ANOTHER CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Appeals court rejects Trump bid to lift order barring deportations

By AFP
March 26, 2025


This handout picture from El Salvador's presidency shows the arrival of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua at a prison in Tecoluca - Copyright EL SALVADOR'S PRESIDENCY PRESS OFFICE/AFP Handout

Chris Lefkow

A US appeals court on Wednesday denied a bid by the Trump administration to lift a lower court order barring summary deportations of Venezuelan migrants using an obscure wartime law.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to temporarily keep in place the ban on deportations carried out under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (ANA).

President Donald Trump sent two planeloads of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to a prison in El Salvador on March 15 after invoking the AEA, which has only been used previously during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

District Judge James Boasberg issued a restraining order that same day temporarily barring the administration from carrying out any further deportation flights under the AEA, which the Justice Department appealed to remove.

Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said that their clients were not members of Tren de Aragua, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.

Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of Democratic president Barack Obama, and Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of Republican president George H.W. Bush, voted to keep the temporary ban on deportations using the AEA in place.

The third judge on the panel, Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, dissented.

Millett said the Venezelan migrants had been deported based on the government’s allegations alone “with no notice, no hearing, no opportunity — zero process — to show that they are not members of the gang.”

“If the government can choose to abandon fair and equal process for some people, it can do the same for everyone,” she said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the prison in El Salvador on Wednesday where the Venezuelans are being held.

Before her arrival, Noem said on social media that she would be meeting Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to discuss how the United States “can increase the number of deportation flights and removals of violent criminals from the US.”



– ‘Nazis got better treatment’ –



During a hearing on Monday at which the government sought to have the court order lifted, Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said it “represents an unprecedented and enormous intrusion upon the powers of the executive branch” and “enjoins the president’s exercise of his war and foreign affairs powers.”

Millett for her part said “Nazis got better treatment” from the United States during World War II under the AEA.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit against the deportations along with other rights groups, welcomed the appeals court move.

“The decision means that hundreds of individuals remain protected from being sent to a notorious black-hole prison in a foreign country, without any due process whatsoever.”

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, said “President Trump is bound by the laws of this nation, and those laws do not permit him to use wartime powers when the United States is not at war and has not been invaded.”

Boasberg, the district court judge, has said migrants subject to potential deportation under the AEA should be “entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all.”

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Boasberg, even going so far as to call for his impeachment, a remark that drew a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

The contentious case has raised concerns among legal experts that the administration may potentially ignore the court order, triggering a constitutional crisis.


At El Salvador mega-jail, Trump official tells migrants ‘do not come’


By AFP
March 26, 2025


US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of a maximum security prison in El Salvador - Copyright POOL/AFP Alex Brandon

US President Donald Trump’s homeland security chief on Wednesday visited the mega-prison in El Salvador where hundreds of Venezuelan migrants have been deported under contested legal grounds.

Standing in front of a cell of inmates who stripped to the waist to reveal their tattooed torsos, Kristi Noem recorded a message telling others that they risked the same consequences.

“Do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted,” she said at the maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

“Know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”

Trump invoked rarely used US wartime legislation in mid-March to bypass traditional deportation procedures and quickly flew 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador.

Washington accused them of all belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which it has designated a “terrorist” organization, but relatives and lawyers for several of the migrants say they have no connection to the group.

The deportations took place despite a US federal judge, on the same day, ordering a temporary halt.

The Trump administration subsequently appealed the halt, but a three-judge panel ruled on Wednesday that it can remain in effect.

On Monday, a law firm hired by Caracas filed a habeas corpus petition, demanding justification be provided for the migrants’ continued detention.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the motion seeks the release of countrymen he described as having been kidnapped.

According to the White House, Washington paid the Bukele administration around $6 million for the detention of the deportees.

Noem, on the first stop of a regional tour that will also include Colombia and Mexico, was also due to meet Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

She said earlier that she would discuss how the United States “can increase the number of deportation flights and removals of violent criminals from the US.”



– ‘Dangerous step’ –



Rights group Amnesty International said the mass expulsion “represents not only a flagrant disregard of the United States’ human rights obligations, but also a dangerous step toward authoritarian practices.”

It said there was “a clear and troubling connection” between Bukele’s methods and the recent US actions, as “both rely on a lack of due process and the criminalization of individuals based on discriminatory criteria.”

Bukele is hailed at home for his crackdown on violent crime — with tens of thousands of suspected gangsters sent to CECOT.

Human rights groups have criticized the drive for a wide range of alleged abuses.

Salvadoran Minister of Justice and Security Gustavo Villatoro accompanied Noem on the visit to CECOT, considered the largest prison in Latin America.

Guarded by soldiers and police, the jail has high electrified walls and a capacity for 40,000 inmates, who are denied family visits.

Human rights organizations have voiced concern that more innocent migrants risk being incarcerated.

“There is growing evidence that many people who were sent to El Salvador are not part of Tren de Aragua, and that they are exposed to serious human rights violations,” said Juan Pappier, deputy Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

“The main danger is that the US continues sending innocent people” to Salvadoran prisons, he told AFP.

Salvadoran authorities have arrested more than 86,000 suspected gang members under Bukele’s crackdown. Several thousand were released after being found innocent.

Collaborating with Trump “could be a risky move” for Bukele, despite the potential benefits, said Diego Chaves-Gonzalez, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in the United States.

“It could also generate tensions if a future US administration considers that these practices violate human rights or affect bilateral cooperation,” he told AFP.

Salvadoran analyst and academic Carlos Carcach said the cooperation would reinforce the Central American country’s “negative image” due to Bukele’s methods.

“What we are witnessing is the consolidation of an authoritarian regime in El Salvador with the support of the world’s greatest power,” he said.

'Some Truly Sick Sh*t': Kristi Noem Compared to the 'Gestapo' for Video Featuring Deportees in El Salvador

"If hell exists, Kristi Noem is a shoo-in," wrote one pastor.


U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center as prisoners stand, looking out from a cell, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025.
(Photo: Alex Brandon/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
Mar 27, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has sparked fierce criticism for a video she filmed on Wednesday while touring the megaprison in El Salvador that is currently holding immigrants who were deported by the Trump administration earlier in March.

The administration defied a court order when deporting over 200 Venezuelans, who the White House alleges are gang members.

In the video, Noem stands in front of a cell that holds male detainees, some of whom are only wearing pants, and warns people against coming to the United States illegally.

"This is some truly sick shit," wrote Fred Wellman, a political consultant and podcast host, on Wednesday. John Pavlovitz, an author and pastor, wrote "If hell exists, Kristi Noem is a shoo-in." Noem was also accused of making "content" out of the imprisoned men at the facility.



"If you ever wondered what the Gestapo would look like in 2025, wonder no longer," wrote the account Polling USA, which is run by Curtis Fric and posts publicly available data, in reference to the political police force of Nazi Germany.

Noem made the video while touring two cell blocks and other areas of the prison, perCNN. While the Trump administration maintains that the detainees who were deported have gang ties, court declarations from attorneys and family members of the migrants allege many of them are not affiliated with gangs.



"If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you can face," Noem said in the video. "First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted, but know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people."

When deporting the Venezuelans from the United States, the Trump administration invoked a rarely used statute that gives the president the ability to detain or deport noncitizens without first appearing before an immigration judge or federal court judge.

On Wednesday, an federal appeals court panel kept in place a lower court order temporarily barring the Trump administration from deporting more immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act.

'Oh my God': Kristi Noem dragged after 'desperate stunt' at notorious El Salvador prison

Daniel Hampton
March 26, 2025 

RAW STORY

 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks as prisoners stand looking out from a cell, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 26, 2025. Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem left social media critics aghast on Wednesday as she visited a maximum-security prison in El Salvador to deliver a message to criminal undocumented immigrants.

In a video posted to her X account, Noem said her team was visiting the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which she declared is accepting the United States' terrorists for the "violence that they've perpetuated in our communities."

"I also want everybody to know that if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences that you could face," she said. "First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people."

The Trump administration deported migrants to the facility — defying a judge's order in doing so — that it accused of being affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang. More than 260 people, including 137 expelled under the Alien Enemies Act, were sent to El Salvador.

Noem toured the facility accompanied by the Salvadorian minister of justice. The prison can house up to 40,000 inmates and is notorious for its severe conditions, with prisoners crammed into cells with no access to the outdoors.

The video prompted immediate criticism on social media.

Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko wrote on X: "Kristi Noem’s Desperate Stunt: Exploiting Foreign Prisoners for Political Fearmongering."

Tim Miller, MSNBC analyst and host of The Bulwark Podcast, remarked, "This is the sickest s--- i have ever seen in my life oh my god."


Jeff Timmer, senior advisor at the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, chided, "I wonder if they had to talk her out of shooting a puppy in the face to show the prisoners who’s boss, or if that’s yet to come in part 2?"

"Those are human f---ing beings behind you, not f---ing props!!!!!! That looks like a concentration camp. This is utterly reprehensible. Shame on you," rebuked the anti-MAGA account JoJoFromJerz.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

Trump Executive Order Leaves Federal Labor Agency With 'Very Skeletal Crew'

"The way it was told to us is we are effectively closing the agency because it's not possible for us to do our statutory work with the amount of staff that's being allocated," one employee said.

Eloise Goldsmith
Mar 26, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The vast majority of the employees at a small but impactful federal agency tasked with resolving workplace conflict were told Wednesday that they will be placed on administrative leave. The news was first reported by the Federal News Network.

"There is a very skeletal crew that is going to be retained," said one employee with Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), who spoke to Common Dreams on the condition of anonymity. "The way it was told to us is we are effectively closing the agency because it's not possible for us to do our statutory work with the amount of staff that's being allocated."

That same employee told Common Dreams that managers told employees about the changes during multiple meetings held on Wednesday morning with the agency's different regional branches. About a dozen employees will remain on, according to the Federal News Network.

The agency, which as of March 2024 employed roughly 220 workers, has a mandate to assist parties in labor disputes "affecting commerce," including mediation during high-profile strikes. The agency had already lost a "significant" portion of its workforce after U.S. President Donald Trump took office, according to Government Executive, due to Trump's deferred resignation program and "other attrition."

According to a one-pager from the agency, FMCS conducted over 5,400 mediated negotiations and provided over 10,000 arbitration panels in fiscal year 2024. The agency estimates that it saves the economy more than $500 million dollars annually while operating with an annual budget of $55 million—or less than 0.0014% of the total federal budget.

Trump signed an executive order earlier this month mandating that FMCS and six other government entities be eliminated "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law."

FMCS moved to mostly cease its operations following Trump's executive order, according to Government Executive.

One FMCS employee told The Guardian that the Department of Government Efficiency is behind the cuts. "DOGE basically decided to eliminate all but a few people from the agency," the employee, who requested anonymity, told the paper. "It is shocking as the agency does not regulate and has always been noncontroversial. Even Republicans have always seen the value of an agency that saves the economy far more money in reduced work stoppages in the private sector than the agency spends. It is also a blow to the use of more efficient dispute resolution by federal agencies who have used our services for nonlabor disputes. That program has now been entirely abolished."

The other programs and agencies impacted by Trump's executive order are the United States Agency for Global Media; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution; the Institute of Museum and Library Services; the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness; the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund; and the Minority Business Development Agency.

As of Wednesday afternoon, a note on the agency's homepage said that FMCS was reviewing the recent executive order and that the "requirements outlined in these orders may affect some services or information currently provided on this website."

An automatic reply email from FMCS's director of congressional and public affairs, Greg Raelson, states that Raelson is "no longer with FMCS due to the recent Reduction in Force (RIF) plan."

"Working at FMCS has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career, and I am deeply saddened to witness such drastic and short-sighted measures taken against a congressionally established agency that has played such a critical role in serving our nation and taxpayers since 1947," Raelson wrote in the automatic reply email.

Push Back Against Sen. Cotton’s McCarthyite Lies About CODEPINK: Women for Peace


Sen. Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends, and family.


CODEPINK member Tighe Barry interrupts a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the March 25, 2025.
(Photo: via Ann Wright)

Ann Wright
Mar 27, 2025

Common Dreams

On Tuesday, in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.

During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to U.S. national security and yelled, “Stop Funding Israel,” since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Cotton nor Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) had mentioned Israel in their opening statement, nor had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.

As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist Party of China.” Cotton then said if anyone had something to say to do so.

CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Sen. Cotton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2014.

Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK, and it is not funded by Communist China.” I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.

After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarthyite lie: “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK, which interrupts a hearing about Israel, illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”

Sen. Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends, and family. In today’s polarized political environment, we know that the words of senior leaders can rile supporters into frenzies as we saw on January 6, 2021, with President Donald Trump’s loyal supporters injuring many Capitol police and destroying parts of the nation’s Capitol building in their attempt to stop the presidential election proceedings.

CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Sen. Cotton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2014. We have been in the U.S. Senate offices and halls twice as long as he has. We have nonviolently protested the war policies of former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump, Joe Biden, and now Trump again.

After getting out of the Capitol Hill police station, a CODEPINK delegation went to Sen. Cotton’s office in the Russell Senate Office building and made a complaint to his office staff.

We are also submitting a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee over the untrue and libelous statements Sen. Cotton made in the hearing.

The abduction and deportation of international students who joined protests against U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the scathing treatment of visitors who have wanted to enter our country, and now the McCarthyite intimidating tactics used by Sen. Cotton in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing of telling lies about individuals and organizations that challenge the policies of the U.S. government, particularly its complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, must be called out and pushed back against.

And we must push back against U.S. senators who actually receive funding from front groups for other countries. Sen. Cotton has received $1,197,989 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to advocate for the genocidal policies of the State of Israel.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."
Full Bio >

Jewish Groups Denounce Latest 'Cynical' GOP Hearing Equating Criticism of Israel With Antisemitism

"Israel is a nation state, not a Jewish person," said Rabbis for Cease-Fire. "Criticism of Israel's genocidal assault is not equivalent to antisemitism."


Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) speaks during a hearing on March 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Mar 27, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


Following the Republican Party's latest hearing on antisemitism on college campuses—part of a campaign in which discrimination against Jewish people has been conflated with calls for Palestinian liberation and opposition to Israel's U.S.-backed killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza—the rights organization Rabbis for Cease-Fire on Thursday said it rejected "the basic premises" of the hearing.

The hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Thursday, titled "Antisemitic Disruptions on Campus: Ensuring Safe Learning Environments for All Students," was part of an effort to "instrumentalize concern for Jewish safety to shield Israel from accountability," said the group.

The committee scheduled the hearing as supporters of Palestinian rights and the First Amendment have grown increasingly alarmed by the Trump administration's abductions, via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of several students who have participated in Palestinian rights protests and spoken out against the U.S. government's support for Israel's assault on Gaza and the West Bank.

But while more than 1,400 academics signed onto an academic boycott of Columbia University over its refusal to stand up to the Trump administration and defend students who have exercised their First Amendment rights, warning that the GOP's agenda and the school's actions "endanger all students, staff, and faculty," Republicans on the committee spoke only about rising antisemitism on college campuses.

Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said that "antisemitic incidents on college campuses were up almost 500% between 2023 and 2024, totaling 1,200 reports."

Cassidy cited the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which compiles reports on what it views as campus antisemitism, including expressions of hostility toward Jewish people—but also calls for divestment from Israel and the presence of "anti-Zionist groups" who oppose Israel's policies in Palestine.

While the ADL has loudly condemned pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses—some of which have been led by Jewish students—it dismissed outcry over what appeared to be a Nazi salute displayed by far-right billionaire Elon Musk, an ally of President Donald Trump, at an inauguration event in January.

Rabbis for Cease-Fire said Thursday that "repression of political dissent regarding U.S. involvement in the genocidal assault of
Palestinians is not in the best interest of Jews and has nothing to do with Jewish safety."

"To suggest it does actually threatens Jews by taking away civil rights and liberties in our name," said the group.

The group also clarified that by definition, Trump's efforts to rid college campuses of students who speak out against Israel's U.S.-backed military operation is not confronting antisemitism.

"Antisemitism is a bias against or hostility toward Jewish people because they are Jewish, regardless of nationality," said Rabbis for Cease-Fire. "Israel is a nation state, not a Jewish person. Criticism of actions carried out by the state of Israel is a political position and Israel, like every state, must be criticized for illegal and unjust actions, and held to account for war crimes. Criticism of Israel's genocidal assault is not equivalent to antisemitism."

The group added that the vast majority of pro-Palestinian campus protests "were not and are not antisemitic: they are focused on holding Israel and the United States accountable for collaborating on a brutal 18-month assault on Palestinians in Gaza that has claimed over 60,000 lives and destroyed schools, mosques, hospitals, libraries, and tens of thousands of homes."

The hearing was held a day after thousands of Boston-area residents assembled in Somerville, Massachusetts to speak out against ICE's abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student and visa holder who was reportedly targeted for writing an op-ed criticizing the school's response to a call for divestment from Israel.

"Jewish people's fear of antisemitism is being exploited to to carry out a broad attack on higher education and free speech," said the rabbis. "This administration's policies are designed by far-right Christian nationalists and are antisemitic themselves. These hearings falsely proclaim that their goal is 'safe learning environments for all students.' In fact, this is actually making learning environments unsafe through universities' draconian rules prohibiting free speech and assembly that result in suspension and expulsion of students, and their use of local police to control and arrest students."

"These hearings are a wholesale attack on higher education as a primary location of the democratic values of the free speech, open dialogue, and political dissent that Trump and the Republicans want to destroy," the group added.

Rabbis for Cease-Fire was joined by other Jewish-led groups in denouncing what Bend the Arc: Jewish Action called "another cynical antisemitism hearing."



"This is Trump's cronies using the guise of caring about Jews to further its agenda of deporting student activists and instilling fear to silence political dissent," said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Miller credited Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) with using the hearing to condemn Trump's amplification and defense of antisemitism from the far-right, such as in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and his association with Musk.

But the hearing was part of a growing body of evidence that "Trump and his cronies do not care about Jews or Jewish safety," said Miller. "Their attacks on student activists are part of an authoritarian power grab and an attempt to silence the movement for Palestinian rights. We must stand together and fight back against fascism."

Absolute Fucking Clown Show

Freedonia officials celebrate the coming of war in the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup
Screenshot from Duck Soup

Abby Zimet
Mar 26, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Because only the best people, the latest clusterfuck by "an unbelievable cocktail of incompetence and illegality" abetted a historic security leak wherein "national security" officials discussed classified military plans for airstrikes in Yemen on an unsecured messaging app that oops included a journalist. The response from our steadfast commander-in-chief, who was too busy with Greenland, George Clooney, and pudgy portraits to know about it: "You're saying they had what?" Still, they're sending us angels!

The news of "one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence in history" by the "but-her-emails" party came from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in a piece titled, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans" (Gift link here). "The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen," it begins."I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming (because) Pete Hegseth had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing." Goldberg says the backstory began 10 days ago, with a connection request on the open-source app Signal, known for disappearing messages, from Trump National Insecurity adviser "Michael Walz." Given Trump's earlier attacks on Goldberg as "a guy named Goldberg" who runs "a failing magazine" - his crime: calling the famed "suckers and losers" jab chilling and historically illiterate" - Goldberg figured it was a troll seeking to "somehow entrap me."

But in the next few days the messages kept coming from top officials' accounts: Vance, Gabbard, Rubio, Hegseth, Nazi Stephen Miller, CIA head John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who was evidently in Moscow at the time but def didn't connect his phone to the Kremlin's guest WIFI network, where Signal is easily accessed. The messages ranged from specific plans from Walz - “Team - establishing a principles (sic) group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours" with deputy Alex Wong "pulling together a tiger team" to follow up from "meeting in the Sit Room" - to random Europe-bashing from Drunk Pete to JD: "I fully share your loathing of European free loading. It's PATHETIC." All told, the Military Timessays the content revealed "operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing" On March 15, Trump bombed Yemen, citing the Iran-backed terrorist group's attacks on international shipping routes over Israel's genocide in Gaza.

"Republicans, as everyone knows, are careful stewards of America’s security," notes Jeff Tiedrich, and would never do anything as "clownfuckingly insane" as texting war plans to each other in such detail they even include the weather forecast over a phone app," never mind inadvertently including a journalist in the discussion or, say, "absconding with dozens of boxes of classified documents, lying about having them, refusing to return them, hiding them, bragging about their contents to golf cronies, waving them in the faces of randos, scrawling to-do lists on them (and) then stashing them in the unspeakably ugly shitter of their vermin-infested Florida golf motel." Still, in a mind-blowing miracle of improbable spin, the White House tried to defend the historic, blundering, "final nail in the but-her-emails coffin" by claiming the leak was "a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials" who, added Fox News, "after years of secrecy and incompetence," make us proud "these are the leaders making these decisions in America." A succinct Hillary Clinton: "You have got to be kidding me."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The latest evidence the regime is "a clown car driving against traffic on the interstate of leadership" was met with outrage, including among the GOP's own members and even some at the top: "Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing - Mike Waltz is a fucking idiot." The swift consensus: "Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels – and certainly not to those without security clearances. Period.” Also, "Fubar" - "fucked up beyond all recognition” and, "We knew it was amateur hour, but good grief." Much of the rage was aimed at fascist, smirky, erratic, wildly unqualified Pete Hegseth, who's spent his brief reign erasing black, brown and female military history and braying about "accountability"; before that, he liked to critique Biden for handling classified info “flippantly” and blast Hillary - "Hey, this you?" - for not being in jail. VoteVets on Pete: "Gross incompetence." One critic deemed him "an incompetent, xenophobic, reckless, unprofessional, unserious, ignorant, war- mongering moron. What a prick," thus rendering especially surreal the thread's plaudits: "Good job, Pete!" "Powerful start!"

Along with past, smug hypocrisies recalled online - Marco in 2016: "Nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton. We're gonna hold people accountable" yada yada - were nods to the fact that no victims of Trump/DOGE incompetence, bigotry and greed, among thousands of "DEI" hires, veterans' caregivers, medical researchers et al fired, ever leaked war plans. On the Cabinet's confederacy of dunces: "Thank goodness they're all White men so we know they didn't really do anything wrong." And there are the crimes. By law, government communications must be archived; use of unsecured Signal, which erases content and proof of its existence, was likely an illegal effort to avoid government channels and the prying eyes of Congress - "a conspiracy of the highest magnitude." The use of Signal also likely violated the Espionage Act, which sets rules for handling national security information - on approved government systems - and makes it a crime to remove such information "from its proper place of custody" (ditto). That's without sending classified information to a journalist without clearance and not noticing it.

All told, the "epic fuck-up" was blasted as "a stunning breach of security" and "historic mishandling of classified information" that would end any officer's career with criminal charges. Eric Swalwell urged all on the thread to be fired: "Their idiocy just put a giant target on America. We are not safe." Mike Young saw "a neon sign of (Trump's) utter contempt for competence, security, and the American people," from slashing people's rights to putting troops at risk. Pete Buttigieg called it "the highest level of fuck-up imaginable" by miscreants who "claim to care about competence and merit. These are not serious people." Jared Moskowitz, with an assist from Jamie Raskin, went fortrolling: He held up a sign with three emojis - fist, flag, fire - Mike Waltz sent on Signal to celebrate the Yemen strikes. Rather than a speech, he said, "When we do things where we agree, I just hold this up. When we’re in like a chat with friends, right? About, like, where we’re dropping missiles.....And this will tell you I think it’s good.” Later, he took to social media to use the emoji combo to like a possible My Cousin Vinny sequel and a cat TikTok.

The GOP, meanwhile, deflected and downplayed. Sean Hannity whined a "media mob" is "obsessed with an accidentally leaked text," hence their "phony outrage.” Brit Hume conceded it was "a major leak" but added, "Fortunately, it was leaked to an American citizen," albeit a Jew, which might not count. Mike Walz told Laura Ingraham he's "not a conspiracy theorist," but "of all the people out there, somehow this guy (Goldberg) who has lied about the president, the bottom scum of journalists (is) the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact." And their leader, either actually dumb or playing dumb when asked about it, insisted, “I don’t know anything about this," followed by the obligatory smear: "I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. It's, to me, it's a magazine that's going out of business...But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?" Later, he said the fiasco was "the only glitch" in "two perfect months," and "not a serious one," and besides Walz, "a good man," had "learned a lesson." Whew. We feel better already, knowing his "national security" team and the rest of Freedonia is on the job.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

We're also reassured knowing that, even though he might sometimes forget who he's bombing when, he's busy making America great again. Having randomly disappeared with no evidence or due process over 200 mostly innocent Venezuelans for having tattoos to be tortured in an El Salvador prison - an act yet another judge eviscerated with, “Nazis got better treatment" - his lawyers are invoking the “state secrets” privilege to refuse to provide a D.C. judge with information about their victims. Insisting "no further information will be provided,” they cite Trump's absolute authority to remove “designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of the United States," despite multiple intelligence documents, family claims, news reports, and pieces of evidence that contradict their allegations. For good measure, he also abolished all the Department of Homeland Security's civil rights and detention abuse watchdogs - basically, everyone charged with providing oversight of the treatment of people by the department’s various policing agencies - in the worthy name of his growing authoritarianism.

In more unintended consequences of both his and DOGE's tyranny, the IRS estimates that DOGE-driven disruptions are on track to reduce tax receipts by more than $500 billion for non-discretionary funding, which means most government functions except the military and safety net services like Social Security and Medicare. In other words, in about eight weeks, DOGE has managed to "lose the U.S. government - more or less light on fire - more than half of what goes to most of the stuff we think of as the government." Between DOGE and ICE, they're also inadvertently creating a national labor shortage so critical that Florida lawmakers are considering loosening child labor laws to fill the gap; their proposed new law would let children as young as 14 work overnight shifts on school days, a move that Gov. Ron DeFascist supports. "Yes, we had people that left - aka were brutally deported - but you're also able to hire other (imaginary) people," he says. "And what's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up.”

Along with GOP efforts to return children to "clean" coal mines, they're also looking for new places to exploit. This week, Usha Vance, wife to history's most disliked VP, will visit Greenland for a pricey photo-op, a move blasted by P.M. Mute Egede as a "provocation (to) demonstrate power over us," which is why he won't meet with her. Trump said they invited her; they didn't, which is clear from their new red hats: "Make America Go Away." (Canada reportedly wants them, too.) Now J.D. says he's also going "to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland- I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself" - which will piss them off more: "Trump needs to get the difference between 'yours' and 'mine.'" He also has "Danish Viking blood boiling," with Denmark leading a growing movement in Europe to boycott U.S. goods. Danes are skipping U.S. beer, popcorn, Pringles, Oreos, Pepsi, Colgate, ketchup, power tools, California wine, and Tesla, choosing E.U.-made options and buying more champagne. One said that after he bought dates from Iran, he was shocked to realize, "I now perceive the United States as a greater threat than Iran."

At home, Trump is still diligently grifting, whining, lying and lashing out. For the first time in 150 years, he's turned the White House annual Easter Egg Roll into a branding opportunity, offering corporate sponsorships to buy $200,000 worth of goodwill with the other fat cats and, “Be a part of history." The "petty, insecure baby" and "sensitive snowflake" is also haranguing "radically left" Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to take down a chubby, "purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before” (except all the other times) Trump portrait, where aides once put up a prank Putin one; Trump's was commissioned by a GOP admirer, but he says "many people" have written to complain. Uh huh. Finally, the leader of the free world took time out from his onerous schedule to slam George Clooney as "a ‘Second Rate Movie Star’ who never came close to making a great movie" after Clooney blasted his regime for bullying the media, and them in turn for buckling under the pressure. "What does Clooney know about anything?" Trump sneered. "(He) should go back to television." Clooney's response: "I will if he does."

Back in the grown-up world, his lackeys still struggle to shake off the Signal scandal, toeing the "No classified material was sent to the thread" line with their usual class, insight, mud-slinging and whataboutism. "Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin," said Barbie Press Secretary, insisting we're all good "thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of, you know. In a seething, palpably furious response to reporters, a testy Pete Hegseth - nah, he's not a loose cannon - echoed her: "You’re talking about a deceitful and highly-discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of pedaling hoaxes...Nobody was texting war plans." The next day, still testy: "Nobody's texting war plans. I know exactly what I'm doing." Half of America noted the White House already confirmed the text chain was authentic, all Goldberg has to do is release the text (which he's reportedly mulling doing), Pete is "a fucking liar," also a national security risk who should be fired. On Tuesday, his accomplices squirmed, lied and prevaricated before Congress, a sordid show of clowns and bunglers.

But despite fighting the Quakers, the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Catholics and most of the world, they still claim God on their side. Now, televangelist, spiritual adviser, "Special Government Employee" and head of White House Faith Office Paula White is offering a special Passover/Easter deal. For just $1,000, she will get us seven supernatural blessings. The best: "God will assign an angel to you." Ooh, Pete can get one! God will also Be an enemy to your enemies, give you prosperity, and give you a special year of blessing. Okay, so other evangelicals call her a "spiritual wolf" and "false teacher leading people to Hell"; one skeptic says, "There's got to be a special place in hell for this whore"; her 2020 speech to elect Trump was a tad intense - "Strike, strike, strike, I hear a sound of an abundance of rain, victory, victory, victory, angels are coming from Africa"; and she didcherry-pick Exodus 23, leaving out, “Do not spread false reports, Do not deny justice to your poor people, Do not accept a bribe, Do not oppress a foreigner. Still, if you act now, you'll also get a Waterford crystal cross, regularly $100, now $30% off. But for only the best people.

Update: Whoa, The Atlantic went there. Excellent.

A Reminder Amid Group Chat Outrage: US Strikes on Yemen Are Unconstitutional

(AND A WAR CRIME FOR DESTROYING AN APARTMENT BUILDING 

 WITH CIVILIANS IN IT)

"President Trump has not only launched us into a new military escapade in the Middle East, he's done so in breach of our Constitution," said one advocate.


A man carries his child near the rubble of a building targeted by the United States' aerial attacks on March 20, 2025, in Sanaa, Yemen.
(Photo: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Mar 27, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The leaked messages among top Trump administration officials about U.S. strikes in Yemen earlier this month, which were held via a private sector messaging app in breach of national security protocol and inadvertently included a journalist, sparked considerable discussion among political commentators and social media users—but as the initial shock regarding the Signal conversation faded, advocates and policy experts said lawmakers' attention should turn to the illegality of the attacks on Yemen.

The advocacy groups Just Foreign Policy, DAWN, and Action Corps released a joint statement Thursday calling on Congress to take action to stop U.S. military action in Yemen by upholding "its sole authority to declare war under Article I of the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR)."

The chat messages sent between officials including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz stunned the public and Washington insiders this week because they had accidentally also been sent to Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, but the three groups pointed out that they also included an admission from Vance that the strikes were not defensive—contrary to claims by President Donald Trump:
I think we are making a mistake… 3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message…

Vance's comments bolster the three groups' position that "the strikes also violate Chapters I and VII of the United Nations Charter, which prohibit states from launching a war unless in self-defense or authorized by the U.N. Security Council."

Even before the chats were leaked, said the groups, it was clear that Trump had not sought congressional authorization for military strikes in Yemen, which have killed at least 53 people since the U.S. launched attacks on March 15.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was introduced after former President Richard Nixon's secretive bombings of Cambodia, requires congressional authorization for "the introduction of the United States armed forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances," while Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the authority to declare war.

"Congress should demand an end to this reckless, unauthorized war that will both harm U.S. interests and continue to terrorize the Yemeni people who have already suffered years of U.S.-backed violence."

"President Trump has not only launched us into a new military escapade in the Middle East, he's done so in breach of our Constitution," said Isaac Evans-Frantz, director of Action Corps. "Congress should demand an end to this reckless, unauthorized war that will both harm U.S. interests and continue to terrorize the Yemeni people who have already suffered years of U.S.-backed violence."

The groups' comments echoed those of Michigan State University professor and Quincy Institute fellow Shireen Al-Adeimi, who is Yemeni-American.

"With all the noise about the Signal leak, is anyone in Congress or the media concerned that actually bombing Yemeni people and Yemen's infrastructure is unconstitutional?" she asked on Tuesday. "Anyone?"

The Trump administration claimed that the strikes in Yemen were made because the Houthis' blockade on Israeli ships—established in retaliation for Israel's breaking of a cease-fire in Gaza—was an attack on U.S. economic interests and economic security, but the three groups noted that "there is no evidence that Houthi forces attacked any U.S. ships or personnel from the beginning of the Gaza cease-fire in January 2025 through March 15."

The Houthis struck cargo ships they deemed to be tied to Israel starting in November 2023, in response to Israel's relentless assault on Gaza. They stopped the attacks for the duration of the cease-fire, which lasted nearly two months starting in mid-January.

"The cessation of Houthi attacks during the short-lived Gaza truce underscores their primary focus to defend Palestinians from genocide—a reality obscured by Trump's rhetoric to justify unauthorized military action and deepen U.S. aggression in a widening conflict," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. "The best way to protect global maritime navigation through the Red Sea is to ensure the Israeli government ends its genocidal violence in Gaza."

Along with Vance's apparent admission that the strikes were not in self-defense, the Signal discussion included what observers called a "confession" to alleged war crimes by Waltz, who said the residential building of the girlfriend of a Houthi leader had "collapsed" after a U.S. strike. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, Waltz and Vance celebrated the strike.

Etan Mabourakh, a fellow at Action Corps, called on Congress to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution. The House and Senate both passed such a resolution in 2019 to bar the U.S. from participating in the Saudi war in Yemen.

"Congress should take the necessary step to stop these illegal, ineffective, and unauthorized airstrikes in Yemen," said Mabourakh. "Rather than debating the Trump administration's violation of security protocols in their Signal chats, they should do their job and challenge another unlawful new war in the region that is making everyone less safe."

Along With National Security Breach, Leaked Signal Chat Contains 'Confession' of Alleged War Crime

National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Vice President JD Vance celebrated as a residential building "collapsed" following a U.S. strike.


U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz (R), takes a question from a reporter in the Oval Office at the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Mar 26, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Along with raising alarm about a massive national security breach—and questions about the competence of top officials in the Trump administration who "inadvertently" added a journalist to a Signal group chat about plans to bomb targets in Yemen—the incident that Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg publicized this week included an apparent "confession" of at least one alleged war crime.

As Common Dreamsreported Wednesday, Goldberg released the entirety of the group chat that was held via the commercial messaging app Signal, following denials by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt that any classified information was transmitted in the discussion.

In addition to making clear the detailed plans for attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen using F-18s and drones, the conversation included a brief message from National Security Adviser Michael Waltz in which he appeared to casually describe a strike on a civilian target in Sanaa.

Waltz first praised Hegseth, Central Command leader Gen. Michael Kurilla, and the intelligence community for an "amazing job," saying a "building collapsed" after U.S. intelligence identified a Houthi leader who was targeted for a strike.

He then clarified his message for Vice President JD Vance: "Their first target—their top missile guy—we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and it's now collapsed," wrote Waltz.

The vice president replied, "Excellent."



The messages Goldberg disclosed to the public were sent over several days after he received a connection request from "Michael Waltz" via the Signal app. The conversation took place around the Trump administration's March 15 bombing of Yemen, which was carried out after the Houthis renewed a blockade on Israeli ships.

At least 31 civilians were killed in the bombing campaign, and the Houthi media office reported at the time that the U.S. had struck a "residential neighborhood" in Sanaa.

On Wednesday, journalist and author Kim Zetter said Waltz's message suggested top administration officials knew U.S. forces had "targeted [a] residential building," despite President Donald Trump's claims to the contrary.

Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said the messages contain "prima facie evidence of at least one war crime applauded by the people who conspired to commit it."

Matt Duss, executive vice president of the organization, recalled the warning of Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman in September 2024 regarding the Biden administration's support for Israel's "rules of war" in Gaza—where "every human being" has been defined "as a legitimate military target—a terrorist, a terrorist supporter or sympathizer, or a 'human shield'... allowing the annihilation of huge numbers of civilians and destruction of entire cities."

"The costs of these new rules of war will be paid with the blood of civilians worldwide for generations to come, and the U.S. responsibility for enabling, defending, and normalizing these new rules—and their horrific, dehumanizing consequences—will not be forgotten," said Friedman at the time.


Duss said Wednesday that "rules of engagement that permit destroying an entire civilian apartment building to kill one alleged terrorist is part of [former President] Joe Biden's legacy."


"It's still a war crime though," he added, "and Waltz's text is a confession."

The Necessity of a Universal Project

by Ellen Meiksins Wood

(Mar 01, 2025)

In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda, edited by Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster.

Ellen Meiskins Wood (1942–2016) was coeditor of Monthly Review from 1997 to 2000.

She was a Professor at York U in Canada

This article is excerpted from Ellen Meiskins Wood, “What is the Postmodern Agenda?,” in In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda, eds. Ellen Meiskins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review Press, 1997), 12–16.

One of the ironies of postmodernism is that, while embracing—or at least surrendering to—capitalism, it rejects the “Enlightenment project,” holding it responsible for crimes that would more justly be laid at the door to capitalism…. Of course it would be foolish to maintain that capitalism has been responsible for all our modern ills or even to deny the material benefits that have often accompanied it. But it would be just as foolish to deny the destructive effects associated with capitalist imperatives of self-expansion, “productivism,” profit-maximation, and competition. It is hard to see how these effects intrinsically belong to the Enlightenment. At the very least, we have to ask whether an emancipatory universalism amounts to the same thing as capitalist expansionism or imperialism, and whether the fruits of “Western” science and technology must by definition serve the needs of capitalist accumulation, and the destruction of nature that inevitably accompanies them.1

At any rate, we are living in a historical moment that more than any other demands a universalistic project. This is a historical moment dominated by capitalism, the most universal system the world has ever known—both in the sense that it is global and in the sense that it penetrates every aspect of social life and the natural environment. In dealing with capitalism, the postmodernist insistence that reality is fragmentary and therefore accessible only to fragmentary “knowledges” is especially perverse and disabling. The social reality of capitalism is “totalizing” in unprecedented ways and degrees. Its logic of commodification, accumulation, profit-maximization, and competition permeates the whole social order; and an understanding of this “totalizing” system requires just the kind of “totalizing knowledge” that Marxism offers and postmodernists reject.

Opposition to the capitalist system also requires us to call upon interests and resources that unify, instead of fragmenting, the anticapitalist struggle. In the first instance, these are the interests and resources of class, the single most universal force capable of uniting diverse emancipatory struggles; but, in the final analysis, we are talking about the interests and resources of our common humanity, in the conviction that, for all our manifest differences, there are certain fundamentally and irreducibly common conditions of human well-being and self-fulfillment which capitalism cannot satisfy and socialism can.

For people on the left, and especially for a younger generation of intellectuals and students, the greatest appeal of postmodernism is its apparent openness, as against the alleged “closures” of a “totalizing” system like Marxism. But this claim to openness is largely spurious. The problem is not just that postmodernism represents an intellectual kind of pluralism that has undermined its own foundations. Nor is it simply an uncritical but harmless eclecticism. There is something more serious at stake. The “openness” of postmodernism’s fragmentary knowledges and its emphasis on “difference” are purchased at the price of much more fundamental closures. Postmodernism is, in its negative way, a ruthlessly “totalizing” system, which forecloses a vast range of critical thought and emancipatory politics—and its closures are final and decisive. Its epistemological assumptions make it unavailable to criticism, as immune to critique as the most rigid kind of dogma (how do you criticize a body of ideas that a priori rules out the very practice of “rational” argument?). And they preclude—not just by dogmatically rejecting but also by rendering impossible—a systematic understanding of our historical moment, a wholesale critique of capitalism, and just about any effective action.

If postmodernism does tell us something, in a distorted way, about the conditions of contemporary capitalism, the real trick is to figure out exactly what those conditions are, and where we go from here. The trick, in other words, is to suggest historical explanations for these conditions instead of just submitting to them and indulging in ideological adaptations. The trick is to identify the real problems to which the current intellectual fashions offer false—or no—solutions, and in so doing to challenge the limits they impose on action and resistance. The trick is to respond to the conditions of today not as cheerful (or even miserable) robots but as critics….2

The world is increasingly populated not by cheerful robots but by some very angry human beings. As things stand, there are very few intellectual resources available to understand that anger, and hardly any political ones (at least on the left) to organize it. Today’s postmodernism, for all of its apparently defeatist pessimism, is still rooted in the “Golden Age of Capitalism.”3 It’s time to leave that legacy behind and face today’s realities.

Notes

1. ↩ This also raises large questions about the relation of capitalism and the Enlightenment, which there is no room to discuss here. In “Modernity, Postmodernity, or Capitalism?” [Monthly Review, July–August 1996], I try to sketch out some distinctions between the historical conditions that gave rise to the Enlightenment and those that gave rise to the process of capitalist development.
2. ↩ [On “cheerful robots” see C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), 175.—Ed.]
3. ↩ In Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 (New York: Pantheon, 1995), 165–67. The “Golden Age” (roughly 1947 to 1973) is sandwiched between the “Age of Catastrophe” and the “Landslide.” [This note has been moved from another point in Wood’s original text.—Ed.]

2025, Volume 76, Issue 10 (March 2025)