'Congress Must Fulfill Its Constitutional Duty': 500,000+ Back Trump Impeachment Push

"We are the guardrails now," said the advocacy group Free Speech for People. "Trump can't hide from this movement, and neither can our lawmakers."


Hundreds gather at Houston City Hall to demand U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment on April 5, 2025 in Houston, Texas.
(Photo: Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
May 08, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

More than half a million Americans have backed a campaign demanding that the U.S. Congress impeach President Donald Trump for grave abuses of power, including the kidnapping and unlawful removal of residents, brazen profiteering, and defiance of judicial orders.

The progressive advocacy organization Free Speech for People announced Thursday that more than 500,000 people have signed its petition imploring lawmakers to impeach Trump for a historic third time, a demand that recent survey data shows is backed by a majority of U.S. voters.

The number of petition signatures has doubled over the past two months as anger has grown nationwide over the Trump administration's authoritarianism and corruption.

"Backed by hundreds of thousands of Americans demanding impeachment, Congress must fulfill its constitutional duty and impeach and remove Trump for his multiple high crimes," Alexandra Flores-Quilty, Free Speech for People's campaign director, said in a statement Thursday.

Free Speech for People's update on its petition drive came as the group unveiled a formal impeachment resolution that contains 16 articles against Trump, who was impeached twice during his first term but never convicted by the U.S. Senate.

The articles accuse the president of "abusing the pardon power through the broad pardon of January 6 co-insurrectionists," "improperly using emergency and wartime powers to mobilize U.S. armed forces against migrants," "receiving foreign and domestic emoluments," "unlawfully imposing tariffs," "co-opting and dismantling federal agencies for corrupt purposes," and "planning the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza."



The group released its resolution just days after U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) filed seven articles of impeachment against Trump, arguing that the president's "unlawful actions have subverted the justice system, violated the separation of powers, and placed personal power and self-interest above public service."

"We cannot wait for more damage to be done," Thanedar said last week. "Congress must act."

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) is also expected to file articles of impeachment against the president in the coming days.

Such impeachment resolutions stand no realistic chance of passing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but supporters of the campaign to remove the president say it could help galvanize opposition to Trump and his billionaire cronies.

Critics of the push, including some Democratic lawmakers who acknowledge Trump has committed impeachable offenses, have publicly and privately expressed concern that the effort could be detrimental to efforts to check the lawless president.

By Free Speech for People's count, at least 16 members of Congress have so far expressed support for impeaching Trump a third time.

"Members of Congress on record in support of impeachment include Representatives Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10), Sam Liccardo (CA-16), Maxine Waters (CA-43), Hank Johnson (GA-04), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Shri Thanedar (MI-13), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Maxine Dexter (OR-03), Dwight Evans (PA-03), Al Green (TX-09), Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Becca Balint (VT-AL), and Kevin Mullin (CA-15)," the group noted Thursday. "Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia has also made a public statement in support of impeachment."

Trump Trade 'Deal' With UK Ripped as Another 'Con on American Workers'

"At this point the goal of policy seems to be to goose the market for the next few days, with no long-term plan."

U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, British Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer laugh in the Oval Office on May 8, 2025.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
May 08, 2025

COMMON DREAMS

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled the framework of a trade deal with the United Kingdom that was extremely light on details despite being billed as a "full and comprehensive agreement," leading critics to describe the fanfare surrounding the announcement as a cynical photo op for both sides.

In a statement, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer touted the deal as "historic" while acknowledging that it is incomplete. Trump insisted the deal is "maxed out," though he told reporters in the Oval Office that "the final details are being written up in the coming weeks."

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, meanwhile, described the agreement as one "in concept," drawing comparisons to Trump's widely derided statement on the campaign trail that he had a "concept of a plan" on healthcare.

Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at Public Citizen, said Thursday that "Trump may have enjoyed having his ego stroked by Starmer and [U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick fawning over him for 'closing' a deal—one that is obviously not actually done—but his con on American workers continues."

"The American and British people need to see whatever text there is or is developed in ongoing talks—and no deal should be approved or go into effect without going through proper on-the-record public comment processes and congressional oversight," said St. Louis. "We need to know, for instance, when they claim to address 'non-tariff barriers,' just what giveaways for Big Tech may be inserted on behalf of Elon Musk and Trump's other tech-bro billionaire buddies, given that he waved around Big Tech's wish list when he announced the tariffs."

"With claims of dozens more 'deals' in progress," St. Louis added, "Congress must act swiftly to demand transparency and accountability in any trade deal before Trump and his team sell off our country for parts behind closed doors."

According to summaries released by the Trump White House and U.K. government, the bilateral trade framework would leave in place the 10% tariff rate that Trump has applied to all imports to the U.S. while providing targeted tariff relief for the British auto, steel, and aluminum industries.

The White House also said, without providing specific details, that the deal would "significantly expand U.S. market access in the U.K., creating a $5 billion opportunity for new exports for U.S. farmers, ranchers, and producers."

The U.K. is the first country to announce an agreement in principle with Trump since he unilaterally imposed tariffs on imports to the U.S. last month, invoking emergency authority. The U.S. ran a trade surplus with the U.K. last year, and experts questioned the extent to which the terms of the agreement broadly outlined Thursday would change the trade dynamic between the two countries.

"At this point the goal of policy seems to be to goose the market for the next few days, with no long-term plan," suggested economist Paul Krugman.

Around the world, stocks rose in response to the U.S.-U.K. announcement.




Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said that Thursday's events were primarily "about appeasing Trump"—but cautioned that worse could be coming in the near future.

"While there are limited tariff reductions, we remain in a much worse position than we were six months ago," Dearden argued. "What's more, Trump could impose new tariffs at any time because Starmer has proven to him that his threats work: caving in to a bully is not something to be celebrated. Today's press conference also fires the starting gun on a genuinely scary, fuller trade deal, and there are strong indications our rights, standards, and protections will be up for grabs in that larger agreement."

"Unless we stand up to this deal, the British public will pay a very high price for Starmer's friendship with Donald Trump," Dearden added.

In a blog post published ahead of Thursday's announcement, Dearden warned that the new framework could set the stage for a deal that locks the U.K. "into policies that favor the unchecked growth of tech monopolies: deregulated AI, increased corporate access to NHS data, and restrictions on our ability to rein in Silicon Valley giants."

"Worse may be coming unless we stop treating trade negotiations as a matter of royal prerogative," wrote Dearden. "We need a modern, democratic process for international agreements—transparent, accountable, and inclusive. But Starmer has shown that such reform won't be gifted by those in power. It must be demanded."

'Incoherence': Trump slammed after reporter accuses him to his face of 'overstating' UK trade deal

U.S. President Donald Trump meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets in the White House on February 27, 2025 (Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street/Flickr)

Alex Henderson

May 08, 2025
ALTERNET

During a White House press conference late Thursday morning, May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new trade deal with the U.K. Trump was joined by visiting U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer — leader of the Labour Party since 2020 — as well as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Vice President JD Vance as he bragged that the arrangement will be a source of great prosperity for both the United States and Great Britain.

The arrangement, Trump told reporters, will bring increased market access to the U.K. for U.S. exports ranging from beef to ethanol. But Trump critics are describing the deal as big on hype but painfully short on specifics.

uring the presser, Sky News' James Matthews was highly skeptical about the deal — telling Trump, "I'd like to ask, why Britain, and why now?.... Clearly, there's much more work still to do. With respect, are you overstating the reach and significance of this deal because you're a president who needs a result at a difficult time?"

Trump responded, "I think that it's a great deal for both parties. It’s for us. We’re opened up. I didn't know how closed it was. Quite closed, the market, as you know, the U.K. And it opens up a tremendous market for us, and it works out very well, very well…. And a lot of assets, you see the chart, and those are tremendous assets. But we've been trying, and when you say why us, meaning your country — we've been trying for years, and they’ve been trying for years to make a deal, including when I was in the, you know, first term. It would always be people talking, but they weren’t getting it done. But for 25 years before that, they were trying always to make a deal. A very significant deal."

After the press conference came at a time, MSNBC got a reaction from Democratic attorney Gene Sperling — who served as director of the National Economic Council (NEC) under Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and was White House coordinator for the American Rescue Plan under President Joe Biden.

Sperling slammed the U.K. deal as a "very marginal trade agreement" that underscores the "incoherence of the Trump trade policy," telling MSNBC's Ana Cabrera, "You had an economy that was a consensus soft landing….. Now, you have consensus fears of a recession and stagflation."

Trump's exchange with Matthews is drawing a lot of responses on X, formerly Twitter.

CPCG founder Karen Hinks tweeted, "We need to see this 'deal' for the performative theatre for what it is. Which is nothing. Trump needed a win. He needed a way out for the destruction his fool-hardy tariffs are causing this country. Pathetic."

Raven Capital investment manager Nelson Rangel argued, "UK temporary deal is all a show to get people to prop up the market for presidential approval ratings, to give (Treasury Secretary Scott) Bessent a bigger cushion ahead to China meeting on Saturday and for insiders to sell stocks at a better prices... *TRUMP: BETTER GO OUT AND BUY STOCKS NOW."

Canada-based X user David Blakely posted, "Sounds like a win for the UK and that Trump has caved in favour of UK workers. Trump needed a distraction today and there was no trade imbalance with the UK. No surprise the way Trump and the fawning Lutnick are positioning this. Trade still moving away from US, and quickly."

Paris-based professor Matthew Fraser, a former journalist, commented, "Sounds half-baked. They are still negotiating but Trump wanted a big 'win' to announce, so they staged this press conference."

Attorney Joe Gallina's Call to Activism tweeted, "MASSIVE LET DOWN: Donald Trump admits his 'huge trade deal' with the UK is NOT finalized yet and instead is only a concept of a plan. This is extremely embarassing in light of the press hype. Art of the deal."

Trader Ben Calusinski @BCalusinski wrote, "Trump is really trying to push how 'Big' this deal with the UK is. The market does not care When the market has to price in a 'Big Deal' with a gap-up and then he doesn't follow through, we will see it sell I don't make the rules."

'US Mail Is Not For Sale': Americans Across Political Spectrum Oppose Postal Service Privatization

"Postal customers should trust their gut when it comes to schemes to sell off or transfer the USPS," said the head of the American Postal Workers Union.


Activists protest during a "U.S. Mail Not For Sale" rally near the Brentwood Post Office on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
May 08, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

As the Trump administration signaled a potential step toward privatizing the U.S. Postal Service with the reported selection of a FedEx board member to serve as postmaster general, new polling on Thursday showed just how strongly the American public would oppose such a move.

The survey by Hart Research Associates and North Star Opinion Research, which was commissioned by the American Postal Workers Union, found that 60% of respondents were opposed to privatizing the postal service, while just 26% were in favor.

The opposition cut across ideological, geographic, and demographic divides, with people in all regions of the country saying they wanted to maintain the USPS as a public service by a margin of at least 29 points—and as many as 40 points in western states.

While rural voters supported President Donald Trump by a 23-point margin in the 2024 election, the research firms posited that the heavy reliance people in far-flung areas have on the USPS helped push rural respondents to say they oppose privatization, with 58% saying they were against it.

As Common Dreams reported last month, an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies found that private mail carriers like FedEx and UPS already charge "remote surcharges" to 8% of all U.S. ZIP Codes—home to nearly 4 million people—because they are in mountain communities and other remote areas. While USPS has a universal service obligation, people in rural areas pay up to $15.50 for deliveries from private companies.


Fifty-six percent of Americans said privatization would result in higher prices for mailing packages and letters, while 17% said prices were likely to improve.

Without competition from USPS, private companies could impose additional charges for weekend deliveries, fuel, residential deliveries, and more.

"Postal customers should trust their gut when it comes to schemes to sell off or transfer the USPS," said APWU president Mark Dimondstein. "Plans to privatize the Post Office are about enriching Wall Street and not serving Main Street. Evidence shows that selling off the USPS would lead to higher prices for postal services as well as higher prices for shipping packages at FedEx and UPS."

On the House floor recently, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) warned that "corporations won't serve what isn't profitable."

"This isn't about efficiency," she said. "This is about dismantling public services so they can prove government doesn't work."




The poll was released two months after Wells Fargo presented a five-step plan for privatizing USPS to Wall Street investors, including raising USPS prices by as much as 140%, selling postal real estate to commercial bidders, and imposing mass layoffs on the service's 600,000 employees.

The bank said privatization would lead to the "harvesting," or closing, of neighborhood post offices across the country—something 72% of respondents opposed in Thursday's poll.

Trump ally Elon Musk also said in March that Amtrak and USPS were top targets for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which the president selected him to lead and which has pushed to dismantle numerous government agencies and laid off nearly 300,000 federal employees.

"I think logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized," Musk said. Trump has also expressed support for privatization.

Respondents to Thursday's poll expressed support for a number of steps that could strengthen the U.S. Postal Service's finances, including 77% who backed making office supplies available for purchase in post offices, 72% who supported the selling of hunting and fishing licenses, and 60% who supported making magazines and newspapers available for purchase.

"The survey results indicate that the outlook is good in our ongoing fight against privatizers trying to sell off our public Postal Service for profit," said the APWU. "We should remain steady in our message—the U.S. Mail Is Not for Sale!"

Trump's NOAA Will Stop Tracking Costliest Climate Disasters

"Their philosophy is, if we ignore it, it's not a problem," said one meteorologist.


Damaged structures and homes are seen after the Palisades fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on January 11, 2025.
(Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

Julia Conley
May 08, 2025
COPMMON DREAMS

On the heels of the news that higher-than-average temperatures continued globally in April, one of the United States' top science agencies announced Thursday that it will no longer update a database that tracks climate disasters that cause billions of dollars in damage.

As of Thursday, the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) website was replaced with a message saying there have been no such events in 2025 through April 8.

That flies in the face of an analysis by the National Centers for Environmental Information, which has maintained the database and said before it was taken down that six to eight billion-dollar climate disasters have happened so far this year, including the wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles in January and caused an estimated $150 billion in damage.

The World Weather Attribution said in late January that planetary heating, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, caused weather conditions in Southern California that made the fires 35% more likely.

Hundreds of people have been laid off from NOAA in recent weeks as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, has pushed to slash government spending, and those who have lost their jobs include scientists who helped maintain the database.

NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster toldThe Washington Post that in addition to staff changes, "evolving priorities" were also partially behind the retiring of the database, which will now show disasters that occurred only between 1980-2024.

Between 2020-24, the number of billion-dollar disasters averaged 23 per year, compared to just a few per year in the 1980s.

"This Trump administration move is the dumbest magic trick possible: covering their eyes and pretending the problem will go away if they just stop counting the costs. Households across the country already have to count these costs at their kitchen table as they budget for higher insurance costs and home repairs. Families and retirees dipping into their savings or going bankrupt to recover from wildfires and hurricanes know what disasters cost," said Carly Fabian, senior insurance policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program. "Hiding the national tallies will only undermine our ability to prepare and respond to the climate crisis. Deleting the data will exacerbate the devastating delays in acting to slow climate change, and the impacts it is having on property insurance and housing costs."

NOAA's "evolving priorities" have also included decommissioning other datasets, including one tracking marine environments and one tracking ocean currents.

Without NOAA's Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, Jeremy Porter, co-founder of the climate risk financial modeling firm First Street, toldCNN that "replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."

"What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and nonpublic data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," he said.

Chris Gloninger, a meteorologist who resigned from an Iowa news station after receiving threats for his frank, science-based coverage of climate disasters, said the retiring of the database suggests the Trump administration is "okay with spending billions of dollars on disasters."




"Every dollar that we spend on mitigation or adaptation saves $13 in recovery costs," said Gloninger. "But their philosophy is, if we ignore it, it's not a problem."

NAKBA 2.0

'Assault on Children': UNRWA Condemns Israeli Raids on East Jerusalem Schools

"Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."


Israeli security forces raid an UNWRA school in the Shu'fat refugee camp in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, Palestine on May 8, 2025.
(Photo: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
May 08, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Israeli occupation forces enforced a ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Thursday by storming three schools in East Jerusalem, terrorizing children and staff as they shuttered the facilities and drawing condemnation from human rights defenders.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, heavily armed Israeli security forces raided the schools in the Shu'fat refugee camp in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, detaining one UNRWA employee and forcing around 550 children out of their classrooms as the invaders closed the facilities.

"As a result, UNRWA was forced to evacuate all children across the six schools it runs in East Jerusalem," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said. "Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."




"Storming schools and forcing them shut is a blatant disregard of international law," Lazzarini added. "These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations. By enforcing closure orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities are denying Palestinian children their basic right to learn. UNRWA schools must continue to be open to safeguard an entire generation of children."

The International Court of Justice—which is also weighing a genocide case against Israel over the U.S.-backed Gaza onslaught—is considering whether the Israeli government's ban on UNRWA violates international law.

Hundreds of UNRWA staffers and their relatives have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. Israel has bombed many UNRWA schools-turned-shelters in Gaza, including a Tuesday "double-tap" airstrike on school in the al-Bureij refugee camp that killed at least 30 of the more than 2,000 people sheltering there.

UNRWA officials also accuse Israeli forces of torturing kidnapped agency workers in a bid to elicit false confessions that they took part in the October 7, 2023 attack. UNRWA and much of the international community have condemned such allegations as baseless.

In the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall in January. Israel says the invasion is targeting resistance fighters largely based in West Bank refugee camps. However, tens of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced by the offensive, which has killed numerous civilians.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 900 Palestinians including nearly 200 children have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023. Attacks by Israeli settler-colonists, sometimes aided by Israeli troops, have also killed, wounded, displaced, and terrorized West Bank residents as Israel's far-right government forges ahead with plans to steal more land from Palestinians, ethnically cleanse them, and open the door to further Israeli colonization.

Women, Children, and Journalists Among Nearly 100 Killed in Gaza Wednesday

"You haven't bombed any fighters or any weapons," said a restaurant owner in a neighborhood that was struck, addressing Israel. "You've only hit civilians."


Relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on Al-Wehda Street, Gaza City mourn their loss during a funeral ceremony in Gaza on May 7, 2025.
(Photo: Saeed Mohammed/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
May 07, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
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"Death follows families in Gaza wherever they go," said the commissioner-general of a United Nations agency that has long provided aid and services to Palestinians in the enclave on Wednesday, as it was reported that nearly 100 people had been killed in numerous Israeli strikes across Gaza over the past day.

News outlets cataloged the latest deaths in attacks on restaurants, markets, and schools, with women, children, and two journalists who had covered Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza among those killed.

At least 33 people were killed in Gaza City when an Israeli reconnaissance drone fired two missiles—one inside a restaurant that had served as a gathering place for residents recently and one at a busy intersection.

Freelance journalist Yahya Sobeih was among those killed—shortly after he had posted on Instagram about the birth of his new baby.

The owner of Palmyra restaurant on al-Wehda Street, Abu Saleh Abdu, told the BBC that many children and elderly people had been killed in the blasts. He was seen in a video angrily addressing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

"What do [you] want to achieve?" he said. "You haven't bombed any fighters or any weapons. You've only hit civilians."

Israel and its allies including its top international military funder, the U.S., have persistently claimed the IDF is targeting Hamas and has inadvertently killed children, women, aid workers, and healthcare providers—but remarks from Israeli officials have pointed to an overall goal of targeting all Palestinians regardless of whether they are Hamas members or not.

"There is no reason to believe that doubling down on military strategies, which, for a year and eight months, have not led to a durable resolution, including the release of all hostages, will now succeed."

Other attacks over the past day include a strike at al-Karama school in the Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, which killed at least 13 people; a strike on a home in Jabalia in which three people were killed; a bombing of a home in Khan Younis, which killed eight people including a father and his children; and a strike on a tent shelter in Deir el-Balah, which killed three people including a child.

At Al Jazeera, Hani Mahmoud reported that Palestinians—who are also facing increasing levels of acute malnutrition two months into a total humanitarian aid blockade—have been "scrambling for cover" across Gaza.

"We have confirmed that a farmer was killed in the eastern part of Khan Younis, in Abasan, as he was trying to harvest what he managed to plant in the past couple of months, making up for the lack of food," Mahmoud said. "This is one of the elements that we have been seeing quite visibly. Not only are they suffering on a daily basis because of the enforced starvation and dehydration, they [also] try to plant their own food, but they are deprived, and their abilities to do so are [thwarted] by the ongoing attacks."

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that 19 months into Israel's bombardment of Gaza, "no place is safe. No one is spared."

"In Gaza, day after day, inaction and indifference are normalizing dehumanization and overlooking crimes livestreamed under our eyes: families bombed, children burned alive, children starved," said Lazzarini. "Enough. Humanity must prevail before losing all moral compass."

The bloodshed on Wednesday followed an attack on a school-turned-shelter in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Tuesday. The Palestinian Civil Defense released an updated death toll in that attack Tuesday night, saying at least 30 people had been killed and dozens had been wounded.

Israel is ramping up its attacks as officials have approved a plan to seize Gaza, forcibly displace Palestinians to the southern part of the enclave, and enlist private U.S. security companies to help it take control of aid distribution.

On Wednesday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the plan fuels concerns that Israel's true intention is to make life for Palestinians "increasingly incompatible with their continued existence in Gaza."


"There is no reason to believe that doubling down on military strategies, which, for a year and eight months, have not led to a durable resolution, including the release of all hostages, will now succeed," said Türk.

Expanding Israel's attacks on Gaza "will almost certainly cause further mass displacement, more deaths and injuries of innocent civilians, and the destruction of Gaza's little remaining infrastructure," he said.

Independent human rights experts appointed by the U.N. said countries including the U.S. face a "defining choice... to end the violence or bear witness to the annihilation of the Palestinian population in Gaza—an outcome with irreversible consequences for our shared humanity and multilateral order."

"The world is watching. Will member states live up to their obligations and intervene to stop the slaughter, hunger, and disease, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity that are perpetrated daily in complete impunity?" asked the experts. "International norms were established precisely to prevent such horrors. Yet, as millions protest globally for justice and humanity, their cries are muted. This situation conveys a deadly message: Palestinian lives are dispensable, and international law, if unenforced, is meaningless."

"States must act swiftly to end the unfolding genocide," they said, "dismantle apartheid, and secure a future in which Palestinians and Israelis coexist in freedom and dignity."

​'Civilized People Do Not Starve Children to Death': Sanders Rips US-Backed Israel's 68-Day Gaza Aid Blockade

"What we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities," the senator said, calling for an end to U.S. complicity in the humanitarian disaster.



Displaced Palestinians, including children, wait with empty pots to receive food distributed by humanitarian organizations at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in the northern Gaza Strip on May 7, 2025.
(Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
May 08, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

"Today marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel."

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) not only highlighted those conditions in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday but also called out the fact that the worsening humanitarian crisis "gets very little discussion here in the nation's capital or in the halls of Congress," even though Israel has spent the past 19 months destroying Gaza with armed and diplomatic support from the United States.

"Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities," Sanders pointed out, echoing the U.S. nonprofit World Central Kitchen, which said Wednesday that it "no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread," but "our trucks—loaded with food and supplies—are waiting in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, ready to enter Gaza."

The senator took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Palestinian territory, and key members of his administration.

"There is no ambiguity here: Netanyahu's extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon," Sanders declared. "Defense Minister Israel Katz said, 'Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.'"

"The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu's destruction of the Palestinian people."

Noting that Israel's actions run afoul of U.S. and international law, Sanders said: "Starving children to death as a weapon of war is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death. What is going on in Gaza is a war crime, committed openly and in broad daylight, and continuing every single day."

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli assault on Gaza has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians. According to local officials, at least 57 Palestinians have died from malnutrition and a lack of adequate medical care. Many more are struggling to find food and water, particularly since Israel ramped up its blockade on March 2.

"With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government," said Sanders. "Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink, or wash with, or cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza."

Families in Gaza "are now surviving on scarce canned goods," and "the starvation hits children hardest," the senator continued. "With no infant formula, and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death."

"What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare," one that "will be a permanent stain on the world's collective conscience," he said. "History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this ongoing atrocity."



Sanders has moved to block some U.S. weapons sales under both the Biden and second Trump administrations, but his efforts have not garnered enough support in Congress to succeed. Still, people across the United States and around the world have condemned the Israeli assault on Gaza as genocide—and Israel faces a case on the subject at the International Court of Justice.

The senator spotlighted Israel's latest plan for Gaza, Operation Gideon's Chariots, which involves "conquering" and indefinitely occupying the territory, and ethnically cleansing the region of its Palestinian inhabitants, who would be force into the south.

"This would be a terrible tragedy, no matter where in the world it was happening or why it was happening—whatever the causes of it might be. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the United States government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster," he said.

"It didn't just happen," Sanders emphasized. "Last year alone, the United States provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved $12 billion more in bombs and weapons."

For months, U.S. President Donald Trump "has offered blanket support for Netanyahu," the senator said. "More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinian people will be driven—forcibly expelled—from their homeland, and the United States will redevelop it into what Trump calls 'the Riviera of the Middle East,' a playground for billionaires."

Citing unnamed sources, Reutersreported Wednesday that "the United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza," sparking global criticism and comparisons to the U.S. misadventures in Iraq in the early 2000s.



"This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death," Sanders detailed. "And the U.S. president is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people."

"Given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate: Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza?" the senator bellowed. "You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu's war and starving children in Gaza is a good idea. I'd love to hear it."

Sanders then made the case that the U.S. Senate isn't having that debate "because we have a corrupt campaign finance system" that allows organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to set the agenda in Washington, D.C. He pointed to AIPAC and its super political action committee spending over $100 million in the latest election cycle.

"And the fact is that, if you are a member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu's war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you're defeated," he said. "Sadly, I must confess, that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu's war crimes, but will do or say very little publicly about it."

"The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu's destruction of the Palestinian people. We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu's war machine," he concluded. "We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza—not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there, but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people."

Let Them Die Alone, and Hungry

Osama Al-Raqab, 6, is one of tens of thousands of Gazan children slowly starving.
Screenshot from NBC

OPINION
Abby Zimet
May 06, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


"Drunk on impunity," Israel has grandiosely labeled its latest genocidal move "Operation Gideon's Chariots" wherein, moving from siege to seizure, it plans the bloody conquest, ethnic cleansing, and permanent recolonization of Gaza, using the rhetoric of holy war to justify unholy mass destruction - this, even as many of the Palestinian children who've somehow survived their savage 18 months of carnage now slowly starve to death. "We are complicit," says one angry, grieving doctor. "It is an abomination."

Having gotten away with so many atrocities while the international community looks away, Israel just unveiled the latest escalation of its illegal collective punishment of Gazans by finally declaring out loud, "We are occupying Gaza to stay." Unanimously approved by Netanyahu's far-right Security Cabinet, the new "conquering of Gaza" formalizes Israel's plan for the indefinite occupation, forced expulsion and incorporation into "sanitized" Israeli zones of an already long-besieged civilian population "for its own protection." The expansion of an onslaught that has left more than 185,000 Gazans dead, wounded, or missing and millions homeless, hungry, maimed and traumatized is being ludicrously framed as a final mission to dismantle Hamas and retrieve hostages, even though Israel repeatedly failed at each before breaking a ceasefire that would have accomplished both.

"Gideon’s Chariots will begin with great force and will not end until all its objectives are achieved," Israel thundered, again virtually ignoring the fact that permanent occupation, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing violate international law. "No more going in and out - this is a war for victory," said apartheid Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who urged Israelis embrace, not fear the word "occupation...A people that wants to live must occupy its land." But the name Gideon's Chariots, Merkavot Gideon, invoking the righteous Biblical warrior who led a chosen few to annihilate an ancient Arab people, "layers this symbolism with menace," blending the concepts of divine vengeance with state-sanctioned ethnic violence, the "mythic instruments of war (with) the Israeli Merkava tanks that have long razed homes and lives in Gaza and the West Bank."

Sicker, darker undercurrents reportedly surfaced during a Cabinet meeting rife with genocidal banter. After a minister leered that Gazans should "die with the Philistines," Gaza's ancient inhabitants, Netanyahu refuted the idea with, "No. We don’t want to die with them. We want them to die alone." Ominously, the proposal also calls for (now-banned) international aid groups to be replaced with private U.S. military contractors, aka mercenaries, distributing aid at Israeli-designated relief "hubs," which critics call "not an aid plan but an aid denial plan" that flagrantly violates international principles that prohibit an occupier from exploiting humanitarian needs to achieve military or political objectives. Gazan officials angrily rejected the idea as "perpetuation of a malicious policy of siege and starvation...The Occupation cannot be a humanitarian mediator (when) it is the source and instrument of the tragedy."

Any illusion of Israel abruptly becoming a merciful presence in Palestinian lives was shattered Tuesday when far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich proclaimed at a West Bank conference, “Gaza will be entirely destroyed." He added Gazan civilians "will start to leave in great numbers (to) third countries," with hopes the territory would be formally annexed "during the current government’s term." He did not mention such annexation or any acquisition of land by military force is forbidden as a founding principle of international law, including the UN charter. Citing a 2024 report by Amnesty International titled You Feel You Are Subhuman, Dalal Yassine writes that Gaza most bitterly represents the end of humanitarian law: "The past 19 months of genocide have not only demonstrated the double standard imposed on Palestinians in Gaza, but also that there is no standard at all."

And as it's been all along, the U.S. remains complicit. Israel will not act until after an upcoming trip by Trump, who's voiced no objections - his gold-plated hotel beckons - and as usual gets it all wrong, blaming Hamas for treating Gazans "badly." "People are starving, and we’re going to help them get food," he yammered. "Hamas is making it impossible (by) taking everything that’s brought in." This week, our complicity came into harsher, shocking focus when nine former Biden officials admitted its months-long claims of "working tirelessly" for a ceasefire - a phrase used by Biden, Harris, even AOC, and derided by skeptics as "not a thing" - were all a lie. No demands were made - a moral and political crime re-enforced by a 2024 memo finding "insufficient evidence" linking U.S. arms to rights violations or Israel to blocked aid. One critic: "The lack of concern about Palestinian lives is palpable."

Still, the killing goes on, with about half the dead women and children. Implausibly, Israeli forces grow ever more savage: Drones often fire on civil defense teams trying to retrieve the wounded under debris, soldiers just executed 15 Palestine Red Crescent workers, their hands and feet bound, before burying them and their ambulances in the sand; hundreds of doctors, aid workers and journalists have been killed. Last month, they included Ahmad Mansour, burned alive in a media tent, and Fatima Hassouna, a "self-made fighter" colleagues called "the Eye of Gaza," for whom the camera was a weapon to "preserve a voice, tell a story." She died with six siblings, just before her wedding, a day after it was announced a film featuring her, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival. "If I die, I want a resounding death," she wrote last year. "Fatima planned for joy," said a friend. "Despite the war, she insisted on dreaming."

With Israeli power left untethered, Arab nations largely silent and international rules of law ignored, what's left to protect Gazan lives are mere small gestures. Hundreds of Israelis attend silent vigils to hold images of dead Palestinian children; Artists Against Apartheid and other groups protested in D.C. bearing the names of the dead and installing 17,000 pairs of children's shoes as a searing memorial; Swedish Television announced an initiative to convert the late Pope Francis’s car into a mobile clinic for Gazan children, fulfilling his final wish; World Central Kitchen barely manages to keep open its mobile bakery, the last bakery in Gaza: "We are now near (the) limits of what is possible." Still, desperate hunger mounts. Most Gazans face "acute levels of food insecurity," with more and more children dying from "starvation-related complications," a now-common term that should not exist.

Aid officials say close to 300,000 children are on the brink of starvation; about a third of those under two suffer from "acute malnutrition," with the rate swiftly climbing; more than 3,500 under five face imminent death from starvation; at least 27 have died from malnutrition, and at least several more die each day, often newborns of mothers who cannot produce milk. To date, the Israeli onslaught has directly killed over 15,000 children; for every direct death, says The Lancet medical journal, there are up to four indirect deaths from hunger, disease, the collapse of small bodies' immunity and a country's once-flourishing healthcare system. If they can, sunken-cheeked children who've lost half their body weight scavenge in mountains of trash for anything to fill their stomachs alongside their frantic parents: "I don’t want my child to die hungry." One mother: "As people, we are almost dead."

The stories and images horrify: Stick-thin, Auschwitz-like limbs protrude, ribs jut from concave chests, eyes grow wide and glazed. Once vibrant, they lie in bed, skin on bone, too weak to walk, stand, turn, lift their head, eventually breathe. An emaciated six-year-old weighing half what he should writhes on a bed, pleading, "I want to leave." A four-month-old, six-pound girl died of malnutrition, blood acidity, liver and kidney failure after her hair and nails fell out. Of newborn twin girls, one died eight days later. A father's father's infant son Abdelaziz died hours after his severely malnourished mother gave birth to him; hospital staff hooked Abdelaziz, premature and gasping, to a ventilator; it stopped a few hours later when the hospital ran out of fuel, and he died "immediately." "I am losing my son before my eyes," says one mother. "In these beds, we are waiting for them to die one by one."

Each day, says Tareq Hailat of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, up to ten sick children in Gaza need urgent medical evacuation, but, "It's just not happening." Each one, he stresses, has a story: "They aren't just a number." Among the handful his group managed to get out was 6-year-old Fadi al-Zant from Gaza City, who had cystic fibrosis; he was also starving. When his mother couldn't find food or medication, Fadi's weight dropped from 66 to 26 pounds and he became too weak to walk, he was miraculously evacuated to first Egypt, then New York. Once the media began following his story, Fadi became "the face of starvation in Gaza." But he was a rare, blessed exception. "We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza," says Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO. "We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit. As a physician, I am angry. It is an abomination."

There are so many. Drop Site Newsposted video of the distraught mother of four-month-old Yousef al-Najjar as he lay curled on a hospital bed, small fists flailing, suffering from malnutrition and dehydration. He weighed just 3.3 pounds, one fourth of what he should have weighed. His young mother lamented: He has had spasms trying to breathe, his entire ribcage sticks out, she has never experienced this before, she doesn't know each morning if he's survived: "The woman you see before you is begging for money to feed her children." She held him in her arms, then repeatedly lofted him into the unlistening air, arms straight before her, up and down, up and down, almost weightless. "Why is this happening to us?" she cried. "I swear to God, it's wrong what is happening to us." On Monday, Yousef died from malnutrition, and Israel. May his memory be for a blessing.

Update: More horrors: "Absolute savagery."

Bonkers': US, Israel Reportedly Discuss US-Led Administration in Gaza 

"Right, because the U.S. occupation of Iraq is certainly the best-case scenario for Gaza today," one critic quipped.

U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on April 7, 2025.
(Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
May 07, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


Reutersreported Wednesday that "the United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza, according to five people familiar with the matter," sparking widespread criticism across the globe.

Responses to the reporting on social media included: "Bonkers." "Madness." "Crazy and dangerous idea, besides being illegal."


Under both the Biden and Trump administrations, the U.S. government has provided armed and diplomatic support to Israel in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. The Israeli assault over the past 19 months has killed at least 52,653 Palestinians, with thousands more missing. Survivors have been repeatedly displaced and are struggling to find food thanks to an aid blockade.

According to Reuters, other unnamed nations "would be invited to take part" in the provisional U.S.-led administration, which "would draw on Palestinian technocrats but would exclude Islamist group Hamas and the Palestinian Authority."

As the news agency detailed:
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.

Several critics of the reported "high-level" talks also cited the United States' misadventures in Iraq in the early 2000s.



"This would be a rerun of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, but in a war-ravaged territory that isn't even a sovereign state and in which no American official has been allowed to set foot for two decades," said Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist. "So bonkers, in fact, that whoever is floating this idea for Gaza is literally comparing it to the CPA in Iraq, an entity which two decades later remains a byword for waste, corruption, and incompetence."


Alexander Langlois, a contributing fellow at the foreign policy think tank Defense Priorities, quipped: "Right, because the U.S. occupation of Iraq is certainly the best-case scenario for Gaza today. Because that went so well the first time. It's clear Washington has learned nothing, in no small part because it refuses to actually reflect on such failures."

Journalist Bobby Ghosh said, "I'm guessing Paul Bremer has pulled on his boots and is waiting by the phone," a reference to the American diplomat who led the CPA in Iraq.



While the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive of the International Criminal Court whose government also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over conduct in Gaza—declined to comment, a spokesperson for U.S. State Department sent Reuters a statement that did not address the news agency's questions.

"We want peace, and the immediate release of the hostages," the U.S. spokesperson said, referring to captives taken by Palestinian militants in October 2023. "The pillars of our approach remain resolute: stand with Israel, stand for peace."

Earlier this week, Netanyahu's Security Cabinet unanimously approved Operation Gideon's Chariots, a plan that involves "conquering" Gaza, occupying the Palestinian territory, and forcibly expelling its residents to the southern part of the strip.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Ze'ev Elkin suggested Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump would not object to the plan, claiming, "I don't feel that there is pressure on us from Trump and his administration—they understand exactly what is happening here."

Trump in February proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza. He said that "we'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings—level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area."

In response to Reuters' Wednesday reporting, University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald nodded to those remarks, saying, "‪One step closer to Trump's dream of bulldozing Gaza to build Trump resorts." ‪

Some critics connected the potential plan for Gaza to the Trump administration's other international endeavors. U.K.-based Jewish Voice for Labour‪ said: "First Canada, then Greenland, now Palestine. This is what 21st-century imperialism looks like."

Johns Hopkins University historian Eugene Finkel—who was born in Ukraine and grew up in Israel—sarcastically said, "Because the U.S. does state-building, governance of places destroyed by U.S. weapons, and reconstruction even more effectively than Israel does conflict resolution."

"I was skeptical it was possible to produce something more unhinged than Trump's peace plans for Ukraine," Finkel added, "but hey, I've underestimated them."

MAKE AMERIKA WHITE AGAIN

While Locking Out Most Refugees, Trump Admin Poised to Resettle Group of White Afrikaners in US

"Thousands of refugees from across the globe remain stranded in limbo despite being fully vetted and approved for travel," said one refugee advocate.


White South Africans supporting U.S. President Donald Trump and South African and U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk gather in front of the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa on February 15, 2025 for a demonstration.
(Photo: Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
May 09, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


While the Trump administration has largely halted refugee resettlement in the United States, in the coming days the U.S. government is gearing up to welcome a group of Afrikaners whom officials have determined are refugees.

A group of 54 Afrikaners, white South Africans largely descended from Dutch settlers, have been granted refugee status and are slated to arrive in the U.S. on Monday, according toNPR, which cited three unnamed sources. There will reportedly be a press conference featuring high level officials from the U.S. Department of State and Department of Homeland Security to welcome them at the airport, which one unnamed source told the outlet would be unusual.

In February, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order announcing that the U.S. would "promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation."

Trump was referring to a law passed into South Africa earlier this year, allowing the government to take land under set circumstances, when it is not being used or when it would be in the public interest to redistribute the land. The law is meant to help rectify the economic exclusion that Black South Africans faced during apartheid. In February, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the government "has not confiscated any land."

Billionaire Elon Musk, who has played a core role in the Trump administration's efforts to slash government spending and personnel and is South African-born, has accused the government of South Africa of having "openly racist ownership laws."

According to a memo first obtained by the outlet The Lever, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement sought approval from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the "mobilization of immediate support for vulnerable incoming Afrikaner refugees," including "housing, health services, and resettlement support upon their arrival." Kennedy greenlit the request.

The Lever reporter who broke the story told NPR that officials made the request because the Trump administration has restricted the usual procedures and channels for assisting refugees.

The Lever also reported that the Office of Refugee Resettlement is planning tap funds from the Preferred Communities program in order to resettle the Afrikaners, a program that's reserved to support particularly vulnerable populations.

Sources who serve refugees in the United States indicated they are ready to help the incoming Afrikaners, but drew a contrast between the administration's readiness to accept this group while other refugee populations have been left stranded due to White House actions.

HIAS, one agency that contracts with the U.S. government to resettle refugees, is committed to welcoming Afrikaners, the organization's president, Mark Hetfield, told the Times. However, "we are profoundly disturbed that the administration has slammed the door in the face of thousands of other refugees approved by [the Department of Homeland Security] months ago, notwithstanding courts ordering the White House to let many of them in."

"Thousands of refugees from across the globe remain stranded in limbo despite being fully vetted and approved for travel, including Afghan allies, religious minorities, and other populations facing extreme violence and persecution," Timothy Young, a spokesperson for Global Refuge, which also supports refugees entering the U.S., told the Times. "We hope this development reflects a broader readiness to uphold the promise of protection for all refugees who meet longstanding legal standards, regardless of their country of origin."

Prior to Trump's first term in office, refugee resettlement generally took 18 to 24 months, according to the American Immigration Council. The Afrikaners set to arrive only had to wait three months, the Times reported. U.S. officials looked at over 8,000 requests from Afrikaners expressing interest in being resettled in the United States, also per the Times.