LEGAL FANTASY

Philip Glass' latest work is a direct 'warning' about Trump: legal scholar

Philip Glass at Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan, Italy on September 20, 2008 (MITO SettembreMusica/Wikimedia Commons)

Alex Henderson

January 29, 2026

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump's influence on Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (which the president has added his name to) has now spread to legendary composer Philip Glass. Earlier this week, Glass announced that his "Symphony Number 15: Lincoln" will not debut at the venue. One legal scholar is arguing that Glass' symphony is actually about Trump.

"Lincoln' was inspired by President Abraham Lincoln, who served as the United States' first Republican president before he was assassinated on April 15, 1865 near the end of the American Civil War. And in a biting op-ed published by The New Republic on January 29, former federal prosecutor Harry Litman argues that "Lincoln" can serve as a "warning" about Trump.

"Donald Trump responded to Philip Glass' withdrawal of his 'Lincoln' symphony from the Kennedy Center the way he usually does when confronted by someone of real stature: with a sour-grapes, self-aggrandizing rant," Litman observes. "The tirade was petty, frivolous, and quickly forgotten. But the episode itself deserves attention because Trump’s insult, unsurprisingly, missed the broader point of Glass' gesture. Glass, 89, a towering figure in modern composition whose place in the history of music is secure, did not merely pull a much-anticipated work that is likely his last symphony. He pointedly sounded the symphony’s theme as a direct protest to the dangerous authoritarian rule under Trump."

Litman notes that Glass' "Lincoln" is "centrally" drawn from Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address of 1838.

"Lincoln delivered the address to a group of young professionals in Springfield, Illinois, when he was just 28 — an age when Trump was still shining his father's shoes," Litman explains. "Trump, who one suspects has never read the Lyceum speech or listened to a Glass symphony, viewed the gesture, as he invariably does, as a personal affront. In fact, it was far more. It incorporated Lincoln's prescient warning about democratic collapse, a warning that lands with unsettling accuracy on the dangers of Trumpian rule. In the Lyceum, Lincoln was already grappling with the question of how republics fail."

Litman continues, "He begins by asking where the danger to American self-government will come from. Not from abroad, he insists. No foreign army, no invading conqueror, no modern Bonaparte. If destruction comes, Lincoln says, 'it must spring up amongst us.'” If the republic falls, 'we must ourselves be its author and finisher'…. Lincoln warned that contempt for law is the republic’s gravest danger. Trump, without intending to, has demonstrated exactly why."

Harry Litman's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.

'Conservative Hollywood' dream 'in ruins' as eight-figure show staggers out the door

Adam Lynch

January 29, 2026

ALTERNET

In early 2020, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing found himself inspired by the eagerness with which the MAGA community devoured Daily Wire documentaries, and he decided to build a conservative Hollywood in Nashville, according to Bulwark Editor Will Sommer.

“Boreing’s pet project was a Game of Thrones–style take on the King Arthur legend, called The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin. And, for a while, the right’s long-running dream of having more influence in entertainment seemed like it just might happen,” said Sommer.

But then the series caught the common Hollywood bugs of cost overruns and chaos and Boreing abruptly stepped down and vanished last March, according to Sommer. Then came the layoffs of Boreing’s entertainment division. “The dream of cool Hollywood conservatism,” said Sommer, “lay in ruins.”

But, lo and behold, the first two episodes of Boreing’s $14 million Pendragon project have finally broken ground. Or, maybe it cost $67 million, as podcaster Candace Owens claimed. Either way, the money just couldn’t buy a path out of mediocrity.

“Production-wise, Pendragon has the look of a quickly forgotten second-tier streaming show—which is . . . not bad, certainly when you consider where it’s coming from,” said Sommer. “Unfortunately for Boreing, he was and is no Ted Sarandos, the Netflix honcho hoovering up the competition. Instead, his dreams of bringing Pendragon to life appear to have deeply complicated his own career and the status of the Daily Wire itself. Investors in the conservative news site long ago began to wonder why they were paying so much to make a fantasy TV show when that money could have gone to, say, another dozen podcasts.”

In a “Deadline” interview, Boreing claimed the show cost “eight figures,” with “seven figures” spent on each of the seven episodes, said Sommer — which does not compare with the cheap, self-soothing schmear of Daily Wire’s 2024 documentary Am I Racist? costing just $3 million and then going on to “become the highest-grossing documentary of 2024.”

The problem for Pendragon is that Daily Wire’s audience prefers to buttress its beliefs with echo chamber documentaries, not wizards with arcane ties to Atlantis. It’s yet to be seen what kind of return all that money is going to bring, but Sommer notes that Boreing touched on his “apparently soured relationship” with Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro in the “Deadline” interview.

“Either way, Boreing seems more focused on the world of movies now,” said Sommer. “He told Deadline he wants to launch ‘a conservative alternative to A24.’ He said Hollywood treats conservative viewers ‘as though they’re anathema. It takes them for granted.’”

“… [T]he sky’s the limit for Boreing’s conservative-film ambitions,” said Sommer, “as long as he is willing to cut the check this time.”

Read the Bulwark report at this link.

Why conservative Mormon women derailed Republicans in Utah

Shutterstock Asset id: 1918280681

Adam Lynch

January 28, 2026 

ALTERNET

The Guardian reports it was largely the work of a hyper-conservative group of Mormon women who derailed Republican efforts to gerrymander a new Republican district in Utah this year.

The Pew Research Center reveals that Mormons, also known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were among Trump’s strongest supporters in 2016, with about 61 percent of church members backing him, making the group his second-largest religious support base.

But in 2018, the Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) helped gather enough signatures to pass Utah’s Proposition 4, with 50.34 percent of the vote. This created an independent state commission to draw state and congressional maps using nonpartisan criteria, rather than let legislators cherry-pick their own voters.

But in 2020, state Republican lawmakers told MWEG to take a hike and repealed Proposition 4. Then they redrew maps that split Salt Lake County – Utah’s youngest, most diverse and bluest region – into four districts. This packed urban Democratic votes into red outlying regions and entrenched GOP dominance for the next election. The MWEG group sued their state government along, arguing that the Republican-led legislature violated the state constitution when it altered a legitimate voter-approved proposition.

“Last summer, the women’s groups won,” reports the Guardian. “Now state lawmakers must draw new maps that could pave the way for a Democratic congressional seat in the 2026 midterm elections.”

“I live in a district that’s likely going to become Democratic,” said MWEG Founder Emma Petty Addams. “I’ll lose a Republican representative I respect, and I’m 100 percent OK with that if it means my neighbors get representative government.”

Defying lawmakers was not easy, said Addams, a mother of three and a piano teacher. But the legal battle was necessary to deal with “an overreach of power” that Utah voters opted to protect with “guardrails”.

“People want to see Mormon women as either the secret wives or as a trad wife,” Addams said. “We’re neither of those.”

The organization’s is already saddling up for its next fight, however, as the Utah Republican Party pushes to repeal Proposition 4. In an effort to gerrymander Utah to protect Trump’s narrow House GOP majority, the party is seeking 141,000 signatures by February to place the repeal on the November ballot.

Trump posted on Truth Social, urging Utah residents to repeal the proposition and let politicians pick their own voters. This follow his nationwide effort to restructure districts to enshrine his majority for the foreseeable future — some with more success than others.

“Organizers had gathered around 56,000 signatures as of 26 January,” reports the Guardian. “The Utah Republican party did not respond to a request for comment about its repeal efforts.”

Read the Guardian report at this link

Republican politics is killing the modern-day church: analysis

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

Sarah K. Burris

January 22, 2026 

ALTERNET

Over the years, traditional religious practice has declined in both the United States and globally, according to one political scientist.

Speaking to The New York Times' "Interesting Times" podcast, Ryan Burge, an ordained Christian minister who became a professor, analyzed data trends for his new book, "The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us."

The number of people declaring they aren't affiliated with any church appears to have stalled, Burge said, but this has not benefited traditional Christian churches.

Burge argues that polarization and sorting are central to the trend, with moderate, mainline Protestant churches hollowing out while more intense, ideologically defined communities remain. White evangelical congregations on the right remain comparatively stable.

Burge emphasizes that "nones" are not secretly spiritual seekers in disguise. Many are neither religious nor particularly spiritual. Instead, they reject the institutions themselves, reflecting a broader anti-establishment sentiment in the U.S.

"I think education, social trust, and institutional trust are all locked together in this matrix of things that make you either more willing to engage in polite society, or less willing to engage in polite society. Educated people have a level of trust that less educated people do not," Burge said on the podcast.

One consistent theme is that "dropping out begets dropping out." Those who drop out of church also have lower educational attainment rates. Only about 25 percent have four-year college degrees.

"So they're dropping out of education, they're dropping out of religion, and they're dropping out of politics. They're basically isolating themselves from American society," Burge said.

Unlike in previous decades, politics is shaping the religious mindset of those who do not return to the churches in which they were raised. While churches were once places where Democrats and Republicans could sit in the same pews, today people seek out others who are largely similar to themselves. Families are seeking out churches based on political alignment rather than other factors.

"What's happened in America, especially with white Christianity, is that it is coded as Republican — and that's not always been the case," Burge said. "I think this is a point that people forget: Even in the 1980s, among the white evangelical church, the share who were Republicans and the share who were Democrats was the same."

The sorting of people by similar beliefs has increased the decline of politically mixed, moderate congregations, while reinforcing the perception that white evangelical churches are an extension of the Republican Party.

"So what we're seeing here is a unique moment. The number one predictor of whether you're going to be religious or not in America — besides the religion question itself — is: What is your political ideology? If you're a liberal, there's a 50-50 chance you're a nonreligious person. If you're a conservative, it's about a 12 percent chance that you're a nonreligious person," Burge said.

Young people are most affected by political ideologies in determining religious behavior.

"Young people think, 'I'm a liberal, so I'm going to be irreligious,'" Burge said. "They don't even accept the possibility that you can be a liberal Christian anymore."

Burge noted that responses to right-wing churches have included setting up left-wing alternatives. However, mainline church members want a completely non-political space. While the Covid lockdown brought many people to watch services online, once it ended, Burge said people wanted in-person attendance. He has observed this with young people as well: only 15 percent preferred online learning, and 15 percent had no preference. The rest preferred to meet in person.

Burge concluded by saying, "Listen, religion's endured for all of Western civilization because it works for lots and lots of people. And no matter how much we try to remake it with technology and A.I. and the internet, showing up on an average Sunday with a bunch of people and singing some songs and saying some creeds and hearing a sermon is transformative and will be for all of human history, as far as I can tell."

Read or listen to the full interview here.

Federal prosecutors in two different states refused to indict journalists: report

The seal of the U.S. Justice Department is seen on the podium in the Department's headquarters briefing room before a news conference with the Attorney General in Washington, January 24, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Sarah K. Burris

January 30, 2026

ALTERNET

MS NOW reporter Carol Leonnig is reporting that federal prosecutors in two different states refused to handle the attempts to indict journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort.

"What we've been hearing for really a week and a half has been concern among prosecutors in Minnesota about the way this office has basically been by the deputy attorney general and the attorney general's office," said Leonnig.

The acting U.S. attorney in the Minnesota District is Dan Rosen, who has no experience as a prosecutor, she explained.

That "will sound familiar to a lot of you on the panel, because that was one of the major problems in the Eastern District of Virginia," Leonnig said in passing about attorney Lindsey Halligan, who was forced out by a judge in the district.

"But the new news here is that those prosecutors [had] concerns about the immigration arrests and whether or not those were legal. They are also very concerned and declined to participate in this, because they don't believe the Don Lemon charges will actually stand up," Leonnig said.

Prosecutors are generally advised not to prosecute a case that they know they can't win. That has changed in the era of President Donald Trump, who has used the Justice Department to go after some of his top enemies.

Lemo was arrested in Los Angeles, where he was slated to cover the Grammy Awards. He may have had a grand jury indictment in Minnesota, but all of those documents are under seal and the public and press cannot view them. To get an arrest of Lemon in Los Angeles, however, many prosecutors there were involved, Leonnig said.

They "also registered concern, and some of them declined to participate in this because, again, they have a duty of candor to the court," added Leonnig. "They don't feel comfortable bringing cases and pursuing cases where they do not think the facts line up with the charges."

MS NOW host Ana Cabrera noted that this isn't the first time the public has seen local prosecutors from the Justice Departmen "buck orders" from the Washington office.

Leonnig called it "worrisome" because it reveals that the main Justice Department "is going to continue directing who is targeted" by Trump. They are also willing to "use whatever means that are at their disposal, whether or not convictions are ever achieved."

'I’m not going to shut my mouth': CNN host sends message to DOJ live on air

CNN hosts Sara Sidner and Brian Stelter (Photo: Screen capture)
Sarah K. BurrisJanuary 30, 2026 | 09:42AM ET

CNN morning news host Sara Sidner made it clear that she is not intimidated by the recent arrest of two journalists for covering a Minneapolis protest inside of a church.

Speaking to Brian Stelter about their former colleague and friend Don Lemon, Sidner said she wouldn't be intimidated.

"That is stark. It is reality. There is, as we have spoken about, the potential of a major chilling effect, although I certainly am not going to shut my mouth. I know that you won't either. There are many journalists that will continue to to call a spade a spade," said Sidner.

She noted that it might be easier for large outlets like CNN who have the corporate protection to defend it's staff.

"There is a definite fear here, especially for those who are independent journalists, who are smaller, who don't have an apparatus around them as they are out in the streets, or if they go into, buildings, whether or not they are protected and whether they have the means," Sidner closed.

Stelter read a comment from Lemon ally Jennifer Welch, who told Lemon, "You are a prize for them. An independent, gay, black, happy, successful man. And this is an attempt to intimidate and beat you down."

He added that agents also arrested former NAACP president Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer.

'As weak as it gets': Attorneys laugh at Trump DOJ's indictment of Don Lemon

Journalist Don Lemon in New York City on October 28, 2019 (Image: Shutterstock)
Carl Gibson

January 30, 2026 

ALTERNET

The indictment of journalist Don Lemon was recently unsealed, and many legal experts are largely in agreement that the charging document is flimsy at best.

On Friday, CNN host Jake Tapper posted the unsealed 12-page indictment of his former colleague to his official X account. Lemon has been charged with one count of conspiracy against right of religious freedom at place of worship and one count of impeding access to the exercise of religious freedom at a place of worship. The charges stem from Lemon documenting a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota where one of the pastors is reportedly in a leadership position within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).


The indictment was immediately met with mockery by various attorneys, journalists and legal commentators. New York Times Justice Department correspondent Glenn Thrush observed that one of the allegations against Lemon "is that he and [a] protester -- 2 people -- 'largely surrounded' the pastor, and then Lemon asked the pastor 'questions.'" Washington D.C. based attorney John Aravosis wrote on social media that the indictment "basically accuses [Lemon] of journalism."

"He asked the pastor and congregants questions. Yeah, that’s literally journalism," Aravosis wrote. "There’s no proof, or even substantive allegation, of Lemon partaking in any conspiracy. They’re claiming that his presence is proof that he conspired with them. And that’s not true. It’s proof of journalism."

"If this is the case against Don Lemon, it's about as weak as it gets," tweeted criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield.

"[A]s far as I can tell, the 'crime' that Lemon is being charged with is knowing that this group was about to go protest and not telling anyone on his livestream where they were going?" Attorney Randy Herman asked his Bluesky followers.

"I give it eight weeks for the indictment of Don Lemon to be thrown out," attorney Bradley P. Moss wrote on Bluesky.

"This is one of the shakiest indictments ever," podcaster Vince Wilson wrote on X. "All I see from this is a journalist doing what journalists do."

Aviation expert torches Trump’s threat to 'decertify' Canadian aircraft

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S. President Donald Trump on December 5, 2025. REUTERS/Mandel Ngan

Alex Henderson

January 30, 2026  

ALTERNET

Tensions between the United States and Canada escalated during the recent 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during a speech, lamented that the U.S. is no longer a reliable economic partner for its longtime allies. U.S. President Donald Trump responded by angrily withdrawing his invitation for Canada to join his Board of Peace.

After returning to the U.S., Trump continued to attack Canada by threatening the country with tariffs — including one on Canadian aircrafts. Canada's CTV News reported that Trump says he will be "decertifying” Bombardier Global Express and "all aircrafts made in Canada."

In a January 29 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, "If, for any reason, this situation is not immediately corrected, I am going to charge Canada a 50 percentTariff on any and all Aircraft sold into the United States of America."

But according to Canadian aviation expert Phyl Durdey, Trump doesn't have the authority to "decertify" Canadian aircrafts in the way he is threatening.

Durdey, during a January 29 appearance on CTV News, noted that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifies or decertifies all aircraft in the United States.

CTV News' Dorcas Marfo reports, "(Durdey) also noted that the U.S. has 'lots of operating aircraft that are supplied from Canada,' with thousands of Canadian-built jets flying south of the border, too. The U.S. military itself relies on Bombardier aircraft, using a fleet of modified Global Express jets known as the BACN aircraft or Air Force E-11A, one of which is currently being deployed to the Middle East. Durdey warned any move against Bombardier would hurt U.S. economic interests as much as it would Canada's."

Read CTV News' reporting at this link and here.

A $1.2 Trillion ‘Rip Off’: Report Spotlights Massive Scale of Medicare Advantage Fraud

“These private insurer-run plans are more expensive AND lead to worse outcomes for patients,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. “It’s time to rein in Medicare DisAdvantage and protect traditional Medicare.”


Advocates hold signs during a news conference on Medicare Advantage plans in front of the U.S. Capitol  in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jan 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A report released earlier this month to little fanfare estimated that federal overpayments to privately run Medicare Advantage plans could total $76 billion this year—or potentially a staggering $1.2 trillion over the next decade if current trends persist.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an independent congressional agency that advises lawmakers on Medicare, calculates overpayments by comparing spending on Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to what the federal government would have spent if MA enrollees were on traditional fee-for-service Medicare.

If Trump Really Cared About Fraud in Minnesota, Critics Say, He Would Go After UnitedHealth

In a report published earlier this month, MedPAC showed that overpayments to MA plans this year are projected to be around $76 billion. Roughly $22 billion of that total is due to coding practices by MA providers, which are notorious for making patients appear sicker than they are to receive larger payments from the federal government. MA plans are paid lump sums to cover expected future healthcare services for patients based on their risk scores.

Another factor driving overpayments to MA plans—which now cover 55% of eligible Medicare beneficiaries—is a phenomenon known as favorable selection. MA enrollees tend to be healthier on average than recipients of traditional Medicare, resulting in higher payments to Medicare Advantage plans than are necessary based on patients’ healthcare needs.

According to MedPAC, favorable selection will account for $57 billion of the expected overpayments to MA plans this year. The Trump administration gave Medicare Advantage plans a more than $25 billion boost in federal payments for 2026, even amid mounting bipartisan concerns about fraud in the program.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) said the MedPAC analysis “confirms that these private plans are bleeding taxpayers for billions of dollars more than traditional Medicare would cost for comparable enrollees.”

US Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote in response to the MedPAC findings that “Medicare DisAdvantage will rip off American taxpayers to the tune of $76 billion in 2026.”

“These private insurer-run plans are more expensive AND lead to worse outcomes for patients,” Jayapal, a leading supporter of Medicare for All legislation in the House, wrote in a social media post. “It’s time to rein in Medicare DisAdvantage and protect traditional Medicare.”

The MedPAC analysis was released days after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee published a report revealing how UnitedHealth Group, the largest provider of MA plans in the US, “has turned risk adjustment into a major profit-centered strategy,” reaping massive payments from the federal government through upcoding.

NCPSSM noted that “while UnitedHealth... has emerged as the worst offender, it’s abundantly clear that many MA insurers are engaged in these shady practices.”

“Look no further than insurers’ reliance on prior authorizations for procedures and treatments that normally would be automatically covered in traditional Medicare,” the group said. “This includes denying skilled nursing care that jeopardizes older patients who have nowhere else to turn.”

Abby Martin’s New Documentary Takes On ‘Earth’s Greatest Enemy’

Making the film taught Martin that “it is completely undeniable” that the US military “is the greatest threat to all living things on Earth.”


Military equipment is shown in a still from the film Earth’s Greatest Enemy.
(Image via Empire Files)

Olivia Rosane
Jan 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

It’s a commonly repeated statistic that the US military is the world’s largest institutional polluter, but what exactly does that mean?

The quest to find a real answer to that question led journalist and documentary filmmaker Abby Martin and her husband and co-director Mike Prysner on a five-year journey from defense contractor conferences and international climate gatherings to the Rim of the Pacific military training exercises and the fight against the construction of a military base in Okinawa that would fill in its iconic Oura Bay.

The result is Earth’s Greatest Enemy, released this year independently through Martin and Prysner’s own Empire Files, with editing by Taylor Gill and an original score by Anahedron. The film uses personal narrative, research, investigative reporting, interviews, and live footage to detail all the ways in which the Pentagon poisons the planet, including greenhouse gas emissions, the ecocide of war, and the toxins left behind long after the fighting has stopped."When you combine all of this, it is completely undeniable that this force that is upheld by extreme violence is the greatest threat to all living things on Earth,” Martin told Common Dreams.

World’s Largest Polluter?

RIMPAC training exercises are shown in a still from Earth’s Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)

Toward the beginning of the film, Martin sets out to explain how the Pentagon can count as the world’s largest institutional polluter, and why the numbers behind that fact actually undersell its impact.

It turns out, Martin told Common Dreams, that this statement is only based on the amount of oil the US military purchases on paper, which comes to 270,000 barrels per day. This puts its emissions at 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, more than 150 countries.

This itself is a staggering amount of carbon pollution.

As Martin explains in the film: “It would take the average American driver over 40 years to burn as much fuel as a single flight of a Boeing Pegasus. The US flies more than 600 of these tankers.”

“You have to look at the military as actually the institution that’s actually keeping the fossil fuel infrastructure in place through brutality and violence.”

But it’s also only the tip of the melting iceberg. Through an interview with scientist Stuart Parkinson, Martin reveals how that 55 million keeps ballooning when considering life cycle emissions from military equipment and from the equipment purchased by NATO allies, projected to reach 295 million metric tons by 2028, or more than half of all countries. And that figure excludes the use of military equipment in war, or the emissions from reconstructing cities leveled by US-made bombs.

In one particularly candid interview, a major general tells Martin that it’s great to develop alternative energy sources, “but let’s not walk away from what fuels today’s national security, which is oil. You have to have it.”

And until something is developed that can completely replace oil, “I think you need to keep the alternatives in check,” he says.

Statements like these give the lie to the idea that the US can have a “green military empire,” Martin said.

They also show how difficult it is to separate the US military’s carbon footprint from that of the fossil fuel industry itself.

“Everything has really been wrapped up into securing the fossil fuel, building the infrastructure for fossil fuel, and maintaining that infrastructure empire in order to maintain a fossil fuel economy,” she told Common Dreams. “So you have to look at the military as actually the institution that’s actually keeping the fossil fuel infrastructure in place through brutality and violence.”

'Human Detritus'

A helmet and dog tag are seen in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina in a still from the film Earth’s Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)

The film also makes clear that carbon pollution isn’t the only kind of pollution the military generates.

“Once you get into the research, you realize every stone unturned is an entire other documentary because it’s not just emissions, it’s the totality of pollution that the military is emitting on a daily basis, the dumping of toxic waste, the legacy contamination, that alone is still killing people every day,” Martin said.

The film spends much of its run time digging into the landfill of military waste, from melted down pucks of plastic dumped off Navy boats and unused munitions exploded in the desert to decades of water contamination at Camp Lejeune, the 26 million marine mammals the US Navy is permitted to harm or kill over five years of training, and the more than 250,000 bullets left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan for every person killed.

Martin said that almost every fact or anecdote she unearthed surprised her.

“We’re fighting for service members and every living person on Earth, because we are all victims of this.”

“No matter what you think you know, it’s worse. It’s actually worse because of how big it is and how every face is a story, every victim is a story,” she said.

One of the most devastating stories comes at the film’s beginning, as viewers spend time with Lavon Johnson, an Iraq War veteran who once starred in a US Army commercial and is now living on Veterans Row, a stretch of tents bearing American flags lined up outside the Veterans Affairs hospital in Brentwood, Los Angeles. “My life is so fucked!” he declares as he lifts his hands from the piano he furiously plays despite the nerve damage caused by exposure to hydraulic fluid while in the Army.

In the next scene, viewers see the camp being demolished by police, juxtaposed with images of war, pollution, and environmental destruction, such as soldiers breaking down doors or dumping trash off of boats, oil pump jacks working, and beachside homes collapsing into a rising tide.

Martin said she was inspired to open the film with Johnson because of a letter that late Iraq War veteran Tomas Young wrote to former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney before he died, referring to himself and other victims of the invasion as “human detritus your war has left behind.”

“That always stuck with me, that line, ‘the human detritus,’” Martin told Common Dreams. “And that is exactly what they do to veterans. That is exactly what they do to veterans… they’re churned up and spit out. They’re the cannon fodder of the system. And for what?”

Prysner is an Iraq veteran who spoke out against the war, and Martin is very clear that veterans are not the target of the pairs’ critique.

“This isn’t about service members,” she said. “This isn’t about hating the military. This is about accountability and justice for them. We’re fighting for service members and every living person on Earth, because we are all victims of this.”

The demolition of Johnson’s camp cut through with clips of war and weather disaster illustrates this point, and could serve as a sort of thesis for the film, showing that the US military ultimately turns everything it touches into detritus, including, if it’s not stopped, the planet itself.

“Everything on Earth is in Lavon’s tent,” Martin said.

A Movie and a Movement

People march against US militarism at COP26 in Glasgow, in a still from Earth’s Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)

This sense of connection is ultimately why Martin decided to keep Earth’s Greatest Enemy as a two-hour feature documentary rather than pivoting to a documentary series, despite the fact that, the more she dug, the more she realized “it could be 10 documentaries.”

She also ran into roadblocks when seeking Hollywood distribution. While environmentalist distributors would praise the film and compare it to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, they also said frankly, “You’re never going to be able to get anyone to buy this stuff.”

But, Martin said, “I was so committed to making a movie because movies were what radicalized me,” citing inspiration from films like The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, War Made Easy, and Michael Moore’s filmography.

Ultimately, her stubbornness paid off.

“After we educate everyone, I hope to decommission the military empire.”

“It shows that everything from ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to Gaza to the climate, that everything is connected,” she said. “Veterans, soldiers, the Indigenous people on the receiving end of this. If you care about cold water and good air, you can’t walk away from this not being impacted. And that was the goal. The goal is to lock people in and explain the totality and to bring you down to the depths of hell.”

She added: “We have to understand those depths, and you can’t get that with a 20-minute segment. You just can’t. You have to go through the pain of all the victims in this community and come out the other side empowered with the truth and the resolve that we have to change this.”

Change is a large part of Martin’s motivation for making the film, by educating people about the scope of the military’s destructive force and connecting them into a broader coalition.

Martin speaks in the film about coming to political consciousness and beginning her career as a journalist during the Iraq War, meeting Prysner through their shared opposition to war and empire, and developing “profound climate anxiety” following the birth of the pairs’ first child. She lamented that the climate and anti-imperialist movements have been largely siloed over the past two decades, though that is beginning to change.

Through local screenings, she said she wanted to “try to build the environmental movement with the anti-war movement together because… even though the consciousness is expanding, it’s not happening fast enough. And we are simply out of the luxury of time.”

The sense of urgency has only increased with President Donald Trump’s second term. While the film does not cover this period, it points to many developments that have shaped the past 12 months, including Trump’s claim that he attacked Venezuela for oil, his imperialist push to control Greenland, and his deployment of ICE to terrorize US cities.

Toward the end of the movie, Martin includes a segment on the militarization of US policing and warns that “this is our system’s big plan for the climate crisis.” She also films a panel on “Domain Awareness and Air Superiority in the Arctic” in which the generals speaking tell US companies they have an “open invitation” to experiment in Alaska.

“We know what they want the Arctic for, and it’s to pillage every last drop,” Martin said. “So if environmental organizations are not thinking this together, we have to do it for them. We have to do it for them quickly.”

So far, she has seen encouraging signs, with several Sierra Club chapters stepping up to host screenings and enthusiasm from the mainstream environmental groups, parks departments, and other city officials she has invited to attend.

But education is not her only goal.

“After we educate everyone, I hope to decommission the military empire,” Martin said.

For Martin, that doesn’t mean not having a military for self-defense, but rather decommissioning the 800 or so bases the US military maintains around the world and transforming the infrastructure into something that could help local communities in a climate-friendly way. It also means accountability for harm caused and redirecting military spending toward basic needs like housing and healthcare, and certainly not giving the Pentagon another $600 billion as Trump desires.

While that may seem like an impossible task given the current political climate, Martin maintains a sense of revolutionary optimism, encouraged by the global mobilization against the genocide in Gaza and the way that people are increasingly seeing the links between the multiple crises and struggles around the globe.

“There’s so many of us,” Martin told Common Dreams. “We care about the planet. We have a vested stake in life. And that’s our vision.”

“It’s like they have a vision of death and destruction for profit,” she continued. “Our vision is life, and we have to fight for it with every fiber of our being. And let this movie assist you however you can do that.”

To attend a screening of Earth’s Greatest Enemy, see the schedule here. To host a screening of your own, email theempirefiles@gmail.com.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

Facing Imminent Death, Final Palestine Action Prisoner Ends Hunger Strike in UK

“If David Lammy wishes to see me dead, if Keir Starmer wishes to see me dead, they can come and do it themselves,” said 22-year-old activist Umer Khalid


22-year-old Umer Khalid, an activist with the group Palestine Action, shouts at a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
(Photo from Prisoners for Palestine)

Stephen Prager
Jan 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

After 17 days without food and three without water, the 22-year-old British pro-Palestine activist Umer Khalid ended his hunger strike after being hospitalized on Monday.

Khalid is the last of the eight young activists with the group Palestine Action to remain on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment without trial and the criminalization of pro-Palestine speech in the UK.



Global Intellectuals Voice Solidarity With Palestine Action Hunger Strikers ‘At Death’s Door’



Palestine Action Prison Hunger Strike Ends After UK Rejects Contract for Israeli Arms Firm

“At the hospital… I was given a choice between treatment and likely death within the next 24 hours due to kidney failure, acute liver failure, and potential cardiac arrest,” said Khalid, in a statement shared by the Prisoners for Palestine group, which is supporting the strikers. He said that he decided to end his hunger strike because, “I am too strong, too loud, too powerful… and there is so much we can do to effect change.”




The activists are being held in prison on remand, meaning they were denied bail and have not yet been given a trial for vandalizing military equipment used to support Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Earlier this month, several of the strikers, some of whom had refused food since November, ended their strike after the UK rejected a $2.7 billion contract for a subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons maker, Elbit Systems.

Four of them were arrested after allegedly breaking into an Elbit facility and destroying equipment. Khalid is among four others accused of trespassing at a British Royal Air Force base and vandalizing airplanes.

Khalid, who suffers from Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and suffered multiple organ failure during the strike, ended his protest after Amy Frost, the governor of the Wormwood Scrubs prison where he is being held, agreed to meet with him to discuss the conditions of his confinement. After the meeting, he received mail and clothes that the prison had withheld from him, and restrictions on outside visitors that had been in place since July were lifted.

A spokesperson for Prisoners for Palestine said Khalid “absolutely must have compassionate bail in order to heal, all the hunger strikers should.”

In addition to protesting the restrictive conditions of their confinement, the strikers were seeking to draw attention to the criminalization of Palestine Action. The UK government, currently led by Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer, added the group to a list of banned “terrorist” organizations in July, meaning that even peaceful support for the group or identification as a member can result in imprisonment.

Since the ban went into effect, more than 2,700 people have been arrested across the UK over support for or involvement with Palestine Action, in many cases for actions like holding a sign or chanting a slogan in support of the group.

The British government has been repeatedly pressed to intervene on behalf of the strikers, who have alleged mistreatment and neglect while in confinement.

Khalid previously went on a 12-day hunger strike, which the Canary reported “made Khalid seriously unwell and unable to walk.” According to the outlet, “the prison mismanaged his refeeding by giving him protein shakes and biscuits, dangerously unsuitable.”

Other strikers have said recovery from weeks or months without food has been exceedingly difficult. Shahmina Alam, a healthcare worker and the sister of Kamran Ahmed, who refused food for 67 days, said the strike showed that “the prison healthcare system is not fit for purpose” and that “there are systemic failures to provide care which is dignified, timely, or even lifesaving.”

“These prisoners are not treated as patients or even humans,” she continued. “They are dehumanised, handcuffed in their sleep and in the shower, and are given no privacy, confidentiality, or respect.”

Despite calls from medical experts and members of Parliament, David Lammy, the secretary of state for justice, has refused calls to meet with the strikers to discuss their demands, which have included immediate bail, an end to the censorship of their communications, and an end to the ban on Palestine Action.

Khalid said he made his decision to end the strike in part because members of the government “have shown without a doubt that they have no concern for our lives and they do not care if we die in these cells.”

He said, “If David Lammy wishes to see me dead, if Keir Starmer wishes to see me dead, they can come and do it themselves.”

120+ Groups Call on EU to Resist Trump’s ‘Fossil-Fueled Imperialism’ and Cancel US Trade Deal

“The EU is at a fork in the road: It can follow the US down a volatile, destructive path or it can forge its own course toward stability.”


Greenpeace activists demonstrate against US fossil fuel imports to Europe on January 26, 2026 in Brussels, Belgium.
(Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Jan 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As the European Parliament debates the trade agreement reached last year by President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, more than 120 civil society groups from across Europe and the globe on Thursday warned that the demands Trump has made on the bloc and his “contempt for international law” have made clear that the US is currently “no longer a good-faith partner.”

In solidarity with countries that have been directly threatened with Trump’s “fossil-fueled imperialism”—Venezuela and Greenland—the EU must reduce its reliance on US fossil fuels and cancel the negotiation and implementation of the trade deal, said Oil Change International, one of the signatories of the open letter that was sent to von der Leyen and other top EU officials.

The letter notes that Trump has already shown that in a deal with the US, the EU will be pressured to “dilute its own climate commitments” and “enrich US fossil fuel companies” at the bloc’s expense.

“His administration has attacked the EU’s methane regulation and its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, seeking to weaken Europe’s ability to hold corporations accountable for climate and human rights harms,” reads the letter, which was also signed by Coal Action Network in the UK, Urgewald in Germany, and a number of US-based groups including Public Citizen.

Von der Leyen agreed to the deal last July after Trump threatened the bloc with “economically devastating tariffs,” the groups wrote, ensuring the EU would import $750 billion in US energy products including liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Those imports will “contaminate the air and water of nearby communities, increasing their risk of cancers, asthma, and other serious health harms,” warns the letter, while also being projected to raise energy costs for households across Europe.

Up to 1 in 4 homes in the EU already struggle to adequately heat, cool, or light their homes, wrote the groups.

James Hiatt, executive director of the US group For a Better Bayou, called on EU leaders to “side with communities like mine, not the fossil fuel executives bankrolling Trump, by ending its reliance on US gas.”

“There’s nothing clean about US LNG,” said Hiatt. “This industry has destroyed wetlands, damaged fishermen’s livelihoods, and condemned Gulf South communities like mine to higher rates of heart conditions, asthma, and cancer. We’re also on the frontlines of hurricanes and flooding made worse by continued fossil-fuel dependency Europe keeps importing.”

The groups wrote that “every euro spent on US non-renewable energy, and every fossil fuel investment made by European companies and banks in the United States, fuels Trump’s authoritarian agenda at home and his imperial ambitions abroad.”

“The only way Europe can reach energy independence and free itself from outside pressures is by implementing a just transition away from fossil fuels and relying on energy sufficiency/efficiency and homegrown renewable energy,” reads the letter. “Done well, this can support decent jobs and sound local economies.”

By ratifying the deal with the US, the groups added, the EU will only be “switching one dangerous dependency for another,” following its phase-out of oil imports from Russia.

The bloc will also be “giving up its sovereignty bit by bit, losing the competitiveness battle, deepening the climate crisis which will be putting its own people’s lives at even higher risk from extreme weather, and jeopardizing its ambitions to be seen as a global climate leader,” reads the letter.

Trump’s threat to seize Greenland from the Danish kingdom and his illegal strikes on Venezuela—aimed, his administration has admitted, at taking control of its oil—have shown how willing the president is to violate international law if it serves his own interests, the groups suggested.

The groups made specific demands of EU leaders, calling on them to:Stand in solidarity with Latin American nations threatened by the US, including Venezuela, and with Greenland, affirming that “it is up to its people, and only them, to decide on their future”;
Put forward a motion at the United Nations condemning the Trump administration’s “blatant violations of international law”;
Immediately cancel negotiations and implementation of the US-EU trade deal;
Engage with EU member states to renew the European Green Deal and establish a binding roadmap for the phase-out of fossil gas, in particular US LNG;
Defend the existing EU Methane Regulation and ensure it is applied to imports; and
Support the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, organized by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands.

“Under Trump, the US has become a rogue state that violates international law and bullies sovereign nations into submitting to its ‘energy dominance’ agenda,” said Myriam Douo, false solutions senior campaigner for Oil Change International. “The EU must stop wasting money on risky, expensive US fossil fuels, which threaten climate goals, put people at greater risk of climate disasters, and harm communities with toxic pollution.”

“The EU is at a fork in the road: It can follow the US down a volatile, destructive path or it can forge its own course toward stability,” said Douo. “It can save billions, build a resilient economy, and ensure its long-term energy security and independence through a just transition to renewable energy.”

Military head warns Trump may carry out 'forever-war' despite having ability to end it

"The U.S. is now 0 for 7 in its negotiations with Russia to end the war — chiefly because Ukraine stubbornly refuses to commit national suicide.

Ewan Gleadow
January 29, 2026 
RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 28, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

A top US military official has warned Donald Trump may prolong the end of the war in Ukraine.

Colonel Jonathan Sweet explained how the president could bring the conflict between Russian and Ukraine to an end, but that it would rely on military intervention and the help of NATO. He wrote in The Hill, "Trump has the cards to end the war, but those cards need to be played against Russia and not Ukraine.

"He must coerce Russia to stop attacking, give up their territorial aspirations for the Donbas, and accept a European military peace-keeping force in Ukraine.

"That will likely require military force. It begins with a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over western Ukraine, sufficiently arming Kyiv to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine, and destroying Moscow’s ability to fund and sustain the war.

"Anything less equals a Team Trump forever war in Europe." Sweet had previously referred to this prolonged decision-making as a "forever war" which Trump may have orchestrated.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were present for talks between the two nations, which Col. Sweet says did little to ease the tensions.

He wrote, "The talks commenced and concluded in Abu Dhabi the next day. The outcome? Russia refused to back off their maximalist demands and continued to demand Ukraine unilaterally withdraw from the Donbas.

"The U.S. is now 0 for 7 in its negotiations with Russia to end the war — chiefly because Ukraine stubbornly refuses to commit national suicide.

"Kyiv will not give Moscow in negotiations what the Russians cannot take on the battlefield. Nor should they be persuaded or coerced into doing so."

EU diplomats believe the relationship with Trump has broken down and that their dreams of working with him and the administration in the future are dead.

One EU diplomat said, "Our American Dream is dead. Donald Trump murdered it." Another senior envoy from a country described as a "key American ally" by Politico suggested the "trust is lost" with the U.S.

They added, "We are experiencing a great rupture of the world order."

‘He Is a Fascist’: Scottish Lawmaker Accuses Trump of Piracy Over US Abduction of Tanker Captain, First Mate

“Our sovereignty has been violated, our courts have been defied, and a foreign military has abducted two people from our territory,” said Ross Greer, co-leader of Scotland’s Green Party.


An oil tanker known as the Marinera is pictured alongside a US Coast Guard ship at sea in the Moray Firth, northern Scotland, on January 14, 2026.
(Photo by Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jan 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A Scottish lawmaker railed against US President Donald Trump on Wednesday over the American military’s seizure of an oil tanker and detention of its two top officers earlier this month in waters between Iceland and Scotland.

Ross Greer, a member of the Scottish Parliament and co-leader of Scotland’s Green Party, said that two people—tanker captain Avtandil Kalandadze and his unnamed first officer—“have been abducted from Scotland in the middle of the night by the US military, despite our highest court ordering they be kept under our jurisdiction.”

As the Scottish newspaper The National reported Thursday, Kalandadze—a Georgian national—and his first officer were taken out of UK territory by the US Coast Guard earlier this week despite a court ruling against their removal from Scotland’s jurisdiction.

“He’s not our ally. He is a fascist,” Greer said of Trump during his remarks in Parliament on Wednesday. “Our sovereignty has been violated, our courts have been defied, and a foreign military has abducted two people from our territory.”

Greer called on the Scottish government to immediately evict US troops from Prestwick Airport, which is used by American forces.

“Will the first minister show Trump that his piracy has consequences?” Greer asked.



The BBC reported Wednesday that the Trump administration “says it intends to prosecute” Kalandadze and his colleague for alleged involvement in the violation of US sanctions.

Angela Constance, Scotland’s justice secretary, has said the Trump administration’s handling of the vessel seizure and abduction of its crew has demonstrated a lack of respect for Scottish jurisdiction.

“We have a number of questions, we have a number of concerns, and deep frustrations about how this matter has evolved, because it is a matter of significant public interest and confidence,” Constance said earlier this week. “The Scottish government wants to play our part in international justice because that is appropriate and responsible. But that starts with the recognition and respect that must be afforded to Scottish jurisdiction and Scots law.”

Aamer Anwar, an attorney representing Kalandadze’s wife in a lawsuit over the incident, said earlier this week that the captain was “whisked away under the cover of darkness” by US forces, and “we have no idea what role our own governments played in that.”

“A dangerous precedent has been set, as the US should not have the power to arrest people under our control,” said Anwar. “These people have been denied their most basic human rights right under our noses, whilst the UK knowingly assisted the US ‘abduction’ of two men from Scotland to avoid the Judicial Review taking place.”

After 2 Years of Denial, IDF Confirms ​70,000+ Killed in Gaza​—But Denies Famine

“The real figure is much higher,” said one UK lawmaker. “This is a ‘ceasefire’ in name only. The slaughter goes on.”


The bodies of victims of the October 31, 2023 Israeli bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip are lined up outside the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City.
(Photo by Fadi Alwhidi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jan 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


After two years of denial and deception, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged Wednesday for the first time that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, while continuing to deny the famine Israel caused by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the obliterated strip.

Israeli media including the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and others reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accepts the accuracy of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s (GHM) death toll, which currently stands at least 71,667, with more than 171,000 others wounded and 9,500 missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.



‘The Intent of Genocide’: 2,700 Gaza Families Entirely Wiped Out by Israeli Attacks



‘All Lies’: Gazans Say There’s No Ceasefire as Phase 2 Begins Amid Israeli Strikes

“How many years did we spend screaming, with checked and re-checked figures, lists showing names and ID numbers, being told the numbers were completely fanciful despite rigorous, transparent verification, and now the IDF quietly accepts that they were correct all along,” Beirut-based journalist Séamus Malekafzali said on X in response to the IDF admission.

Experts—including the authors of multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—assert that the actual death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported. Last June, a study published in Nature reported 84,000 deaths in Gaza. Others say the toll could be even higher, with one Economist study estimating between 77,000-109,000 Gazans killed by Israeli forces.

“We should not care what the IDF accepts or not—they perpetrated the genocide,” said Jake Romm, the US representative for the Hind Rajab Foundation, which tracks suspected IDF war criminals and is named after a 5-year-old Palestinian girl massacred along with relatives and rescue workers by Israeli occupation forces on January 29, 2024. “Their communications are in service of that project.”

“This is, in any event, an admission that will only be used to discredit the real, much higher death toll as the scale of the atrocity becomes known,” Romm added.



Israeli academic Ori Goldberg was also skeptical of the IDF’s admission, asserting on X: “'Accepts’ means that even the vast network of lies no longer holds. If the IDF ‘accepts’ 70,000, it has killed innumerably more.”

While the IDF accepted GHM’s death toll, it argued that the famine in Gaza—which officially lasted from August-December 2025, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the standard international framework for classifying food insecurity and malnutrition—did not happen.

GHM says at least 453 Palestinians, including 150 children, have died of malnutrition in Gaza since October 2023. The IDF contends that the figure is a mix of lies and misleading reporting about people who had preexisting health conditions before they starved to death.

However, famine experts argue that Israel orchestrated a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in Gaza.

Throughout the war, Israeli leaders, their supporters abroad, and mainstream US media attempted to discredit GHM casualty figures by casting aspersions upon the “Hamas-run” ministry. This, despite Israeli military intelligence deeming the figures accurate and historical confirmations of their reliability.

“The phrase *Hamas* Health Ministry was used as a slur for years to signal unreliability, even though it was pointed out again and again that its numbers had always held up,” noted journalist Jasper Nathaniel, adding sardonically that “I’m sure the ‘Pallywood’ crowd will be rushing to apologize today.”



The International Center for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on social media that “every media outlet that cast doubt over these figures with dogwhistling phrases like ‘Hamas-run MoH’ is complicit in these killings.”

“In truth, the 71,000+ figure is conservative,” ICJP added. “Palestinian bodies are buried under the rubble and can’t be counted and many more have died from malnutrition due to Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians. Different tools, same outcome: Israeli genocide of Palestinians.”

In the United States—which has supported Israel’s annihilation of Gaza with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions during both the Biden and Trump administrations—the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment in June 2024 that banned US officials from using State Department resources to cite GHM casualty figures.

The amendment’s lead sponsor, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.)—whose all-time top campaign contributor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—contended that “at the end of the day, the Gaza Ministry of Health is the Hamas Ministry of Health.”



Former President Joe Biden faced genocide denial accusations for casting aspersions upon GHM reports. President Donald Trump has also said he does not believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

A senior IDF official told the Times of Israel that the military is in the process of determining how many of the Gaza dead were members of Hamas or other militant groups.

While the Israeli government has claimed a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, classified IDF intelligence data obtained last year during an investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that 5 in 6 Palestinians—or 83%—killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the US-backed war were civilians.

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who led the IDF through most of the war—acknowledged after retiring last year that “over 10%” of Gaza’s population, or about 220,000 Palestinians, had been killed or wounded as of September 2025.

“This is not a gentle war,” Halevi said at the time, “we took the gloves off from the first minute.”

Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.

The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of leveling entire city blocks, and utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets has resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.

Through it all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders claimed that the IDF, “the most moral army in the world,” went to great lengths to avoid harming civilians.

While Israeli leaders scoffed at war crimes allegations, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The ICJ, a UN body, subsequently issued multiple provisional orders for Israel to prevent genocidal acts. Israel has been accused of ignoring these orders, and last September a panel of UN experts concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

Later, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.

The killing isn’t over. Since a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect last October 10, Israeli forces have killed more than 500 Palestinians in over 1,200 violations of the truce. Palestinians—mostly children and infants—are also still dying of exposure to cold weather as Israel continues to restrict the entry of aid into Gaza.

“They said Palestinians were exaggerating. Lying. Propagandists,” Independent UK Member of Parliament Shockat Adam said on X Thursday. “Now, even the IDF accepts 70,000+ killed in Gaza. The real figure is much higher. This is a ‘ceasefire’ in name only. The slaughter goes on.”