Stephen Miller boasts about 'rich resources' in nation targeted by Trump for regime change

Alexander Willis
September 6, 2025 

RAW STORY


Stephen Miller (Screenshot)

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller couldn’t help but note Venezuela’s “rich resources and reserves” Saturday when speaking to a reporter in Washington, D.C., his comments made amid the Trump administration’s growing fixation on enacting regime change in the South American nation.

“It is a drug cartel that is running Venezuela; it is not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela,” Miller said, fielding questions from reporters. “The people of Venezuela have been suffering and struggling under the reality of a nation that is so rich in resources, so rich in reserves, that is run by (Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro, the head of the cartel.”

Tensions between the United States and Venezuela have risen in recent weeks, especially after the deadly U.S. precision strike this week on a supposed drug vessel heading toward American shores, an execution-style strike that has widely been condemned as amounting to murder.

President Donald Trump escalated tensions further when on Friday, he indicated that the United States would shoot down Venezuelan jets were they to fly over American naval ships, with at least eight warships and one submarine currently deployed off of Venezuela's coast.

“Many Americans may not realize that the drugs killing their kids are coming from Maduro; also, the criminal aliens killing their kids are coming from Maduro,” Miller continued.

“So he's sending his drugs, he is sending his killers, his assassins into our communities, and he's working directly with other designated foreign terrorist organizations like the [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], and all the Mexican drug cartels, so it's one continuous loop.”

Maduro was indicted by the Justice Department on narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges in 2020, with the Trump administration issuing a $50 million bounty for his capture.

Given the Trump administration’s designation of drug cartels as terrorists, which permits the administration to carry out execution-style strikes on drug traffickers, a Trump official has admitted that Trump is keeping the idea of assassinating Maduro via strike “as an option.” Trump officials have also spoken favorably about the idea of enacting regime change in Venezuela.

“Maduro is an indicted drug trafficker, a fugitive from justice in America,” Miller said.

Watch the video below or use this link.

The GOP CDC assault began long before RFK's Senate car crash

The Conversation
September 5, 2025 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before a Senate Finance Committee hearing. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Jordan Miller, Teaching Professor of Public Health, Arizona State University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), long considered the nation’s — if not the world’s — premier public health organization, is mired in a crisis that not only threatens Americans’ health but also its very survival as a leading public health institution.

The degree of this crisis was on full display during Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Sept. 4, 2025, testimony before the U.S. Senate.

In the hearing, Kennedy openly criticized CDC professionals’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying “the people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.”

Kennedy’s hearing came on the heels of a contentious week in which Kennedy fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, spurring 12 members of the Senate Finance Committee — 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders — to call on Kennedy to resign from his position.

At least four top CDC leaders resigned following Monarez’s ouster, citing pressure from Kennedy to depart from recommendations based on sound scientific evidence.


I am a teaching professor and public health professional. Like many of my colleagues, the disruption happening at the CDC in recent months has left me scrambling to find alternate credible sources of health information and feeling deeply concerned for the future of public health.

The CDC’s unraveling

These leadership shakeups come on the heels of months of targeted actions aimed at unraveling the CDC’s structure, function and leadership as it has existed for decades.

The turmoil began almost as soon as President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, when his administration enacted sweeping cuts to the CDC’s workforce that health experts broadly agree jeopardized its ability to respond to emerging health threats.

Trump used executive orders to limit CDC employees’ communication with the public and other external agencies, like the World Health Organization.

Within weeks, he ordered as much as 10 percent of the overall workforce to be cut.

Soon after, Kennedy — who was newly appointed by Trump — began undoing long-standing CDC institutions, like the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replacing all 17 of its members in a move that was widely denounced by health experts.

Critics pointed to a lack of qualifications for the new committee members, with more than half never having published research on vaccinations and many having predetermined hostility toward vaccines.

In June, more than 20 authoritative organizations, including the National Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, expressed serious concerns for the health impacts of overhauling the advisory committee.

Monarez’s removal

Public health leaders had cheered the July confirmation of Monarez as the CDC’s new director, seeing her nomination as a welcome relief to those who value evidence-based practice in public health. Monarez is an accomplished scientist and career public servant.

Many viewed her as a potential voice of scientific wisdom amid untrained officials appointed by Trump, who has a track record of policies that undermine public health and science.

In her role as acting director, to which she was appointed in January, Monarez had quietly presided over the wave of cuts to the CDC workforce and other moves that drastically reshaped the agency and weakened the country’s capacity to steward the nation’s health.

Yet Monarez had “red lines” that she would not cross: She would not fire CDC leadership, and she would not endorse vaccine policies that ran contrary to scientifically supported recommendations.

According to Monarez, Kennedy asked her to do both in an Aug. 27 meeting. When she refused, he asked her to resign.

Her lawyers pushed back, arguing that only the president had the authority to remove her, stating: “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”

Ultimately, the White House made her dismissal official later that evening.

Agency in turmoil

Further exemplifying and deepening the crisis at the agency, on Aug. 8, a gunman who had expressed anger over COVID-19 vaccinations opened fire on CDC headquarters, killing a police officer.

Many health workers attributed this directly to misinformation spread by Kennedy. The shooting amplified tensions and made tangible the sense of threat under which the CDC has been operating over the tumultuous months since Trump’s second term began. One employee stated that “the CDC is crumbling.”

Public health experts, including former CDC directors, are sounding the alarm, speaking out about the precariousness of the agency’s position. Some are questioning whether the CDC can even survive.

Crisis of trust


Even before the most recent shock waves, Americans said they were losing trust and confidence in CDC guidance: In April, 44 percent of U.S. adults polled said that they will place less trust in CDC recommendations under the new leadership. This would undoubtedly undermine the U.S. response if the country faces another public health challenge requiring a rapid, coordinated response, like COVID-19.

In addition to installing new members on the vaccine advisory committee, Kennedy abruptly changed the recommendations for flu and COVID-19 vaccines without input from the CDC or the vaccine advisory committee, and contrary to data presented by CDC scientists.

Public health professionals and advocates are now warning the public that vaccine recommendations coming from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices may not be trustworthy. They point to the lack of credibility in the review process for the new committee, the fact that members have made statements contrary to scientific evidence in the past, and failure to apply an evidence-to-recommendations framework as compromising factors. Critics of the committee even describe a lack of basic understanding of the science behind vaccines.

Health impacts are being felt in real time, with health care providers reporting confusion among parents as a result of the conflicting vaccine recommendations. Now, those who want to be vaccinated are facing barriers to access, with major retailers placing new limits on vaccine access in the face of federal pressure. This as vaccination rates were already declining, largely due to misinformation.

The end result is an environment in which the credibility of the CDC is in question because people are unsure whether recommendations made in the CDC’s name are coming from the science and scientists or from the politicians who are in charge.

Filling the gaps

Reputable organizations are working to fill the void created by the CDC’s precariousness and the fact that recommendations are now being made based on political will, rather than scientific evidence.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Gynecology have both released recommended vaccination schedules that, for the first time, diverge from CDC recommendations.

And medical organizations are discussing strategies that include giving more weight to their recommendations than the CDC’s and creating pathways for clinicians to obtain vaccines directly from manufacturers. These measures would create workarounds to compensate for CDC leadership voids.

Some states, including California, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico, are establishing their own guidance regarding vaccinations. Public health scientists and physicians are attempting to preserve data and surveillance systems that the Trump administration has been removing. But independent organizations may not be able to sustain this work without federal funding.

What’s at stake

As part of its crucial work in every facet of public health, the CDC oversees larger-scale operations, both nationally and globally, that cannot simply be handed off to states or individual organizations. Some public health responses — such as to infectious diseases and foodborne illnesses — must be coordinated at the national level in order to be effective, since health risks are shared across state borders.

In a health information space that is awash with misinformation, having accurate, reliable health statistics and evidence-based guidelines is essential for public health educators like me to know what information to share and how to design effective health programs. Doctors and other clinicians rely on disease tracking to know how best to approach treating patients presenting with infections. The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the importance of laboratory science, a unified emergency response and rapid distribution of effective vaccines to the public.

One of the strengths of the American system of governance is its ability to approach challenges – including public health – in a coordinated way, having a federal level of cooperation that unifies state-level efforts.

The CDC has been the nation’s preeminent public health institution for more than eight decades as a result of its vast reach and unparalleled expertise. Right now, it’s all sitting at a precarious edge.

‘Serious misinterpretation’: Analysis finds right-wing SCOTUS justice’s book twists law and Bible

Matthew Chapman
September 5, 2025 
RAW STORY


FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court justices pose for their group portrait at the Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., October 7, 2022. Seated (L-R): Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Elena Kagan. Standing (L-R): Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett's book manages not only to misinterpret the law, but also the Bible, wrote Steven Lubet in a scathing analysis for Slate published Friday.

Barrett's new book has come under fire for other controversies, including a passage in which she complains that overturning Roe v. Wade spoiled her vacation.

In one passage of the book, Barrett contrasted the role of American judges with that of the Biblical King Solomon, who in one famous story was presented with two women both claiming to be the mother of one infant. Solomon ordered the baby to be divided in half, knowing that the false mother would accept this and the true mother would relinquish custody rather than see it killed.

"To Barrett, 'Solomon’s wisdom came from within,' rather than from 'sources like laws passed by a legislature or precedents set by other judges,'" wrote Lubet. "His authority was 'bounded by nothing more than his own judgment.' In contrast, Barrett says, American judges, including Supreme Court justices, must apply the rules found 'in the Constitution and legislation,' without consideration of their personal values, no matter how Solomonic they may seem."

But this, Lubet wrote, is a "serious misinterpretation" of the Bible story.

"Solomon was neither making a moral judgment nor applying his own understanding of right and wrong. Instead, he was reaching a purely factual determination while carefully adhering to the background law," wrote Lubet. "The pure legal principle in the dispute, from which Solomon never strayed, was that the true mother must be awarded custody of the child. We might call that biblical common law, a rule beyond question. Thus, Solomon never considered the best interest of the child or the women’s respective nurturing abilities ... Solomon’s sole objective was to decide which woman was the actual mother and which was the mother of another boy, one who had passed away — his goal was not to invoke his personal concept of justice."

"Solomon then figured out how to expose the liar," wrote Lubet. "His threat to divide the baby was a credibility test, the equivalent of high-stakes cross-examination. It may well have been a bluff. The true mother’s immediate outcry was demeanor evidence, which allowed Solomon to render an accurate verdict, conforming to the underlying law."

That Barrett misunderstands this story is incredibly revealing, Lubet argued, because what she misinterpreted as Solomon rendering a personal belief was actually just him engaging in fact-finding — a standard and important part of any judge's ability to apply the law, including in the American legal system.

"Apart from three years as an associate at a law firm, she has spent her whole career in academia or appellate courts. It is entirely possible that she has never examined a witness at trial," wrote Lubet. "Accurate fact finding, however, is the essential first step in any judicial system, a process the justice mentions not at all." By contrast, "Justices Sonia Sotomayor, a former prosecutor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former public defender, would not have made the same mistake. Their years of experience in the trial courts surely taught them that there is more to justice than a review of the appellate record."

"Like her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett claims to be a strict textualist," Lubet concluded. "It is therefore unsettling that even the Bible is not sacrosanct when she wants to make a point."

KULTURKAMPF

Artists facing '80% empty seats' or more at Kennedy Center after Trump takeover: report

Tom Boggioni
September 6, 2025 

RAW STORY

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while he poses for a picture at the presidential box at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

The death spiral is continuing for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts since Donald Trump’s takeover with ticket sales in free-fall, artist cancellations and now artists who are showing up are facing the prospect of rows upon rows of empty seats.

According to a new report from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe, “Audiences are ‘voting with their feet to skip out’ on shows that would once have been packed,” with the popular Stuttgart Ballet faced with poor ticket sales that indicate only 20 percent of the seats will be filled.

The report notes that The Washingtonian is reporting, the ballet troupe is looking at “between 4 and 19% full based on reservations so far, and BodyTraffic, a Los Angeles troupe booked for two performances in the smaller Eisenhower Theatre at the end of the month, is only booked so far at 12% capacity.”

The venue has already been plagued by artists cancelling on the Kennedy, subscribers fleeing, after the president purged the board and installed loyalists intent on changing the type of entertainment being presented based upon the president’s tastes.

Speaking about the ticket sale collapse, one Kennedy Center employee could only utter “Yikes.”

According to Luscombe’s report, “The Washingtonian report paints a damning portrait of the health of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the months since its takeover by Trump, who last month announced he had ‘reluctantly’ agreed to personally host its annual arts awards signature show in December.”

The report notes that sources in Germany indicated the Stuttgart Ballet may cancel their appearance out of fear of poor turnout, adding, “The reported slump extends an already worrying slide in patronage. By June, the Kennedy Center had seen subscription sales fall by about $1.6m, or roughly 36%, compared with 2024.”


You can read more here.

475 Immigrants Arrested in Raid of Hyundai EV Plant in Georgia

A spokesperson for South Korea's foreign ministry said that "the economic activities of our companies investing in the US and the rights and interests of our nationals must not be unfairly violated."

A drone captured construction progress on the Hyundai Motor Group plant in Ellabell, Georgia in October 2023.
(Photo by Hyundai Motor Group)

Jessica Corbett
Sep 05, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday expressed "concern and regret" after US agents arrested 475 immigrants at a Hyundai electric vehicle plant in Ellabell, Georgia and turned them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE was among several agencies involved in "the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security Investigations," Steven Schrank, the special agent in charge for HSI Atlanta, said during a Friday morning press conference.

The immigrants worked for a variety of companies and were arrested "as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices," Schrank explained. The probe continues, but no criminal charges are being filed at this time.

While Schrank only confirmed that a large number of those arrested on Thursday are South Koreans, a diplomatic source told the news agency Yonhap that the figure is over 300.

Yonhap also reported on a press briefing in which a spokesperson for South Korea's foreign ministry, Lee Jae-woong, said that "the economic activities of our companies investing in the US and the rights and interests of our nationals must not be unfairly violated."

"We conveyed our concern and regret through the US Embassy in Seoul today," Lee added.

According to The Associated Press:
Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea's biggest automaker, began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people, and has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year.

In a statement to The Associated Press, LG said it was "closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details." It said it couldn't immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.

"Our top priority is always ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and partners. We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities," the company said.

Hyundai's South Korean office didn't respond to AP's requests for comment. Forbes highlighted that the raid comes shortly after the company "announced it would invest $26 billion in the US over the next three years," which is expected to create 25,000 jobs.

During the Friday press conference, Schrank appeared to try to distinguish these arrests from President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, saying that "this was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks, and put them on buses—this has been a multimonth criminal investigation."

However, Tori Branum, a firearms instructor and Republican candidate for Georgia's 12th Congressional District who is publicly taking credit for the raid, made the connection clear.

"For months, folks have whispered about what's going on behind those gates," Branum wrote on Facebook. "I reported this site to ICE a few months ago and was on the phone with an agent."

"This is what I voted for—to get rid of a lot of illegals," she told Rolling Stone after the arrests. "And what I voted for is happening."

In addition to raids of other workplaces such as farms in California, Trump's mass deporation agenda has featured an effort to illegally deport hundreds of children to Guatemala over Labor Day weekend, masked agents in plain clothes ripping people off US streets, arresting firefighters while they were on the job, revoking Temporary Protected Status for various foreign nationals, and locking up immigrants in horrific conditions in facilities including "Alligator Alcatraz."

American Immigration Council legal director Michelle Lapointe, who is based in the Atlanta area, said in a Friday statement that "these raids don't make anyone safer. They terrorize workers, destabilize communities, and push families into chaos."

"This historic raid may make dramatic headlines, but it does nothing to fix the problems in our broken immigration system: a lack of legal pathways and a misguided focus on punishing workers and families who pose no threat to our communities," she added. "Raiding work sites isn't reform, it's political theater at the expense of families, communities, and our economy."

This article was updated with comment from the American Immigration Council.

Trump to Sidestep Cold War Arms Control Treaty to Sell More Drones: Report

The policy shift—which began during the first Trump administration—came after lobbying from US drone makers and amid stiff competition from Chinese, Israeli, and Turkish manufacturers.


A US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone, armed with GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided munitions and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and piloted by Col. Lex Turner, flies a combat mission over southern Afghanistan in this undated photo..
(Photo by Lt. Col. Lex Turner/US Air Force)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 05, 2025

COMMON DREAMS


After years of lobbying from US weapons makers, President Donald Trump is reportedly set to implement his first-term reinterpretation of a Cold War-era arms control treaty in order to sell heavy attack drones to countries including Saudi Arabia, according to a report published Friday.

In July 2020, Trump announced that his administration would reclassify unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with flight speeds under 500 miles per hour—including General Atomics' MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper and Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk—as exempt from certain restrictions under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

Signed by the United States in 1987 during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the 35-nation MTCR "seeks to limit the risks of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by controlling exports of goods and technologies that could make a contribution to delivery systems" for such weapons, as the US State Department website explains.

The end of Trump's first term limited his first administration's implementation of the MTCR policy shift, which was not continued under former President Joe Biden, who adopted a somewhat stricter stance on arms exports to some gross human violators including Saudi Arabia, but not others—most notably Israel.

Now, a US official and four people familiar with the president's plan tell Reuters that Trump is preparing to complete the MTCR revision, a move that "would unlock the sale of more than 100 MQ-9 drones to Saudi Arabia, which the kingdom requested in the spring of this year and could be part of a $142 billion arms deal announced in May."

As Reuters reported:
Under the current interpretation of the MTCR, the sale of many military drones is subject to a "strong presumption of denial" unless a compelling security reason is given and the buyer agrees to use the weapons in strict accordance with international law.

The new policy will allow General Atomics, Kratos, and Anduril, which manufacture large drones, to have their products treated as "Foreign Military Sales" by the State Department, allowing them to be easily sold internationally, according to a US official speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

This effort is the first part of a planned "major" review of the US Foreign Military Sales program, the official said.

The US State Department did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on the policy shift.

Trump's move comes as US arms makers face stiff competition from Chinese, Israeli, and Turkish drone manufacturers. Neither China nor Israel are signatory to the MTCR, and Turkey, which did sign the agreement, features lighter and shorter-range UAVs not subject to the same restrictions as the heavier Reaper.

The US official who spoke to Reuters said the new guidelines will allow the US "to become the premier drone provider instead of ceding that space to Turkey and China."

Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association—a longtime critic of MTCR revision—warned that Trump's planned reinterpretation "would be a mistake."

Why Is Big Tech Using the Energy of the Past to Power the Future?

As these companies invest billions in technology for AI, they must re-up investments in renewables to power our future and protect our communities.


An abstract image shows a data. center.
(Photo: Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images)

Dan Howells 

Todd Larsen

Sep 06, 2025

OtherWords


AI is everywhere. But its powerful computing comes with a big cost to our planet, our neighborhoods, and our wallets.

AI servers are so power hungry that utilities are keeping coal-fired power plants that were slated for closure running to meet the needs of massive servers. And in the South alone, there are plans for 20 gigawatts of new natural-gas power plants over the next 15 years—enough to power millions of homes—just to feed AI’s energy needs.

Multibillion dollar companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta that previously committed to 100% renewable energy are going back to the Jurassic Age, using fossil fuels like coal and natural gas to meet their insatiable energy needs. Even nuclear power plants are being reactivated to meet the needs of power-hungry servers.

At a time when we need all corporations to reduce their climate footprint, carbon emissions from major tech companies in 2023 have skyrocketed to 150% of average 2020 values.

AI data centers also produce massive noise pollution and use huge amounts of water. Residents near data centers report that the sound keeps them awake at night and their taps are running dry.

Many of us live in communities that either have or will have a data center, and we’re already feeling the effects. Many of these plants further burden communities already struggling with a lack of economic investment, access to basic resources, and exposure to high levels of pollution.

To add insult to injury, amid stagnant wages and increasing costs for food, housing, utilities, and consumer goods, AI’s demand for power is also raising electric rates for customers nationwide. To meet the soaring demand for energy that AI data servers demand, utilities need to build new infrastructure, the cost of which is being passed onto all customers.

These companies have the know-how and the wealth to power AI with wind, solar, and batteries—which makes it all the more puzzling that they’re relying on fossil fuels to power the future.

A recent Carnegie Mellon study found that AI data centers could increase electric rates by 25% in Northern Virginia by 2030. And NPR recently reported that AI data centers were a key driver in electric rates increasing twice as fast as the cost of living nationwide—at a time when 1 in 6 households are struggling to pay their energy bills.

All of these impacts are only projected to grow. AI already consumes enough electricity to power 7 million American homes. By 2028, that could jump to the amount of power needed for 22% of all US households.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

AI could be powered by renewable energy that is nonpolluting and works to reduce energy costs for us all. The leading AI companies, who have made significant climate pledges, must lead the way.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have all made promises to the communities they serve to tackle climate and pollution. They all have climate pledges. And they have made significant investments in renewable energy in the past.

Those investments make sense, since renewables are the most affordable form of electricity. These companies have the know-how and the wealth to power AI with wind, solar, and batteries—which makes it all the more puzzling that they’re relying on fossil fuels to power the future.

If these corporate giants are to be good neighbors, they first need to be open and honest about the scope and scale of the problem and the solutions needed.

As these companies invest billions in technology for AI, they must re-up investments in renewables to power our future and protect our communities. They must ensure that communities have a real voice in how and where AI data centers are built—and that our communities aren’t sacrificed in the name of profits.

This column was distributed by OtherWords.


Dan Howells is the climate campaigns director at Green America.
Full Bio >
Todd Larsen is Green America’s executive co-director.
Full Bio >

AI crossroads

OPINION
Asad Baig 

September 5, 2025

DAWN

IT’S earnings season. Once again, the markets are moving to the rhythm set by the ‘Magnificent Seven’ dominating the Nasdaq. Their numbers are in, and the mood on Wall Street is electric. Much of that excitement, let’s be honest, is about just one thing: AI.

What started as a buzzword a few years ago has turned into a full-blown economic engine. Investors are no longer just buying into hype, but the results. Nvidia has pos­t­­ed a staggering year-over-year revenue inc­rease of nearly 70 per cent, underscoring the explosive demand for its AI chips. Meta is investing heavily in AI for its core ad fu­­nctionality, boosting engagement, margins and investor confidence through more efficient monetisation. Microsoft, Amazon, Go-ogle, they are all re-architecting their business models around AI, and the market is rewarding them with soaring valuations.

The logic is simple: the future has arrived early, and investors have already priced in the gains, undermining the ‘bubble theory’, which suggests that the AI-based company valuations are inflated without real substance and could burst like a figurative bubble. Much like the Dot Com crash of the early 2000s.

But the earnings of the ‘Mag 7’ tell another story. They signal that AI has moved beyond being the next big thing, to the thing. And we are only beginning to tap its full potential.


Critical gaps risk undermining the AI policy’s promise.

With the US gradually easing chip export restrictions to China, a new phase of AI acceleration is taking shape. Automation is giving way to autonomy, and cars, drones and infrastructure systems are beginning to operate as intelligent agents, capable of learning, adapting and coordinating with other machines in real time.

The next AI wave will reinvent entire sectors. Generative design in manufacturing. AI-discovered drugs. Language models embedded in judicial, health and financial systems. Smart cities built not around traffic lights but predictive analytics. If this feels like science fiction, you haven’t been paying attention. We are moving fast, past the age of data, deep into the age of autonomous decisions.

Now here is the uncomfortable part: are we as a country ready for any of this? The answer is complicated.

On one hand, the newly released National AI Policy signals intent: it outlines large-scale commitments, from training a million professionals in AI and related technologies to integrating AI into key areas of governance, healthcare, education and agriculture. The policy envisions the use of AI to streamline civic services, enhance public sector efficiency and enable data-driven decision-making at scale. It also proposes the establishment of oversight bodies to ensure ethical deployment, data privacy and algorithmic accountability, an attempt to build a governance framework around a rapidly evolving technology.

In essence, the document offers a blueprint for a future where AI moves beyond being an abstract innovation reserved for elites or those who can afford it, and beco­mes a foundational part of national infrastructure and a key driver of state capacity.

On the other hand, several critical gaps risk undermining the policy’s promise. First, while the vision is bold, the execution framework is vague. Ambitious targets, like training a million people or deploying national-scale civic AI projects, lack operational detail, funding clarity and realistic timelines. Without institutional capacity-building, these goals may remain rhetorical.

Second, the policy assumes that ministries, boards and provincial departments will be able to digitise, standardise and share data rapidly. However, it does not fully address existing challenges related to fragmented syst­ems, limited inte­roperability and bureaucratic hurdles that may im­­pede effective im­­­-plementation.

Third, it does­n’t take into acco­unt geopolitical constraints. With ongoing chip exp­ort controls and rising global competition over compute, Pakistan’s lack of sovereign AI infrastructure, whether in silicon, data or foundational models, poses a major strategic vulnerability. Without plans to build resilience, the country risks dependence without capability.

And perhaps the most important question is this: if a policy repeatedly invokes ethics and responsible use but does not clarify, in concrete, actionable terms, how AI systems will safeguard fundamental rights such as privacy, freedom of expression, and protection from discrimination (especially where regulation operates in legally ambiguous digital spaces, and where explicit safeguards against algorithmic bias, data misuse or non-transparent decision-making remain absent or vague), can such governance truly protect the most marginalised?

And if not, should it not be anchored much more firmly and explicitly in constitutional and human rights principles? Food for thought.

The writer is the founder of Media Matters for Democracy.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2025

Trump Throws Tantrum After EU Shows What It Looks Like to Hold Tech Giants Like Google to Account

"They should get their money back!" Trump said while defending America's tech giants.


Brad Reed
Sep 05, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

US President Donald Trump on Friday angrily lashed out after the European Commission slapped tech giant Google with a $3.45 billion fine for violating antitrust laws.

The European Commission ordered Google to end its anticompetitive practices such as its payments to ensure its search engine receives preferential treatment on internet browsers and mobile phones. The commission also demanded that Google "implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain."

EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said that the decision demonstrated that "Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers" and that it must "must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies."

Shortly after the ruling, Trump took to Truth Social to blast Europe for enforcing its antitrust laws.

"Europe today 'hit' another great American company, Google, with a $3.5 billion fine, effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American investments and jobs," Trump wrote. "Very unfair, and the American taxpayer will not stand for it! As I have said before, my administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand. Apple, as an example, was forced to pay $17 billion in a fine that, in my opinion, should not have been charged—they should get their money back!"

Trump added that "we cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these taxpaying American companies."

Max von Thun, Europe director for anti-monopoly think tank Open Markets Institute, had a decidedly different take from the president, and praised the European Commission for taking an "important first step in breaking Google's chokehold over the underlying architecture not merely of the internet, but of the free press in the 21st century."

"It is only right that Google pays the price for its blatant and long-standing lawbreaking," he added. "More importantly however, the commission has given Google two months to end its illegal practices and resolve the profound conflicts of interest which arise from its control of every layer of the adtech stack."

The European Commission's decision stood in stark contrast to a decision issued earlier this week from Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, who declined to force Google to sell off its Chrome web browser or share all requested data with its competitors despite finding that the company had violated American antitrust laws

US Navy SEALs 'Slaughtered' Civilians During Botched 2019 North Korea Mission

Congress was reportedly never informed about the covert attempt by the first Trump administration to plant a listening device in North Korea during high-stakes nuclear negotiations.

US Navy SEALs are seen training in this undated photograph.
(Photo by US Navy/cc)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 05, 2025

COMMON DREAMS


US Navy SEALs shot dead a number of civilians during a botched secret mission to plant a listening device inside North Korea during tense nuclear negotiations between the first Trump administration and the government of Kim Jong Un in 2019, The New York Times reported Friday.

Dave Philipps and Matthew Cole reported for the Times that President Donald Trump personally approved the covert operation, which was tasked to SEAL Team 6's Red Squadron, the same unit that assassinated Osama bin Laden. Although the elite sailors rehearsed the nighttime mission for months, things fell apart when a small fishing boat appeared out of the dark in what the SEALs thought was a deserted area.

"Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire," wrote Philipps and Cole. "Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead. The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device."

Officials familiar with the mission told the Times that the SEALs then pulled two or three bodies from the boat, punctured the victims' lungs with knives so their bodies would sink, and threw the dead fishers into the sea.

According to the Times:
The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time. The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission. The lack of notification may have violated the law...

The aborted SEAL mission prompted a series of military reviews during Mr. Trump's first term. They found that the killing of civilians was justified under the rules of engagement, and that the mission was undone by a collision of unfortunate occurrences that could not have been foreseen or avoided. The findings were classified.

It is not known whether or how much North Korea's government knew about the mission. While Trump's erstwhile untried tactic of direct negotiations with Kim averted escalation of the 2018-19 standoff, the high-profile summits between the two leaders yielded no substantial progress toward denuclearization or a peace treaty.

The US and North Korea are technically still at war. Between 1950-53 US forces killed an estimated 20% of all North Koreans—around 1.9 million men, women, and children—according to Gen. Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay, who served as strategic air commander during the war after overseeing World War II firebombing raids on Japanese cities that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.

US Navy SEALs botched secret 2019 mission in North Korea: report

AFP 

September 6, 2025 

US military personnel train in Coronado, California, US in this file photo from August 2023. — Reuters


Elite United States Navy SEALs launched an audacious operation in 2019 to plant a listening device in North Korea to spy on the country’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong Un, The New York Times (NYT) reported on Friday, but the mission quickly unravelled and culminated in the deaths of multiple civilians.

The operation came in the first administration of US President Donald Trump during sensitive nuclear talks with Kim, whom the US leader met three times.

The mission was considered so risky that it required direct presidential approval, the NYT said, but Trump insisted on Friday he had no knowledge of the operation.

“I don’t know anything about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time,” the president told journalists.

Despite months of practice, the mission still went horribly wrong, the * NYT* reported.

The SEALs — from the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 — approached North Korea in mini-submarines that exposed them to frigid water for hours, then swam ashore, according to the newspaper, which interviewed two dozen people to piece together the account.

The special forces personnel thought they were alone, but didn’t see a small boat in the area. The boat later approached the mini-subs, with the crew carrying flashlights. One person jumped into the water.

Thinking the mission was compromised, the senior enlisted SEAL ashore opened fire on the boat, as did the others with him. When they reached the boat, they found two or three bodies, but no guns or uniforms: the dead were apparently civilians who were diving for shellfish.

The SEALs used knives to puncture the lungs of the boat’s crew so the bodies would sink, and were able to escape unharmed.

The NYT said the operation prompted a series of military reviews that found the killings were justified. The results of the reviews were classified, and key congressional leaders were kept in the dark.

While the failed mission did not create a major international crisis, it easily could have, and the incident highlights both the impunity and secrecy under which America’s elite forces operate around the globe.

The Court Said Trump Was Above the Law — And Now 11 People Are Dead at Sea

Trump simply ordered human beings erased. This isn’t just about a boat off Venezuela. It’s about whether America will allow a president, blessed by the Court, to kill without evidence, without process, without even the pretense of law.

This image was posted on social media by President Donald Trump and shows a boat that was allegedly transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela when it was destroyed by US forces on September 2, 2025.
(Photo: President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

Thom Hartmann
Sep 05, 2025

Common Dreams

When the Court says Trump is above the law, who speaks for the eleven dead on that boat? Their lives ended not in a battlefield crossfire or a clash between nations, but at the whim of one man emboldened by six justices who declared him untouchable.

Trump simply ordered human beings erased, confident the Court had given him immunity from any consequence and the leaders of his military would obey an illegal order. Eleven souls were sacrificed not just to his cruelty, but to a judicial betrayal that transformed the presidency into a license to kill.

For most of our history, American presidents have at least gone through the motions of cloaking lethal force in some form of legal justification.

Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War but sought Congress’s approval. Franklin Roosevelt went to Congress for Lend-Lease before escalating aid to Britain, and sought a declaration of war against Japan. George W. Bush and Barack Obama leaned heavily on the post-9/11 Authorizations for Use of Military Force to justify everything from Afghanistan to drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia to killing Bin Laden.

It looks like Trump has taken Miller’s reported hypothetical and turned it into policy. What was once an outrageous musing has become a bloody precedent.

The principle has always been that the United States does not simply kill people without some kind of legal process. It may be stretched, it may be abused, but it has been invoked.

What Donald Trump has now done with the strike on a small boat off Venezuela’s coast is to break that tradition in a way that is both lawless and unprecedented. He gave the order to kill eleven human beings with no congressional approval, no international authorization, and no visible evidence justifying it.

This was simply murder on the high seas. And the world knows it.

He did it in the full knowledge that six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have granted him immunity for crimes committed while in office, even international crimes. That ruling opened the door to precisely this sort of extrajudicial killing and stripped away one of the last guardrails protecting both our law and our global standing.

The official claim is that the boat carried members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But eleven people on a small vessel that couldn’t possibly travel as far as America doesn’t sound like a cartel’s drug shipment (typically there’s only one or two people manning such a boar); it sounds like desperate migrants fleeing a collapsing country.

That possibility makes the strike even more chilling when paired with a story Miles Taylor has told about Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller. Taylor recounts traveling with Miller and a Coast Guard admiral after a drug war event in Key West.

On that trip Stephen Miller asked the admiral if it would be legal to use a Predator drone to obliterate a boat full of migrants in international waters. Miller’s reasoning was that migrants weren’t covered by the Constitution, so what was to stop us from blowing them out of the water?

The admiral reportedly shot back that it would violate international law, that “you cannot kill unarmed civilians just because you want to.” At the time it was an alarming glimpse into the sadistic mind of a man who saw immigrants as less than human.

Now it looks like Trump has taken Miller’s reported hypothetical and turned it into policy. What was once an outrageous musing has become a bloody precedent.

This has profound legal and moral implications.

By attacking a vessel flying the flag of a sovereign state, Trump risked triggering a direct military confrontation. Venezuela could have fired back at American forces in the region. A firefight at sea can escalate quickly into a regional war, and Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro would have every incentive to turn to Russia and China for protection.

Leaders of both of those nations are eager to deepen their presence in our hemisphere, and this gives them an opening. It’s not inconceivable that Moscow or Beijing could send ships or aircraft to Venezuela in response.

That would put foreign military forces hostile to us within thirteen hundred miles of Miami. If shots were fired between American forces and Russian or Chinese deployments in the Caribbean, the slide toward a larger war would be real, very much like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 (except then we had a statesman as a president, instead of a corrupt buffoon).

World War I began with a simple assassination that pitted one nation against another and then the sinking of the civilian boat the Lusitania; this is how great power conflicts can begin. Trump’s reckless strike doesn’t just risk Venezuelan lives. It risks American troops, regional stability, and, in the most ominous scenario, world peace itself.

Meanwhile, at home, the timing is impossible to ignore. Authoritarians throughout history have turned to foreign crises to distract from domestic scandals.

Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia as Watergate began to close in. Reagan invaded Grenada days after hundreds of Marines were killed in Beirut. Trump has lived for decades under the shadow of allegations of sexual predation, including reports that Jeffrey Epstein recorded him with underage girls during the years he owned and ran Miss Teen USA.

If new evidence of that were to surface, Trump would need a distraction on a scale large enough to blot out the outrage. Creating a crisis with Venezuela, complete with martial language and threats of escalation while renaming the Department of Defense to Department of War, serves that purpose. It’s the oldest play in the authoritarian book: wag the dog.

Except this time the stakes are far higher. This time we’re dealing with a president who’s been told by six corrupted members of the highest court in the land that he’s above the law.

When Miles Taylor first revealed Miller’s macabre question about bombing migrant boats, some dismissed it as idle cruelty. It now looks like a glimpse into the inner workings of Trump’s policy mind. In this worldview, immigrants are vermin, human rights are optional, Democrats are “extremists,” and lethal force is just another tool of politics.

Combine that with the Supreme Court’s gift of immunity and you have a recipe for lawless violence on a scale America has never contemplated. The entire edifice of international law is designed to prevent precisely this sort of conduct.

Extrajudicial killings, violations of sovereignty, the targeting of civilians: these are the acts that international courts prosecute when they can, and that history condemns when courts cannot stop them.

And now we’re learning that Trump did something similar in 2019 when he was last president. He authorized a SEAL Team strike against North Korea, where they killed three civilians in a boat who were simply out fishing.

Extrajudicial killings, violations of sovereignty, the targeting of civilians: these are the acts that international courts prosecute when they can, and that history condemns when courts cannot stop them.

If America embraces this new Putin-like assertion of America’s power to bomb anybody, anywhere, on the whim of the president, we’ll have abandoned any claim to moral leadership.

Worse, we will have normalized the authoritarian logic that anyone the president labels an enemy can be eliminated without trial, without evidence, without process. We’ll have handed Xi a rationale to attack Taiwan; all he has to do is claim that a non-governmental gang within that nation is importing drugs into China (or something similar).

The international reaction has already been severe. America’s allies are horrified, our adversaries have been emboldened, and human rights groups are openly appalled.

But the real test is here at home. Do we still believe in the principle, famously cited by our second President John Adams, that America is a nation of laws and not of men? Do we still insist that presidents cannot kill at will? If Trump can strike a boat off Venezuela today, what is to stop him from ordering lethal force against dissidents, protesters, or political opponents tomorrow?

Do we still insist that presidents cannot kill at will? If Trump can strike a boat off Venezuela today, what is to stop him from ordering lethal force against dissidents, protesters, or political opponents tomorrow?

Keep in mind, the same Stephen Miller — who reportedly wanted to blow up boats of immigrants to kill more brown people — just in the past week claimed that the Democratic Party is a “domestic extremist organization.”

The doctrine of immunity means there is no legal backstop. The only remaining check is political will. And Trump’s fascist toadies are all in on more extrajudicial killings.

Yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete “Kegger” Hegseth said:
“We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike.”


Secretary of State “Little Marco” Rubio echoed the sentiment, saying during a speech in Mexico City yesterday that similar strikes “will happen again.”

This is why Democrats, independents, and every American who values the rule of law must call this out for what it is: an atrocity against eleven people, an assault on international norms, and a direct threat to American democracy.

Trump has shown us exactly how far he’s willing to go. He’s willing to risk a war in our hemisphere. He’s willing to put our troops in danger. He’s willing to risk drawing Putin and Xi into a confrontation with us that could spiral out of control. He’s willing to destroy lives to protect himself. And he’s doing it because six Republicans on the Supreme Court told him he could.

If Congress doesn’t act now to confront and contain this lawless behavior, if we don’t restore accountability to the presidency, then we’ll have surrendered not just our moral authority but our future.

The question is not whether Trump wants a distraction from his scandals; of course he does. The question is whether we’re willing to let Trump and his fascist toadies drag America and the world into catastrophe to get it.

This isn’t just about a boat off Venezuela. It’s about whether America will allow a president, blessed by the Court, to kill without evidence, without process, without even the pretense of law.

Eleven dead migrants are the proof of what immunity means in practice: impunity. If Trump can slaughter refugees today, what stops him from targeting dissidents, protesters, even political opponents tomorrow?

The answer, unless Congress and the people act, is nothing. And “nothing” is what those justices have left to protect us, our laws, and our humanity.


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Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.
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