administration."

Ackman has also played Cuomo and Adams against each other, she wrote, holding "back-to-back meetings" so the candidates could "tap dance for the 'hundreds of millions of dollars' he has said he will spend" to defeat Mamdani.

"In a democracy, billionaires should not be able to buy our elections and control our politicians," wrote Warren. "Elected officials should work for their constituents, not use their government offices to hand out favors to a well-connected few."

Mamdani, she said in a video posted on social media, is "not afraid to take on the billionaires and the giant corporations to make New York more affordable."

Callous and manipulative: Study says 'malevolent personality traits' dominate Trump voters

Supporters of Donald Trump celebrate after the Fox Network called the election in his favor at the site of his rally, at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 6, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Adam Lynch

August 09, 2025 

ALTERNET

PsyPost reports a new psychological study has found that people who claim favorable views of President Donald Trump also tend to score higher on measures of callousness, manipulation, and other malevolent traits—and lower on empathy and compassion.

“Our findings suggest a link between malevolent personality and conservative political ideology, which in our study included positive view of Trump, and that persons with malevolent personality dispositions view political figures with malevolent traits favorably,” said study author Craig Neumann, a Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas. “Further, people who view malevolent political figures favorably also report less empathy for others and enjoy the suffering of others.”

The paper, which was several years in the making, “was designed to address why some people might view favorably a political figure with a history of business failures, bankruptcies, misogynistic statements caught on video, use of charity money for a self-portrait, etc,” said Neuman.

PsyPost said researchers conducted two large surveys with a total of more than 9,000 U.S. participants. The first sample consisted of 1,000 men recruited online, about one-third of whom were racial or ethnic minorities. The second sample included 8,047 men and women who completed personality questionnaires on a public psychology website. Participants in both samples completed a range of validated questionnaires measuring political attitudes, personality traits, and empathy, researchers say.

In “Sample 1”, researchers measured social dominance orientation (the belief that some groups should dominate others), right-wing authoritarianism (support for conformity, obedience, and traditional norms), and psychopathic traits. In “Sample 2,” researchers say they added measures of broader malevolent traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism) and benevolent traits (humanism, faith in humanity and respect for others).

The findings “consistently showed people who identified as politically conservative—and especially those who rated Trump’s presidency highly—were more likely to score higher on measures of authoritarianism, social dominance, and malevolent personality traits,” reports PsyPost.

In the first sample of men, all three predictors — social dominance, authoritarianism, and psychopathic tendencies — predicted conservative ideology and favorable views of Trump, but only for white participants.

The report also revealed that while both men and women showed similar patterns, the associations were stronger for men

Read the full PsyPost report at this link.

'Pathetic': How a key Trump ally embraces Christian nationalism’s deeply 'racist' history

Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2025 (Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock.com)

Alex Henderson

August 04, 2025 

ALTERNET

Long before President Donald Trump formed a close bond with far-right white Christian nationalists and promoted the conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was really born in Kenya instead of the United States, critics accused the religious right of being racist. The Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., founder of the Moral Majority, was a staunch defender of segregation and Jim Crow laws during the 1950s and 1960s — although he later reversed that position.

In a blistering article published on August 4, Salon's Amanda Marcotte argues that a major Trump ally in the MAGA movement—Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk — is using fundamentalist Christianity to obscure a racist agenda.

Kirk, Marcotte notes, said, in 2016, that he embraced a "secular worldview" — and in 2018, he criticized other Republicans for failing to respect the "separation of church and state."

"By 2022," Marcotte observes, "he was falsely claiming the separation of church and state is 'a fabrication' made up by 'secular humanists.' Kirk's commitment to theocracy isn’t half-baked. He believes in the Christian nationalist concept of the Seven Mountains Mandate, which calls on far-right Christians to control not just all government, but media, business and education. This idea drove many of the rioters to the Capitol on January 6, where some displayed Appeal to Heaven flags to demonstrate their belief in total Christian Right domination."

Marcotte continues, "There are many reasons that Kirk underwent this change. Religious fanaticism is central to Donald Trump's base of support; the Capitol insurrection was evidence of this. And while the Religious Right has steered Republicans for decades, the situation grew worse during Joe Biden's presidency, as right-wing media churned out ever-more-radical content denouncing LGBTQ rights and women's equality."

The Salon journalist emphasizes that Kirk's transition from "secular" rhetoric to full-blown Christian nationalism goes beyond anti-gay and anti-feminist views and is "deeply rooted in the history of white evangelicalism" and its "racism."

"Kirk, like decades of Christian Right leaders before him, has found that loudly proclaiming your faith is an effective way to whitewash overt bigotry against people of color," Marcotte explains. "And he has much to answer for when it comes to race-baiting. As Ali Breland of Mother Jones reported in 2024, Kirk has 'hosted far-right and white supremacist figures on his podcast and has tweeted in support of whiteness, earning praise from white supremacists.' This isn't by accident, either. Kirk routinely expresses his own racist views."

Marcotte continues, "He suggested Black pilots are unqualified. He blamed a Black fire chief in Austin, Texas, for flooding deaths that occurred a three-hour drive away from the city. He denounced the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act and tried to discredit the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as 'awful' and 'not a good person.'"

Kirk, according to Marcotte, also praised the late evangelical pastor John MacArthur — who defended slavery as godly.

"MacArthur was no outlier in his views, which is why he’s received such an outpouring of praise from the Christian Right since his death," Marcotte warns. "As historian Randall Balmer detailed in an influential Politico Magazine article published in 2014, the modern Religious Right was formed for 'protecting segregated schools'…. Early in his career, Falwell gave a sermon in which he declared that integration 'will destroy our race eventually,' warning that after school desegregation, legalized interracial marriage would be next…. Since the racist cannot justify their views rationally, instead they blame God, who is conveniently never around to answer questions."

Marcotte adds, "It’s a pathetic excuse for small-minded people. No wonder Charlie Kirk embraced it so wholeheartedly."

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

DOJ memo reveals Trump’s dark plan for a new Red Scare — and it may be perfectly legal

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/File Photo/File Photo

Bill Blum

August 06, 2025 | 

ALTERNET

There are nearly 25 million naturalized citizens in the United States, accounting for 7% of the total population. Each and every one of them should be laser-focused on the Trump administration’s plans to denaturalize and deport as many of them as possible.

This story originally appeared at Truthdig.

Denaturalization is the process by which the federal government revokes the citizenship of persons born outside of the country who became citizens by meeting the standards set by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which include swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States, and demonstrating “good moral character.”

Although denaturalization rates have declined over the past several decades, there is ample historical precedent for the revival President Donald Trump is planning. Between 1906 and 1967 — when the Supreme Court stepped in to tighten the legal requirements — more than 22,000 Americans were denaturalized. Many were left-wing activists who were singled out during the two Red Scares of the 20th century. A common method to denaturalize them was to accuse them of fraud in taking their oaths of allegiance. In 1919, in perhaps the most famous case of all, the government deported Emma Goldman to Russia under the Anarchist Exclusion Act after revoking her naturalized citizenship. In the 1950s, the government tried but failed to denaturalize labor leader Harry Bridges.

On June 11, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote a memorandum that lists denaturalization as one of the Department of Justice’s top legal objectives to further Trump’s political goals. The memo was directed to the DOJ’s Civil Division, the department’s largest litigating component, which represents the United States and its executive agencies, members of Congress, cabinet officers and other federal employees in thousands of legal matters each year. It instructed the division’s attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” focusing on 10 broad categories of enforcement actions:

1. Cases against individuals who pose a potential danger to national security, including those with a nexus to terrorism, espionage, or the unlawful export from the United States of sensitive goods, technology, or information raising national security concerns;
2. Cases against individuals who engaged in torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations;
3. Cases against individuals who further or furthered the unlawful enterprise of criminal gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and drug cartels;
4. Cases against individuals who committed felonies that were not disclosed during the naturalization process;
5. Cases against individuals who committed human trafficking, sex offenses, or violent crimes;
6. Cases against individuals who engaged in various forms of financial fraud against the United States (including Paycheck Protection Program [“PPP”] loan fraud and Medicaid/Medicare fraud);
7. Cases against individuals who engaged in fraud against private individuals, funds, or corporations;
8. Cases against individuals who acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations, not otherwise addressed by another priority category;
9. Cases referred by a United States Attorney’s Office or in connection with pending criminal charges, if those charges do not fit within one of the other priorities; and
10. Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.The first nine categories are generally consistent with the government’s existing powers, reflecting Trump’s penchant for exploiting the loopholes and weak links in current law whenever feasible. The 10th category, however, is a wildcard that could expand those powers exponentially and lead to a Red Scare encore.

And as dark and dangerous as that possibility sounds, it may be perfectly legal.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to establish a “uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Pursuant to this authority, Congress passed the first naturalization act in 1790, and ratified additional acts well into the late 19th century. But it was not until the passage of the Naturalization Act of 1906 that Congress federalized naturalization procedures. The act incorporated earlier race-based legislation that limited naturalization to white people and those with African origins. It also created the Bureau of Immigration Services, the precursor of the present-day U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which promulgated uniform application forms, and began the process of moving naturalization jurisdiction to the federal courts. (Prior to 1906, immigrants were able to apply for citizenship before any court of record, including state and municipal courts. In 1990, Congress shifted jurisdiction from the federal courts to the executive branch, where it remains to this day, although naturalization ceremonies are still conducted by federal district court judges.)

The Naturalization Act of 1906 was also the first federal law that provided for denaturalization, centered on individuals who had obtained citizenship by fraud, were racially ineligible and lacked “good moral character.” The act was amended on several occasions, most notably in 1952 by the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act, which added provisions for denaturalization based on activities deemed subversive or connected to communist or communist-front organizations.

Today’s denaturalization procedures are set forth in two sections of Title 8 of the U.S. Code. Section 1451 authorizes the Department of Justice to institute civil proceedings, alleging that citizenship was “illegally procured” or obtained “by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” The section also mandates denaturalization for individuals who refuse to testify before a congressional committee concerning their alleged subversive activities in cases where they have been convicted of contempt for such refusals.

Section 1425 of Title 8 authorizes criminal prosecutions, making it a felony punishable by 25 years in prison to knowingly procure, “contrary to law, the naturalization of any person.” A conviction results in automatic denaturalization.

Once denaturalized under either section, a person returns to their immigration status before becoming a citizen, rendering them vulnerable to deportation.

It’s easy to see why Trump and his advisers have opted to emphasize civil denaturalization proceedings over criminal prosecutions. In civil cases, there is no right to a jury trial or court appointed counsel, and there is no statute of limitations. The standard of proof is also lower. According to the Supreme Court’s precedent decisions, to prevail, the government must present “clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence” that the targeted individual obtained citizenship illegally or willfully misrepresented a material fact during the naturalization process. That is a rigorous test, but one far lower than the “beyond a reasonable” doubt standard for criminal prosecutions.

The first Trump administration attempted to make denaturalization a priority, launching an initiative dubbed “Second Look,” which built upon a similar Obama administration program called “Operation Janus” to identify alleged terrorists and fraudsters who had naturalized. In the end, however, Trump 1.0 filed a mere 102 denaturalization cases, amounting to an annual rate higher than the 16 cases per year filed under Obama, and eclipsing the total of 24 cases filed under Biden, but still miniscule. This time around, Trump 2.0 is pledging to bring the resources of the entire DOJ civil division behind the effort, reviving the specter of mass denaturalization.

The Shumate memo had largely flown under the media’s radar until Trump started talking in early July about deporting former best bro Elon Musk and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and stripping comedian and longtime celebrity nemesis Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship.

O’Donnell, who is seeking dual citizenship in Ireland, appears safe from Trump’s clutches as she was born in Commack, New York, and enjoys birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Even Trump’s January executive order attacking birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants would leave her unscathed.

Musk and Mamdani are another story, as both are naturalized citizens. Musk, born in South Africa, naturalized in 2002. Mamdani, born in Uganda to Indian parents, naturalized in 1998. Musk allegedly worked illegally in the U.S. in violation of his student visa after leaving Stanford University in 1995. Mamdani has been accused of posting comments on X quoting rap lyrics suggesting support for Hamas.

Even if Trump’s threats against O’Donnell, Musk and Mamdani are basically performative, thousands of less affluent naturalized citizens will likely be caught up in the coming denaturalization dragnet. Millions more who are not targeted will be intimidated from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and full political engagement. The net result will be a society less diverse and less free for the vast majority, exactly what Donald Trump and his cohorts want.

Tyrant Trump's Worst Crimes, Dangers, and Destructions Are Yet to Come

"Americans should start thinking about the unthinkable. Such foreshadowings may make us far more determined NOW to thwart, stop, and repeal the fascist dictatorship."



Ralph Nader
Aug 09, 2025

Common Dreams


The worst crimes of Donald Trump and dangers to America from the unstable, monomaniacal, lying outlaw in the White House have yet to come. He is not satisfied with tearing apart our country’s social safety net for tens of millions of Americans (e.g., Medicaid and food program cuts); wrecking our scientific/medical systems, including warning people about pandemics. He is, by wrecking FEMA et al, failing to address the impact of mega-storms, wildfires, and droughts; and allowing cybersecurity threats to increase while giving harm-producing big corporations immunities from the law, more subsidies, and more tax escapes. Recall how he always adds to his attacks on powerless people that “This is just the beginning.”

He just took the next step in his march to madness and mayhem by announcing more concentration camps holding immigrants, arrested without due process, for deportation to foreign countries that want U.S. taxpayer cash for each deportee.

Recent immigrants are crucial to millions of small and large businesses. Consider who harvests our crops, cares for our children and the elderly, cleans up after us, and works the food processing plants and construction sites. Already, businesses are reducing or closing their enterprises – a political peril for Dangerous Donald.

If all immigrants to the U.S. from the last ten years, documented and undocumented, went on strike, our country would almost shut down. Yet Trump, who hired 500 undocumented workers for just one of his construction sites in New York, and had similar laborers at his New Jersey golf course, promises deportations of millions more.

Always bear in mind the self-defined characteristics of corporatist Trump’s feverish, hateful, outlaw mind: (1) He has declared he “can do whatever he wants as President,” proving his serial violations of law and illegal dictates every day; (2) He always doubles down when indicted, convicted, caught, or exposed, falsely accusing his accusers of the exact transgressions they are reliably charging him with; (3) He brags about lashing out at criticism with foul defamatory invectives; (4) He never admits his disastrous mistake; (5) He boasts that he knows more than leading experts in a dozen major areas of knowledge (see, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All”); and (6) He asserts that every action, policy, or program he launches is a spectacular success – the facts to the contrary are dismissed.He is gravely delusional, replaces realities with fantasies, breaks promises that are made to defer any reckoning or accountability, and, like an imaginary King, finds no problem with saying “I rule America and the world.”

His ego defines his reactions, which is why every foreign leader is advised to flatter him. Nobody flatters better than the cunning genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu, who at his last regal White House dinner, held up his nomination of convicted felon, woman abuser, Trump for the Nobel Prize. Netanyahu’s preening comes from a politician whose regime has dossiers on Trump regarding his past personal and business behavior. This helps explain why Trump is letting the Israeli government do whatever it wants in its Gaza Holocaust, the West Bank, and beyond with our tax dollars, family-killing weaponry, and political/diplomatic cover.

The approaching greater dangers from Trump will come when he pushes his lawless, dictatorial envelope so far, so furiously, so outrageously, that it turns his GOP valets in Congress and the GOP-dominated U.S. Supreme Court against him. Add plunging polls, a stagflation economy, and impeachment, and removal from office would become a political necessity for the GOP in 2026 and beyond. In 1974, the far lesser Watergate transgressions by President Richard Nixon resulted in Republican Senators’ demanding Tricky Dick’s resignation from office.

Further provocations are not far-fetched. Firing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, sinking the dollar, and angering the fearful, but very powerful bankers are all on the horizon. Will the sex-trafficking charges involving Jeffrey Epstein and vile abuses of young girls finally be too much for his evangelical base, as well as for many MAGA voters? This issue is already starting to fissure his MAGA base and the GOP iron curtain in Congress. Subpoenas have just been issued to the Justice Department by the GOP Chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky – a close friend of Senator Mitch McConnell.

There is always SERENDIPITY. Trump, the mercurial egomaniac, offers old and new transgressions to stoke the calls for his impeachment. Does anyone believe that Trump would not start a military conflict, subjecting U.S. soldiers to harm, to distract attention from heavy media coverage of unravelling corruption investigations? Draft-dodging Donald has Pete Hegseth, his knee-jerk Secretary of Defense, waiting to do his lethal bidding, despite possible opposition from career military.

If Trump were to be impeached and removed from office, would he try to stay in office? Here is where a real constitutional explosion can occur. He would have to be escorted from the White House by U.S. Marshals who are under the direction of toady Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution grants “the sole Power” to try impeachments in the Senate and nowhere else. Thus, the courts would provide no remedy to a lawless president wanting to stay in power.

Then what? The country falls into extreme turmoil. The Defense Department, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security are in the Trump Dump. Tyrant Trump can declare a major national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act, and hurl these armed forces and police state muscle against a defenseless Congress and populace. (Recall the January 6, 2021, assault on Congress.) The abyss would have been breached.

With our society in a catastrophic convulsion, the economy collapsing, what would be the next steps? Like the Pentagon that anticipates worst-case domestic scenarios on possible violent “blowbacks” against U.S. military actions abroad, Americans should start thinking about the unthinkable. Such foreshadowings may make us far more determined NOW to thwart, stop, and repeal the fascist dictatorship which Der Führer Donald Trump is rooting ever more deeply every day. Little restraint on lawless Trump from the Congress and the Supreme Court, and only feeble, cowardly responses by the flailing Democratic Party (and the Bar Associations for that matter) thus far, make for the specter of violent anarchy and terror.

Trump has fatalistic traits. Armageddon shapes his ultimate worldview. Ponder that for a dictator with his finger on more than the nuclear trigger.

Again, Aristotle got it right over 2300 years ago, “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.” (See, Bruce Fein’s report: Congressional Surrender and Presidential Overreach).

This leaked memo exposes an agenda so awful even Trump wants it kept secret

Thom Hartmann
August 9, 2025

ALTERNET

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as a member of the media raises their hand, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak

After a couple of wannabe carjackers punched out the DOGE operative known as “Big Balls” in DC, Trump used it as an excuse to threaten to take over the city and bring in the National Guard to police it, in a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. This despite the fact that crime in Washington DC is at a 30-year low and the city already has the largest police force, per capita, of any municipality in America.

None of that matters; Trump wants to turn America into a police state, just like every other dictator does when they get ahold of a democracy. They steal from the people, enrich their cronies, break laws with impunity, and then use police agencies to terrorize the general populace, judges, and legislators into docility and submission when they object.

In fact, they told us this was their goal. They showed us. They planned it in writing.

A leaked memo from inside the Department of Homeland Security reveals what many of us feared but hoped we were wrong about: that the military is no longer a last resort in American governance. It’s now a first tool. A central player. A political weapon, just like in Russia.

And they’re not even hiding it anymore.


This isn’t some vague speculation or dystopian what-if. This isn’t a shadowy plot hatched in secrecy. The document was written, circulated, and discussed at the highest levels of DHS and the Department of Defense and it spells out, in clinical, terrifying language, a plan to normalize and expand the use of the United States military within our own country, on our own soil, against our own people.

The memo, obtained by The New Republic, outlines a coordinated strategy to embed military forces into immigration enforcement not just at the border but across American cities. It calls for replicating the recent Los Angeles deployment “for years to come.” It uses phrases like “homeland defense” and paints immigration threats as akin to al-Qaeda or ISIS. It pushes for “new ideas” on how DHS and DoD can work together on “national security” threats inside the United States.This isn’t about law enforcement. It’s about militarization.
This isn’t about safety. It’s about power.
This isn’t about stopping crime. It’s about building a political machine with boots and guns that can intimidate or even subdue any opposition.

And it’s already happening. America is rapidly turning into an authoritarian police state.


Over the past two months, Trump has done what no modern president has dared. He sent 4,000 National Guard troops — federalized, not state-controlled — into Los Angeles to back up ICE raids. He followed that with 700 active-duty Marines.

These weren’t weekend warriors. These were combat-trained infantry troops deployed to performatively surround federal buildings and “support” immigration enforcement while pro-democracy protestors filled the streets.

Marines. In American cities. In June and July. “Guarding” federal offices and intimidating demonstrators.


And now, we’ve learned that smaller units have been sent to Florida and are prepping for deployment to Texas and Louisiana. The memo wasn’t a warning. It was a blueprint. A playbook for turning the world’s most powerful military force inward and turning constitutionally protected First Amendment political dissent into a “national security threat.”

Don’t believe Trump’s PR spin or the media’s pretending this isn’t as illegal and anti-democracy as it is. Don’t let the uniforms fool you into thinking this is routine.

This is not normal.

This is not legal.
This is not American.

This memo, which Pete Hegseth and friends didn’t intend you and I would ever be able to read:Urges DHS to persuade top military brass to view immigration enforcement as a “homeland defense mission.”
Seeks to embed armed, kill-trained military personnel inside ICE and CBP to “increase information sharing” and support “nationwide operational planning.”
Frames transnational gangs and cartels as equivalent to al-Qaeda, a dangerous, dishonest leap that pretends to justify extreme, deadly force.
And it admits, in its own words, that due to the “sensitive nature” of the meeting it documents, “minimal written policy or background” should be preserved.


Translation: They know what they’re doing is legally and morally criminal. So they’re minimizing the paper trail.

Carrie Lee, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, put it bluntly:
“This speaks to the intent to use the military within the United States at a level not seen since Japanese internment.”


I’d add, also not seen since the Civil War, when Americans turned their guns on each other and 700,000 of us died. And outlawed a decade after that war with the Posse Comitatus Act. And after the Kent State massacre, we resolved, “Never again.”


Joseph Nunn at the Brennan Center warned that this could create a permanent “domestic Forever War,” a campaign of endless militarization justified by fear and manufactured crises. Soldiers — including armed, masked ICE agents answerable only to the president — terrifying civilians on their own streets and in their own homes: a military occupation of the United States of America.

And that’s exactly the point. It’s all part of the classic dictator’s playbook.

You gin up fear about migrants and minorities. You call them invaders, terrorists, cartel assassins. You blur the line between protest and insurrection. You say cities are out of control. Then you send in the troops. Not to protect, but to occupy. And you call it “national security.”

This isn’t just Trumpism. This is textbook authoritarianism in the mold of Putin’s Russia and Orbán’s Hungary. It embodies the early stages of all the horror stories of 1930s Europe.


And let’s not forget the power grab embedded in all this. When Trump federalized the California National Guard, he did it against the will of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The state fought back in court. A federal judge ruled in California’s favor, but the administration appealed, and for now, the troops can remain under federal control.

That’s not just a skirmish over jurisdiction. That’s an open attack on the sovereignty of states, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution. That’s a president saying, “Your Guard is my army now.”


This moment is a test. Of our Constitution. Of our institutions. Of our will.

Because if we let this stand — if we normalize Marines in our cities, Guard troops on our streets, soldiers surveilling residential communities — then we’ve already surrendered.

What happens when the next protest erupts? What happens when a city pushes back against federal immigration policy? What happens when a journalist, a mayor, or a movement becomes “too disruptive”?

Do we really think they’ll hesitate to send in the troops again?

And what kind of soldier will say no, when DHS and DoD have spent months telling them they’re defending the “homeland” against “enemy cells” within?

The line between foreign combat and domestic suppression is being erased. On purpose. By design.

The Founders of this country were obsessed with avoiding a standing army for precisely this reason.

It’s why they wrote the Second Amendment into the Constitution requiring a “well regulated militia” at the state level and that same Constitution, in Article 1, Section 7 bars Congress from appropriating money for the Army for any period longer than two years. (“The Congress shall have Power To … raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”)

They had seen what happened when monarchs used soldiers to police dissent. They knew the threat; not just to liberty, but to the very idea of a democratic republic. They wanted to keep the military on a very, very short leash.

So they built guardrails. Laws. Norms. Civilian command. Posse Comitatus. State control over Guard units. Strict separation between military and police roles.

All of that is being unraveled right now.

You may not see it in the headlines. But if you read the memos — and watch the deployments — you’ll see it plain as day.

The military is no longer on the sidelines.

It’s here.

And unless we act — loudly, urgently, relentlessly — it will become a permanent force in American civic life. Not a protector of freedom, but a tool of control, just like in Orbán’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia.

We are not at war with ourselves, at least yet. But our democracy is under siege.

And the troops have already landed.

Mexico discounts risk of ‘invasion’ after Trump order to target cartels

By AFP
August 9, 2025


Cargo trucks queue next to the border wall before crossing into Tijuana, Mexico - Copyright AFP John Falchetto

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday that there would be “no invasion of Mexico” following reports that President Donald Trump had ordered the US military to target Latin American drug cartels.

“There will be no invasion of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said after The New York Times reported that Trump had secretly signed a directive to use military force against cartels that his administration has declared terrorist organizations.

“We were informed that this executive order was coming and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel or any institution in our territory,” Sheinbaum told her regular morning conference.

The Mexican foreign ministry said later that Mexico “would not accept the participation of US military forces on our territory.”

The remarks followed a statement released by the US embassy in Mexico, which said both countries would use “every tool at our disposal to protect our peoples” from drug trafficking groups.

US ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said on X that the countries “face a common enemy: the violent criminal cartels.”

The Pentagon referred questions on the issue to the White House, which did not immediately confirm the order.

The Times said Trump’s order provided an official basis for military operations at sea or on foreign soil against the cartels.

In February, his administration designated eight drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations. Six are Mexican, one is Venezuelan and the eighth originates in El Salvador.

Two weeks ago, his administration added another Venezuelan gang, the Cartel of the Suns, which has shipped hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades.

On Thursday, the US Justice Department doubled to $50 million its bounty on Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, whom it accuses of leading the Cartel of the Suns.

Venezuela has dismissed the allegations, with Foreign Minister Yvan Gil calling it “the most ridiculous smokescreen we have ever seen.”

Sheinbaum has made strenuous efforts to show Trump she is acting against her country’s cartels, whom he accuses of flooding the United States with drugs, particularly fentanyl.

“We are cooperating, we are collaborating, but there will be no invasion. That is absolutely ruled out,” she said.

She said that in “every call” with US officials, Mexico insisted that this “is not permitted.”

The 63-year-old has been dubbed the “Trump whisperer” for repeatedly securing reprieves from his threats of stiff tariffs over the smuggling of drugs and migrants across their shared border.