Is the Gaza War a Genocide?

by Noah Carl | Jan 8, 2026 | ANTIWAR.COM

Many respected scholars and human rights organizations have characterised Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide. At the same time, other scholars and organizations have disputed this charge. Proving a charge of genocide is notoriously difficult, since it requires demonstrating not only that large numbers of civilians were killed but that they were killed intentionally with the aim of destroying their group “in whole or in part”.

A common misconception is that genocide must involve a very large number of deaths on the order of hundreds of thousands or millions. But this is false. The perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War were found guilty of genocide despite the massacre’s death toll being less than 9,000. Hence the fact that “only” 70,000–100,000+ people have died in Gaza in no way refutes the charge of genocide.

Given the complexity of proving intent, establishing whether Israel has committed genocide is beyond the scope of this article. What the article argues instead is that two key features of the mortality data from Gaza are consistent with the charge of genocide.

The first such feature is the age and sex distribution of deaths. In a recent UN study, Colin Mathers and colleagues sought to characterise the patterns of age- and sex-specific mortality in various deadly events, such as genocides, violent conflicts and natural disasters. Comparing data from four genocides and a large number of violent conflicts, they found that the patterns of age- and sex-specific mortality were quite distinct.

In violent conflicts, mortality rates were substantially higher for men than for women, low for non-infant children and high for older age groups. In genocides, by contrast, mortality rates were only somewhat higher for men than for women and were much flatter with respect to age.

Two separate studies have compared the patterns of age- and sex-specific mortality from the early months of the Gaza War to the patterns documented in the UN study. Both found that the patterns from Gaza were a closer match to genocides than to violent conflicts — driven by unusually high mortality among women and children.

As Benjamin-Samuel Schlüter and colleagues note:

The mortality from the current war in Gaza does not exhibit strong differences between males and females, distinguishing it from the conflict schedule… The age pattern associated with genocide is the closest to the observed death rates due to the war, especially below the age of 40 years.

Or as Ana Gómez-Ugarte and colleagues note:

If the appropriate type of crisis is selected, the estimates can be very close to the true ones, as shown by our results when using the genocide pattern.

The data these authors analyzed come from the Gaza Health Ministry, which has been accused of inflating the number of deaths for political purposes. However, several studies have looked into this claim and concluded that the Health Ministry’s tally is probably an under-count.

Michel Guillot and colleagues cross-checked the Health Ministry’s data against the UNRWA’s register of refugees living in Gaza. Out of 34,344 individuals included in the data with complete identifying information, 64% also appeared on the UNRWA’s refugee register — which is almost identical to the 66% of the population known to comprise refugees. This makes it unlikely that a large number of the names were simply fabricated.

Matthew Cockerill and colleagues examined 1,079 child deaths that were abruptly removed from the Health Ministry’s data in March of 2025. They were able to verify that at least 61% did in fact occur and, of those for which a cause of death could be identified, 97% involved violence. They also determined that only 3% represented duplications, misidentifications or individuals later discovered alive. The reason the deaths were removed is that the Health Ministry only counts a death if an official has personally seen the body or a judicial ruling has confirmed it.

In addition, an investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call uncovered an internal IDF database that contained 8,900 deceased Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters up to May of 2025. Since the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll at the time was around 53,000, the investigation determined that at least 83% of those killed in Gaza were civilians. This figure is similar to Cockerill’s own back-of-the-envelope estimates based on the assumption that men are over-represented in civilian deaths by 32–50%.

The second feature of the mortality data from Gaza that is consistent with the charge of genocide is the trajectory of life expectancy. Guillot and colleagues calculated that life expectancy in Gaza fell by 34.9 years in the period October 2023–September 2024. Gómez-Ugarte and colleagues reported an even greater loss for this period when adjusting for under-reporting of deaths. They also reported losses of 34.4 years 36.4 years for the calendar years 2023 and 2024, respectively.

This would mean that Gaza saw a huge cumulative loss across only two years of conflict. Such a sudden and dramatic fall in life expectancy did not occur during any of the recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Yemen. However, it did occur during the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides. This is shown in the chart below, using figures from Gómez-Ugarte and colleagues and Our World in Data.

There is still some uncertainty surrounding the estimates for Gaza, but the overall trajectory is not in dispute. The fall in Rwanda would be even more dramatic if figures were available for Tutsi specifically, though it is worth noting that thousands of Twa and Hutu “traitors” were also killed.

Is the Gaza War a genocide? Two key features of the mortality data are consistent with that charge: first, unusually high mortality among women and children; second, the sudden and dramatic fall in life expectancy. In these respects, the war resembles the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides more closely than any other recent conflict involving the US or Israel.

Noah Carl is Editor at Aporia Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @NoahCarl90

Palestine

The ethnic cleansing of Gaza by NGOs and Somaliland

Wednesday 7 January 2026, by Sara Laska


From 1 March, 37 NGOs will be banned from operating in the Gaza Strip, even though they are essential resources for the population. This decision is part of a broader plan to privatise and militarise humanitarian aid. It has two objectives: to control the narrative and to carry out ethnic cleansing, which is explicitly the aim of the plan to expel Gazans to Somaliland.


Under the guise of fighting terrorism, organisations hoping to retain their authorisation must now provide the identities of their employees. This requirement comes at a time when the Israeli army is targeting and violently attacking anyone who criticises its expansion plans.

A strategy of cleansing

Humanitarian action is a central pillar of the discourse of the ‘international community,’ which presents itself as the defender of oppressed peoples. As such, this action is difficult to erase without provoking outrage. Yet it remains easily circumvented.

Independent and recognised organisations are thus replaced by structures selected by the colonial authorities, in line with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The rallying points set up by this foundation led to the assassination of 1,400 Gazans.

Among the so-called ‘humanitarian’ structures that meet Israeli standards, the name of the evangelical Christian organisation Samaritan’s Purse stands out. This NGO carried out religious conversion operations alongside its ‘humanitarian actions’ in El Salvador in 2001 and, under the guise of offerings, distributed Bibles in several Muslim-majority countries in 2018. It thus combines explicitly anti-Muslim proselytism with outspoken support for the Israeli project, which it describes as a ‘war of good against evil’.

Rewriting history

This reconfiguration of ‘humanitarian action’ is part of a colonial continuum. In the short term, it facilitates the expulsion or assassination of Palestinians; in the long term, it helps to shape the memory of the current sequence in line with the Israeli narrative.

Humanitarian action is not limited to the distribution of aid. It is also a central place for the production of narratives, through the presence of direct witnesses. Thus, alongside the danger to the bodies of Gazans, it is also the memory of their massacre – and their resistance – that is under threat. The colonisation of narratives therefore appears to be a fundamental issue, reminding us of our duty to listen, pay attention and pass on information.

Somaliland and the expulsion of Palestinians

While contesting the legitimacy of internationally established humanitarian organisations, Israel was quick to recognise Somaliland, a state that is not recognised by the international community.

The Mossad held direct talks with Somaliland independence activists with the aim, according to some researchers, of acquiring a stable base close to the Houthis in Yemen. Beyond the upheaval of the regional order, this recognition opens a breach allowing for the expulsion of Palestinians, as acceptance of this population transfer seems to have been a condition for the recognition of the state.

In their imperial symbiosis, Israeli and American leaders have been searching for several months for a territory capable of accommodating a significant portion of the Palestinian people in order to bring the Palestinian question to a definitive close. The recognition of Somaliland, coupled with promises of financial transfers, could encourage independence activists to accept this colonial project, although Al-Shabab militiamen are reminding them of the importance of preserving national unity and the duty of loyalty to the Palestinian community.

8 January 2026

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.

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Irreversible Robust Tempo of Charter School Failures and Closures

by Shawgi Tell / January 6th, 2026

Charter schools are deregulated private entities that embrace “free market” ideology. They rest firmly on consumerism, competition, and the medieval view that every individual should fend for themselves. Winning and losing are considered normal, healthy, and desirable in this obsolete outlook where “shopping for a school and hoping for the best” replaces the right to education.

These outsourced “schools” have been around since 1991. They make a few people quite rich, are usually more segregated than traditional public schools, and are also well-known for poor accountability, widespread corruption, and high student, teacher, and principal turnover rates that undermine a modern teaching and learning culture. See here for dozens of other differences between public schools and charter schools.

While many charter schools failed, closed, and abandoned thousands of people two to three decades ago, in recent years it has become a full time job to report on the number of old and new charter schools failing, closing, and leaving many out in the cold. The rate and tempo of non-profit and for-profit charter school failures and closures has now conditioned researchers, writers, journalists, and commentators to not let their guard down for a second because the next, typically sudden and abrupt, charter school failure and closure is right around the corner. A high level of predictability for failure and closure has now been solidified. Uncertainty and bedlam have increased qualitatively and quantitatively in the charter school sector.

In such a frenzied context, charter school disinformation, propaganda, and gas-lighting lose much of their power. Top-down neoliberal narratives collide more severely with harsh realities and hold less sway. Social consciousness of what is really happening begins to gradually increase.

The National Center for Charter School Accountability (NCCSA) states that, “Today, the charter sector stands at a reckoning point. Growth has slowed. For-profit models are expanding. The push to create religious charter schools has fractured the movement from within. Meanwhile, charters are now competing not just with public schools and each other, but with a growing network of voucher-funded private schools and publicly subsidized home-schools.”

The NCCSA also reminds us that, “In the first half of 2025, 50 charter schools announced plans to shut down. Some would close immediately, while others would remain open through the end of the school year.”

In a separate, more recent report, the same organization also reminds us that,” Scandals and closures have tarnished the charter brand resulting in mounting public disillusionment with charter schools — even among progressive policymakers who once embraced the idea. The 2025 Kappan poll illustrates this dramatic shift: in 2013, nearly seven in ten Americans (68%) supported charter and lab schools. By 2025, support had plummeted to just 46% — a22-point drop during a period when general support for school choice has reached record highs.” While this is a big drop, it is not unreasonable to assume that a more investigative survey would show even lower support for charter schools. Experience shows that when open, calm, honest, and deep discussion takes place with people, especially on a one-on-one basis, many people, including charter school employees, operators, and supporters, admit that charter schools have 50 problems and that society does not need to privatize schools because society can actually do much better. People crave coherence and analysis, and are eager to overcome disinformation and propaganda.

A recent alarming example of yet another charter school to close suddenly and abruptly, leaving everyone shocked and appalled again, comes from Orlando, Florida which already has a high rate of charter school failures and closures.

The title of the January 2, 2026 article says it all: “Families scramble to find new schools after Orlando charter school’s abrupt closure.” “Unsustainable financial challenges” was the main reason cited for the closure of Legends Academy Charter School. This is actually a common problem in the charter school sector which receives billions of dollars in public funds every year from the federal government and state governments, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars a year from “philanthrocapitalists” and other private funders. Charter School Scandals is a website that regularly documents embezzlement, racketeering, and a range of other crimes, scandals, and controversies in the crisis-ridden charter school sector.

Legends Academy Charter School has been around for nearly 25 years and the unexpected closure will affect 200 families. Shocked and angry parents now have to frantically and urgently fend for themselves again to find another school for their kids in an education landscape that has become more chaotic over the years due to school privatization schemes imposed on the public in the name of “choice.” Angela Gillenwaters said she “doesn’t know where her 7-year-old grandson King will finish first grade.” She said, “My heart is crushed.” Speaking to the abrupt nature of the school’s closure and the lack of accountability routinely and casually demonstrated by school leaders in such horrible cases, Gillenwaters went on to say, “They weren’t answering any questions about where the funds and stuff like that…This isn’t something you just find out in one day. That’s impossible.” Another news source points out that, “For the families affected, the closure is much more than a mere logistical inconvenience. It signifies the dismantling of a community and a severing of plans for continuity in education.” Many teachers and education support staff will also become jobless because of the school’s sudden closure.

Sadly, this tragic scenario will be played out every week in the charter school sector in 2026. Even more disturbing is the outdated view of many charter school owners and operators who treat education as a commodity instead of a right and social responsibility. Such individuals nonchalantly repeat that schools are businesses and like any business they should be closed when they fail and someone smarter should show up and start a more successful business/school. Such a socially irresponsible view speaks volumes about those dominating education through the seizure of more state mechanisms and agencies.

Fortunately, many students abandoned by failing charter schools operated by unelected private citizens are able return to their host traditional public school district which, unlike charter schools, accepts all students at all times. Of course, these public schools will continue to be demonized, starved of funds, and set up to fail by neoliberals and privatizers determined to create charter schools that enrich them in the name of “choice” and “saving the kids.”

The public should not doubt its ability to combat all forms of privatization. Privatization causes many of the same problems no matter which sector, sphere, or country it invades, whether it is education, healthcare, electricity production, garbage collection, transportation, parking meter reading, airports, or railroads. Privatization is a major problem confronting everyone everywhere, not just those in the sphere of education.

In this age of fifth generation warfare, it is more critical than ever for everyone to engage in deep and sustained investigation and discussion and to make sure action and analysis go together. People are fed up with disinformation repeated endlessly as historical truth and desire facts, data, information, and analysis that opens the door to the progress of society.

Everything constantly changes, moves, and develops through contradictions, which means openings and opportunities to create the new, fresh, and modern will present themselves. Together we can seize these occasions to individually and collectively move society forward and restore education as a public responsibility, not a consumer good. It can be done.

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Shawgi Tell (PhD) is author of the book Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu. Read other articles by Shawgi.

The Anger that Masks the Sadness

by Philip A. Farruggio / January 7th, 2026

We have always lived in a society that hinders mental health care instead of enabling it. Now, this writer is surely not a psychiatrist, but I did spend a night in a Holiday Inn Express. My experiences as a patient of Freudian psychoanalysis 40 years ago taught me, among many things, that ‘The child is father of the man’. What happened to us as little baby boys and girls from birth to the age of six can influence who we become as adults. Keep that in mind folks as you watch the car crash this Trump Cabal is causing.

Mary, his niece who has seen more than 99% of us regarding her dictatorial uncle, and happens herself to be a psychologist, relates much about him. She recently stated in an interview that ‘Donald was an unloved child in his formative years’. She notes that, as with most children at a very young age, Trump had that nurturing withheld from him. He became more and more demanding as he grew. By the time he became an adult, Trump the bully sought the most important prize of all: Power and control.

There is a documentary on Netflix, made in the 1970s, called Hitler: A Career. Go and watch it to see just how closely this Trump MAGA Cabal has emulated Hitler and his National Socialists, AKA Nazi Party. Hitler made countless speeches at countless rallies (just as Donald has done). He and his minions set their sights on ‘The stab in the back’ by the Deep State of that era. The Jews and Slavs were singled out for deportation (and ultimate death) while the Trump Cabal chooses the undocumented who usually happen to be brown or black skinned. Hitler had his dream of Lebensraum, or the ‘Need for land for the German people’. The Trump Cabal has gone just as far as Adolf, if not further, by demanding the need for control or actual ownership of sovereign nations — and of course their natural resources.

When I first heard and saw what this cabal had just done in Venezuela, I was so outraged, which quickly turned to tears. Tears not only for the Venezuelan people who reject this overt act of imperialism. Tears for what has become of my native country, controlled by this fascism.

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Philip A Farruggio is regular columnist on Its the empire stupid website. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 500 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the It’s the Empire… Stupid radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net. Read other articles by Philip.

Fukayama’s Misstep

The beginning of a new American history

by Dan Lieberman / January 8th, 2026

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that we, meaning those who glorify the western world, were at “The End of History and the Last Man,” and that “the rise of Western liberal democracy marked the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution,” meaning that Western style “democracy is the final form of government for all nations,” motivated the Western world to rest comfortably and applaud its accomplishment in determining the final course of history. The pundits of the Western world failed to recognize that they, as victors, wrote the history, and the history they were writing did not correspond with the history that was occurring.

As of Jan 1, 2026, the world has not demonstrated a trend toward democracy. Population Reviews’ Democracy Ranking by Country 2025depicts the trend.

Full Democracy: 25 countries
Flawed Democracy: 50 countries
Hybrid democracy: 33 countries
Totalitarian: 47 countries

The emergence of the most autocratic administration in the world’s most promoted democracy, the Donald Trump administration in the American government, has thrown the U.S. into despair and the world into confusion. Despite never being recognized as a bottoms-up democracy, where grassroots filters wants and desires to upper echelons of power, and having operated as a top-down democracy, where echelons of power convince the masses that constant wars and severe economic disparities are good for the nation, and, in times of danger, political repression is a necessary “dark deed” to assure survival (Ed: of the oligarchy), Americans felt protected by two words ─ checks and balances.

The “checks and balances” in the American democracy has the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial departments oversee and regulate one another, and guarantees no department gains absolute authority or violates the Constitution, its Bill of rights, and its 27 amendments. The guarantees, which provided U.S. citizens with a feeling that no person or agency could limit their democratic privileges, has weakened. The three government departments show indeterminate understanding of the other departments’ authority and operate, more and more, as if each is an unrelated agency in the federal government.

Without sufficient checks and balances, Americans see a void in Executive restraint, for which there is no rescue. Complaints that liberal governments pursued agendas that violated the rights of a majority led a coalition of white nationalists to seek and gain power, only to find their constitution shredded, their agendas corrupted by a small clique of “one” and a large clique of sycophants, and their moral compass pointed to scheming corruption. Their desire to have America isolated from the wars that raged across continents finds Trump’s America supporting Putin’s war, Israel’s genocide, and a revival of the Monroe Doctrine. Suppression of dissenting views, previously imposed on those who expressed “radical” views, have expanded to include those who contest Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and have reached the conflicting arguments of the white nationalists who supported Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency. MASA (Make America Sane Again) is terrified and MAGA (Make America Great Again) feels betrayed. Fear that the Statue of Liberty will be replaced by a Statue of Donald Trump and the words liberty, freedom, and democracy will be words reserved for speeches and no longer characterize the land of shining shores has gripped the American public.

It was always there — the fragility of American democracy and, despite 27 amendments, an incapacity to protect the fragile democracy from totalitarian predators. Several presidents ignored Federal laws, restricted civil liberties, pardoned the unpardonable, surrounded themselves with family and sycophants, or allowed corruption. President Trump has done it all in one year, and in spades. He has capitalized on democracy weakness and citizen complacency to end the distorted history of the United States of America as the world’s democratic beacon and begun a new history of the United States as the world’s savior of money interests, might dictates right, and Judeo-Christian dominance.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, serve as the models for Trump’s flirtation with autocracy. Toss in touches of the self-serving, gun toting, and devious practices of former Uganda leader Idi Amin and former Dominican Republic dictator, Rafael Trujillo, and we have a more complete picture of how the ego tripping, corrupt, revengeful, lying, cheating, and deceitful Donald Trump can be characterized.

Yasser Arafat complained that Netanyahu always answered his requests with a “no,” citing national security risks. Trump uses the same words when his edicts are challenged.

The Department of Interior announced Monday that it was pausing all large-scale offshore wind leases immediately in response to “national security risks” identified by the Department of War.

Israel’s press releases always used the word “terrorist” with antagonists Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Trump administration designated Cartel de los Soles, which it claims is headed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a foreign terrorist organization as the Trump administration indicates it could launch a military attack inside Venezuela’s borders.

The sycophancy, corruption, revenge attacks on opponents, and restrictions of civil liberties engineered by Trump resemble the same method of operation alleged to his “good friend,” Vladimir Putin.

Individual U.S. administrations exhibited either excessive Executive department cronyism, (Andrew Jackson spoils system), severe violations of the constitution (Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have violated the U.S. Constitution by suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and arresting individuals without charge, including political opponents and journalists), or suppressed dissent (Woodrow Wilson’s Attorney General Palmer raids against radicals). Trump’s administrations are accused of being guilty of all of these transgressions on American life. Previous presidents have witnessed associates using the executive office for their personal gain and committing corruption but no president, until Trump, has been cited as benefitting excessively from corruption. NBC reports, Crypto coin, cellphones, real estate: Trump uses power of his office to reap profits for family businesses.

If one theme has emerged in President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s this: He’s leveraged the power of his office for personal gain unlike anyone before in history.

From crypto coins to bibles, overseas development deals to an upcoming line of cellphones, Trump family businesses have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars since his election, an unprecedented flood of often shadowy money from billionaires, foreign governments and cryptocurrency tycoons with interests before the federal government.

The U.S. democratic political system has had its challenges, waded through them, and survived. A segment of society claims that the democracy designation is only an appearance, that the U.S. democracy is a disguised oligarchy whose democratic values appease the citizenry and never change the controlling mechanisms. They can now point to the Republican Party’s nominations of Donald Trump, where Party success was more important than adhering to democratic values and to his elections, where pluralistic America became adversarial America and show that democracy failed to politically educate and provide sufficient knowledge for citizens to make rational electoral choices. Regardless of the beliefs, the Trump administration, which still has three years to meddle with the constitution, has introduced and continues introducing, changes to the political system that should alarm every American.

• • • Reorganizing and dismantling of government agencies.
      The Executive department exercises jurisdiction of the cabinet agencies, which are often bloated and commanded by political hacks. They needed an overhaul but not a bludgeoning that Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) performed. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled lower courts and “granted the president an unparalleled ability to reorganize—or even dismantle—federal agencies.” This seems to violate Congressional oversight by the United States Congress over the executive branch. “Congressional oversight includes the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation. These [activities]include authorization, appropriations, investigative, and legislative hearings by standing committees; which is specialized investigations by select committees; and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff.“
    • Regulating Colleges
      Trump has threatened to remove tax-exempt status and cut research funding unless several colleges follow his recommended changes to their hiring, admissions practices, and curriculum.
    • Dominating cultural institutions.

  Maybe the Kennedy Center needed a makeover; it did not need a takeover that disparaged Kennedy and exalted Trump. Sheldon Whitehouse, top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works (EPW) committee, launched a formal investigation into allegations of widespread cronyism, financial mismanagement, and corruption at Trump’s Kennedy Center.

  Democrats on the committee said they obtained documents that suggest the national cultural center is being operated as a “slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies”, resulting in millions of dollars in losses and a significant deviation from its statutory mission. A central charge is that the Kennedy Center is providing preferential access and financial benefits to organizations connected to the Trump administration and its allies. In one contract, [interim president Richard ] Grenell granted world football’s governing body, Fifa, free and exclusive use of the entire Kennedy Center campus from 24 November to 12 December for the World Cup draw. Estimates provided by Whitehouse show this will cost the Center $5,038,444 in losses from direct rental fees, programming rescheduling, labor, food and beverage and other services. Multiple events were cancelled or rescheduled to accommodate Fifa.

  • • • Cancelling States rights
        The Tenth Amendment to the constitution says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Trump intends to change that and coerce states to follow his authority. From the New York Times, Dec. 31, 2025.

  Miffed at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and furious at its refusal to free Tina Peters, a convicted election denier and ardent Trump supporter, Mr. Trump has opened an assault against the Democratic-run state. His administration has cut off transportation money, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a leading climate and weather research center and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires.

  After House and Senate voice votes (quasi unanimous) passed Bill H.R. 131, which aimed to finish a water pipeline under construction to provide municipal and industrial water to communities in southeastern Colorado, Trump vetoed the Resolution, arguing that “the bill would extend the repayment period and reduce interest rates, which he viewed as continuing ‘failed policies’ that burden taxpayers.” Trump’s vengeance overrides care for the Coloradoan people.

  • • • Manipulating Social media
        During Joe Biden’s administration, Congress cited national security concerns, and passed a law to ban the TikTok app, unless its control was sold to an American consortium. Set to go into effect on 20 January 2025, Trump halted the ban while his administration worked out a deal to transfer ownership. The final arrangement has Oracle (database management services), Silver Lake (investment firm), and MGX (Abu Dhabi‐linked investment firm) with a majority stake (~45 percent) in TikTok’s U.S. operations. The arrangement resolves the dubious “national security concerns” and presents another concern ─ billionaire Oracle executive chairperson and ardent Israel supporter, Larry Ellison, might have TikTok prevent Israel critics and Palestine supporters from airing opinions.The usual suspects, ever fearful that the U.S. public learns the truth of Israel’s genocidal pursuits, have targeted TikTop as a “tool of dangerous influence inciting violence against Israelis Palestinians,” and a “platform pushing pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine content.” Nothing said that Israeli Defense Force actively recruits influencers on TikTok and other social media platforms.”

  In 2017, Ellison donated $16.6 million, to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, the largest donation in the organization’s history. In 2019, Palestinians and Palestinian Americans filed a $1 billion lawsuit against several Israel supporters, including Ellison, which accused them of “conspiring to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israeli-occupied territories, committing war crimes, and funding genocide.” The case was dismissed in February 2024.

  Although Oracle has only a 15 percent ownership of TikTok, Larry Ellison’s participation in its operations give Israel’s supporters hope that Palestinian expression will be censored.

  • • • Turning armed forces into personal militias
        On September 30, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited top military brass to a meeting at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Some military observers criticized the meeting as “a waste of resources, arguing it did not address pressing issues like military strategy or acquisition reform.”Instead, Hegseth informed senior military officials that “The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies … but if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign.” Trump, before the meeting is quoted as saying, “I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m gonna fire them right on the spot.” In a rambling 74 minute speech, “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

  The military has been told not to question “rules of engagement,” and the effect is immediate ─ murder on the high seas. U.S. strikes on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific ocean have killed more than 115 people since September. Not answered is why the boats are not stopped, the cargo examined and seized, the occupants interrogated and allowed to live and receive trial. Could they be people fleeing Venezuela and carrying contraband to subsidize their lives on a Caribbean Island beach, and do not have the USA as a destination?

  Targeting “drug boats” escalated into seizing oil tankers, bombing a port in Venezuela, bombing Venezuela military facilities, seizing Venezuela’s president and first lady, and offering them to New York city courts. None of these actions are related to defense of the American mainland; the U.S. military is now a “hit squad” for Trump and his cronies on land and at sea, and that includes the U.S. mainland.

  American law allows the president to call National Guard troops from any state into service if the US is “invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation,” or “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the US government. Trump has ordered National Guard troops into several cities and from his Quantico speech, hopes to use U.S. military troops for the same purpose. Is Trump testing the law and the military, learning if either can implement a future martial law that he might want after severe resistance to his complete domination of the American political system occurs?

  • • • Compromising Rule of Law
        All of the previous maneuvers by Donald Trump contain compromises with the “Rule of Law,“ a principle that all individuals and institutions are accountable to the law, which must be clear, public, and applied equally.” Trump’s pardons of convicted criminals and use of the nation’s highest office to enrich his family and friends evades the law and selects individuals who are allowed to evade the laws. He has brought compromises of the Rule of Law to its highest level

  Pardons have been granted to individuals with connections to Trump and bypassed the traditional review processes. In less than one year, he has granted clemency to almost 1,600 individuals. These include about 1500, convicted by courts for their participation in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Luminaries, convicted of white collar crime include:

  • • • Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor and Trump’s dirty tricks ally.
      • Scott Howard Jenkins, convicted of accepting cash bribes and bribes in the form of campaign contributions. Trump accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Department of Justice against political opponents by unfairly prosecuting and denying Jenkins, an ardent Trump supporter, a fair trial.
      • Glen Casada, involved in conspiracy and fraud. Trump claimed the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden had “significantly over-prosecuted individuals for a minor issue involving constituent mailers.”
      • Changpeng Zhao, former CEO of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency platform, convicted of anti-money laundering violations. Zhao ‘s pardon allows Binance to apply for licenses and forge other commercial partnerships made difficult by states that revoked money-transmitter licenses from the company’s U.S. affiliate, Binance.US. Zhao’s company assisted in business dealings that benefitted World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture run by Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr. Trump claimed he knew “nothing about the guy.”
      • George Santos, former U.S. representative, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity-theft charges, and admitted to using campaign funds to buy luxury products and pay off his credit card debt. Slated to be the next Attorney General.
      • Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Honduras, convicted on drug-trafficking and firearms charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison for helping cocaine traffickers move hundreds of tons of narcotics into the U.S. Rumored to be appointed head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
      • Todd and Julie Chrisley, reality TV stars from “Chrisley Knows Best,” convicted in a scheme to swindle banks out of tens of millions of dollars. Next Federal Reserve Commissioners.

  Put it all together and we have Trump replacing the penal system. He doesn’t determine who gets convicted or acquitted; he determines who serves the sentencing. Commit a crime. No problem. Snuggle up to Trump and the crime brings no time.

  Each day, Donald Trump behaves similar to Louis IV, who is quoted as saying, “Le loi, c’est moi,” or, “The law is me.” A previously mentioned NBC report, described how Trump uses power of his office to reap profits for family businesses. The Atlantic also summarizes the unlawful corruption of the former and present Trump administrations.

  Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months. Its brazenness, volume, and variety defy historical comparison, even in a country with a centuries-long history of grift—including, notably, Trump’s first four years in office. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of his first—foreign regimes staying at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C.; the (aborted) plan to host the G7 at Trump’s hotel in Florida—seem quaint.

  Foreign regimes are beginning to see just how far their money can go in Trump’s America. The highest bidder has never had so much to gain.

  In less than one year, Trump has dimmed the Statue of Liberty torch and made the Lady weep. Feeling invincible after killing more than 40 people, including 33 Cubans, without loss of American life (who knows???), in the abduction of Nicholas Maduro, Trump will assuredly move ahead with his plan to incorporate Greenland in the U.S. defense perimeter and delight in turning a devastated Gaza into a Middle East Riviera playground. He will continue to demolish democratic institutions and attempt to perpetuate his criminal form of governance by a succession plan that favors his family and cronies.

  By denigrating democracy, Trump has served to alert the populace that American democracy is frail and weathered. Changing gun laws, which includes the second amendment, denying executive clemency, being able to indict sitting presidents, and refurbishing the holy trinity of government so they function more appropriately and achieve required checks and balances are only a small portion of the renovations needed for the decaying democracy. Regulation of a controlling media, Internet search engines, social media, and the crushing Artificial Intelligence so they assure information is accurate and not selective, and all voices are heard and dissent is not silenced, is a difficult challenge. Another constitutional convention will be appropriate, but a nation divided to the extent of contemporary USA will not be able to agree on the definition of “democracy.”

  Simplicius, an erudite and interesting scholar in the substack universe, predicts,

  It’s the law of the jungle now, might is right, and Trump has become a kind of ill-fated Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse figure, ushering in the new age of chaos just in time for the final arc of the Fourth Turning to transform the world into something unrecognizable.

  This is not altogether a bad thing. The old age is dying, and something new is being born; this is a natural process and should be welcomed, albeit with great caution and an emphasis on awareness.

  From my perspective, the United States is headed to becoming a more repressive state, engaging in civil strife, receiving international alienation, and suffering a resulting economic decline. And that is my optimistic view.

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Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com.  He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.