Trump’s Administration of Comic Book Villains Is Making War on the World Order

The 47th US president wants to get rid of the United Nations, reverse the decolonization process, and return the world to a time when only power determines the course of events.


US President Donald Trump speaks during a reception for business leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting on January 21, 2026 in Davos, Switzerland.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

John Feffer
Jan 26, 2026

The Hankyoreh



When Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, wanted to change his agency’s dietary recommendations, he did something very simple. He took the food pyramid and turned it upside down. After years of promoting healthy grains, pulses, and vegetables, the agency was now favoring meat and dairy.

It seemed like a joke. It wasn’t.

Head of Amnesty International Agrees Trump-Led US Is ‘Destroying World Order’

Kennedy called his upside-down pyramid, with meat at the top and whole grains at the bottom, “Eat Real Food.” A better name would be “Support Cattle Farmers and Have a Heart Attack.”

The Trump administration’s topsy-turvy approach applies to every aspect of American policy.

The Trump administration shouldn’t be surprised when the world that it is trying to turn upside down unites against it.

The United States needs undocumented immigrants to maintain the economy by filling jobs in agriculture, the construction industry, and the service sector. So, the Trump administration is deporting them.

The United States is the only major industrialized country without universal healthcare. So, the Trump administration is making it more difficult for people to access medical insurance.

The United States, before 2024, was the largest oil and gas producing nation on the planet, but needed government support to make the transition to clean energy. So, the Trump administration eliminated those clean energy subsidies and invested even more into expanding the fossil fuel sector.

In other words, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to harm people and the planet. They are like comic book villains, and they don’t even realize it

The upside-down nature of Trump’s approach to policy can perhaps best be seen in the foreign policy realm.

Donald Trump has talked over and over again about the importance of peace. He has lobbied for the Nobel Peace Prize. When asked about his New Year’s wish this year, he said, “Peace on Earth.”

But all he has done recently is promote war. His administration bombed Nigeria on Christmas Day. The United States invaded Venezuela right after the New Year in order to kidnap the president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.

The administration is now preparing to attack Iran. Trump has insisted that the United States must seize Greenland, by force if necessary. And the US president expects that the government in Cuba will fall as well, and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will one day be that country’s leader.

The Trump administration has emphasized the critical importance of US sovereignty. It doesn’t want any other country or any international institutions interfering with US policies.

However, the Trump administration doesn’t care about the sovereignty of any other country. Trump believes he can intervene anywhere. Even close allies are not off limits. He has suggested absorbing Canada. And he seems willing to fight a fellow NATO member, Denmark, in order to control Greenland.

Respect for sovereignty is a bedrock principle of the United Nations. All states rely on this principle to safeguard their borders and protect against the interventions of other countries. Trump’s challenges to sovereignty in Venezuela and elsewhere threaten to unravel the world order.

This contempt for international treaties and institutions led the administration early on to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate as well as the UN Human Rights Council. This year, he has ordered the withdrawal from 66 international organizations, half of them connected to the United Nations. These include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the body responsible for the yearly Conference of Parties (COP), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

From 2005 to 2024, carbon emissions in the United States dropped 20%, a rare bit of good news from a country with the second-highest rate of emissions in the world. Last year, under Trump, US emissions made a dramatic U-turn, rising by 2.4%.

Trump has nothing but contempt for international law. He has done more than just denounce legal bodies like the International Criminal Court. He has actively sought to destroy the ICC with sanctions. And he has threatened even more sanctions if the ICC doesn’t rewrite its founding document to ensure that Trump and his cronies are never prosecuted for the war crimes that they have most definitely committed.

The violations of sovereignty, the withdrawal from international institutions, and the contempt for international law: These all form a different kind of war. The Trump administration has launched an offensive against the very edifice of the world order. He wants to get rid of the United Nations, reverse the decolonization process, and return the world to a time when only power determines the course of events.

This is the world of Stephen Miller, Trump’s hard-right adviser. “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller recently told CNN. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

This is, of course, nonsense. Power, as even authoritarian leaders learn, has its limits. Autocrats can’t change their societies by force alone. They are overthrown by peaceful protests. They are tried in court and sent to jail.

History is littered with the wreckage of empires that attempted to rule by force alone. That is the iron law since the beginning of time.

And it is just a matter of time before the Trump administration discovers that it too faces limits. The European Union is banding together to fend off any attempt on Greenland. The US courts are laying down limits on what the Trump administration can and cannot do, with even the conservative Supreme Court ruling recently that the administration cannot send the National Guard to Chicago against the wishes of the mayor and the governor.

And popular protests continue throughout the United States, most recently to protest the killing by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of a young mother in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration shouldn’t be surprised when the world that it is trying to turn upside down unites against it. An upside-down pyramid is not stable. Eventually, it will collapse.


Copyright 2023 © The Hankyoreh. All rights reserved.


John Feffer
John Feffer is the author of the dystopian novel "Splinterlands" (2016) and the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. His novel, "Frostlands" (2018) is book two of his Splinterlands trilogy. Splinterlands book three "Songlands" was published in 2021. His podcast is available here.
Full Bio >

WORD OF THE DAY

Why Aren’t the Lawyers and Bar Associations Screaming From the Rooftops for Trump’s Impeachment?

Trump is a shameless, arrogant bloviator who is self-indicting daily. As trained attorneys trained in the Constitution and rule of law, his ouster is our sworn duty.



Detroit, Michigan USA, 13 January 2026, Hundreds of protesters rallied in the rain outside the Motor City Casino as President Donald Trump spoke to the Detroit Economic Club inside.
(Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Ralph Nader
Jan 24, 2026

Common Dreams


As Trump’s violent dictatorial grip over America worsens, his violations of our Constitution, federal laws, and international treaties become more brazen. Only the organized people can stop this assault on our democracy by firing him through impeachment, the power exclusively accorded to Congress by our Founders. This is one of the few things that Trump cannot control. According to a PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) poll, “A majority of Americans (56%) agree that ‘President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy,’ up from 52% in March 2025.” Trump’s recent actions will only further increase this number.

In earlier columns, I discussed the potential power of 1) The Contented Classes; 2) The small minority of progressive billionaires; and 3) The huge potential of the four ex-presidents – George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who detest Trump but are mostly silent, and are not organizing their tens of millions of voters angry about Dictator Donald’s attack on the rule of law.

5 Years After Jan. 6 Attack, Trump Assault on Constitution and Democracy Reaches New Heights

A fourth formidable constituency, if organized, is retired military officers who have their own reasons for dumping Trump. Start with the ex-generals whom Trump named as Secretary of Defense (James Mattis), John Kelly, as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and White House Chief of Staff, and Mark Milley, who headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A fifth constituency is the legal profession, and their bar associations at the national, state, and local levels. There are over one million Attorneys in the U.S. who, when they are admitted to the state bars to practice law, are designated as “officers of the court.” This status makes them quasi-official persons with a monopoly to represent clients in courts of law.

Bruce Fein and others have called on licensed attorneys to become “our first responders” to violations of the rule of law, especially by government entities.

So, what have they done? A tiny minority are bravely on the legal ramparts representing clients victimized by Trump and winning many cases at the federal district court level, only to be often stalled by the circuit courts of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court.

As far as the bar associations are concerned, during Trump’s first term of serial lawless actions (he said in 2019, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as president”), they were largely silent and AWOL. Bruce Fein and I sent two letters to all 50 state bar associations calling for them to stand up for the rule of law over Trump’s regime. Not one responded to our letters. (See Letter to Bar Associations, February 14, 2025).

We informed these bar associations and the American Bar Association (ABA) of the courageous “white papers” issued in 2005-2006 by three task forces brought together under then ABA President Michael Greco. They charged the Bush/Cheney regime with three impeachable offenses. The task forces had liberal and conservative lawyers working together on these statements. (See the ABA White Papers).

Greco’s successor to the one-year presidency of the ABA told him she was not going to extend the ABA’s watchdog project on the lawless presidency. This abdication has continued to this day, with one exception. Both the ABA and many state/local bar associations took a collective position in March 2025 against Trump’s punishing law firms for representing disfavored clients. They called his “lawlessness” an attempt to “remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.”

In June, the ABA punctuated this charge with a federal lawsuit against the Trump regime. (Pending).

Going beyond protection “of the guild,” the New York City Bar Association released a report in late 2025 that called out the Trump Administration’s “ongoing abuse of presidential power and a grave breach of the public trust.”

Other bar associations signed a statement accusing the Trump administration of “treating [the law] as merely advisory, narrowly instrumental, mercilessly enforceable, or utterly irrelevant.”

It is not surprising that these actions by the bar associations received very little media coverage. They were not backed up with any further actions, testimonies, convocations, or alliances with grassroots groups to show the media that they mean business. There was no call for impeachment or even congressional hearings to expose these known, ongoing serial violations of the law, the Constitution, and treaties. (See Letter to President Trump – 22 Impeachable Offenses, April 30, 2025. New version to be released later.)

Reporters and others understand the difference between statements for the record and action on the ramparts. Words not followed by the exercise of these bar associations’ manifold status and power are largely ignored, especially when they are in legalese, and lacking conclusory judgments about Trump’s unfitness for office. Incredibly, Trump declared, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Not the Constitution or the laws of the land.

Trump is a shameless, arrogant bloviator who is self-indicting daily. Critics who want to deter his slanderous and absurd outbursts should use tough, accurate language to describe his vicious actions and autocratic control of the federal government. Words like “dictator,” “serial law violator,” “extortionist,” “inciter of violence,” “persecutor of innocents for purposes of vengeance or bigotry,” “racist,” “abuser of women,” “chronic egotistical liar about serious matters of state,” “shredder of safety and health protections” and constantly “delusional,” and so forth.

New leaders from the legal community (including prominent law professors) need to immediately come forth and jolt this largely AWOL profession into action, with all its unused powers for justice and the rule of law behind our constitutional Republic. Lawyers are called members of a learned profession. They operate within ethical standards. Why aren’t they seriously working to counter Trump’s assault on the administration of justice in America?


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


Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future" (2012). His new book is, "Wrecking America: How Trump's Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All" (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).
Full Bio >

Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and the Outright Lies of Trump, Noem, and Vance

After the state-sanctioned executions comes the state-sanctioned propaganda.


A photograph of the pistol recovered by immigration agents after a shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Saturday morning is shown on a screen behind US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as she speaks during a news conference in the National Response Coordination Center at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters on January 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)

Jordan Liz
Jan 26, 2026

Common Dreams


On January 24th, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old white US citizen, was murdered by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis. This comes less than three weeks after ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good.

Video footage shows Pretti, an ICU nurse, stepping in between a woman and a federal agent who was pepper-spraying her. That agent proceeds to pepper-spray Pretti who was filming the encounter with his phone in one hand and nothing in the other. Several agents approached and forced Pretti onto the ground. He was restrained.

Despite this, one agent unholstered his gun and fired one shot at close range. As that agent continued to fire, another grabbed his gun and fired additional shots. In total, at least 10 shots were fired within five seconds.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immediately began spreading their state-sanctioned propaganda. Via Twitter-X, DHS posted that federal agents were conducting a “targeted operation” when an armed individual approached. “The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. […] Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots.” Without offering a shred of evidence, DHS wildly speculates that “this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” Like Good, the Trump administration immediately labelled Pretti a “domestic terrorist.”

Both Good and Pretti were victims of state-sanctioned executions conducted by federal agents illegally occupying the state of Minnesota against the will of its people and its elected officials.

Regardless of your thoughts on ICE’s presence in Minnesota specifically or the Trump administration in general, this is beyond debate: there was absolutely no reason for federal agents to fire a single shot—let alone ten. Pretti was not a threat to anyone—let alone several heavily armed federal agents. They chose to abuse the power and “absolute immunity” that the Trump administration granted them to publicly execute a US citizen at their own discretion.

We vote for representatives, not kings.

The Trump administration, in their utter disregard for the safety and well-being of Americans, has unleashed an army of poorly trained, heavily armed, masked agents without any guardrails or accountability. Several news outlets have reported that the federal investigation into Renee Good’s murder is more focused on any possible ties between her wife, Becca Good, and activist groups rather than Ross’ conduct. Thus far, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota have resigned over the Justice Department’s reluctance to investigate Ross.

An FBI agent who was working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) also resigned. Shortly after opening a civil rights investigation into Good’s death, she was ordered to reclassify it as an investigation into an assault on the ICE agent. The FBI also blocked the BCA from participating in the investigation.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has already announced that DHS will be leading the investigation of the Border Patrol agent that murdered Pretti. To emphasize, the department that, before the investigation even began, fabricated a series of lies meant to publicly exonerate Border Patrol agents will be investigating their conduct.

Given this precedent, why exactly would federal agents show restraint? Why deescalate when excessive violence is unconditionally excused? Even if they murder someone, President Trump will only go as far as acknowledging “that mistakes sometimes happen” and “that 99% of our ICE officers are doing the right thing.” Following Pretti’s murder, Trump wasted no time defending Border Patrol. He claimed that federal agents “had to protect themselves” against “the gunman.”

While Trump highlights Pretti’s gun as some kind of excuse, whether he was armed changes nothing. This is America – a country with over 80 million gun owners whose right to bear arms is inscribed in the Second Amendment. A fact that President Trump and his allies are usually so eager to point out. Pretti had a permit to carry a concealed handgun. Not only was he completely within his rights to carry, no video shows him even holding it.

Even Noem refused to directly answer whether Pretti brandished his weapon. Instead, she insisted that “I don’t know of any peaceful protestor that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.” Yet, of course, she does. The J6 protestors were armed, attacked law enforcement and yet Noem supported Trump pardoning them. Kyle Rittenhouse traveled to another state, went to a peaceful protest armed, shot three people and received widespread praise from the Trump administration.

DHS is so blatantly lying that even staunch Trump supporters like Tim Pool are questioning the official state narrative.

The Trump administration’s careless indifference towards the truth means that, regardless of what they say, we must continue to record and share videos of federal agents. We simply cannot trust the words of an administration whose first impulse is to justify the death of US citizens.

But, there is a deeper worry. It may be tempting to see these lies as an attempt by the administration to justify the violence. An attempt to use the state’s massive propaganda machine—which includes media outlets like Fox News, the New York Post, Bari Weiss’s CBS and Elon Musk’s X—to convince the American public that federal agents are trying to faithfully execute their jobs.

By his own admission, Trump is only limited by his “own morality.” Even if his own supporters disagree with him, Trump remains steadfast–as he puts it, “MAGA is me.” Driven by narcissism, greed, and a litany of grievances, Trump shows little regard for the Constitution, Congress, court rulings, and the “international rules-based order.”

I would add to this list: the people. To think that Trump cares about convincing the public is to believe that Trump still cares about their opinion. Trump does not. He has ‘joked’ about cancelling the midterm elections. In August 2025, his administration quietly removed an online tool from Regulations.gov that allowed advocacy groups to collect and submit public comments to federal agencies. Doing so makes it much harder for individuals to weigh in on agency regulatory proposals. He also pursues a series of unpopular policies including seizing Greenland, occupying Venezuela and renaming the Kennedy Center.

Most Americans think ICE is making cities less safe, but Trump doesn’t care. Hours after Pretti’s murder, Attorney General Pamela Bondi sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) making three demands:

1.Walz’s office must share state records on Medicaid, and Food and Nutrition Service programs with the federal government

2.Repeal sanctuary city policies, force all state correctional facilities to fully cooperate with ICE, honor immigration detainers, and permit ICE to interview detainees to determine immigration status

3.Grant the Department of Justice complete access to the state’s voter rolls to confirm that its registration policies comply with federal law

These demands are a direct assault on the sovereignty of Minnesota. A day after a major statewide economic blackout and protest, the Trump administration is ordering Walz to betray the will of his own constituents. And to be clear, these are demands. As Bondi emphasized on Fox News, Walz “better support President Trump. He better support the men and women in law enforcement because if he doesn’t, we are.”

For the Trump administration, Minnesota is not about immigration enforcement or fraud. It is a trial run for his administration’s fascist apparatus. He is testing whether there are any limits to his power beyond his own judgment. After all, thus far Congress and the Supreme Court have utterly failed to keep him in check—not that either has really tried.

Walz cannot capitulate to the Trump administration. But we also cannot depend on elected officials to solve this problem. Now is the time for collective action—not just in Minnesota but across the entire country. After all, there is one thing that Trump definitely cares about: the economy. A nationwide economic blackout and protest would hit him where it hurts.

No matter which state you live in, you are not safe from Trump. Do not be fooled by victim-blaming narratives that fault Good and Pretti for being ‘where they were not supposed to be.’ The notion that we, as Americans, cannot protest unlawful law enforcement is a repulsive austerity policy masquerading as genuine critique. It is to surrender ourselves unconditionally to the whims of the state.

We vote for representatives, not kings. If ever our elected officials fail to reflect our will, then they must be made to submit—not the other way around. Trump has forgotten how things work; we would all do well to remind him.


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

Jordan Liz
Jordan Liz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University. He specializes in issues of race, immigration and the politics of belonging.
Full Bio >

Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Calls Trump Officials’ Response to Alex Pretti Killing ‘Flat-Out Insane’

“Alex Pretti was killed by DHS agents in broad daylight in front of all of our eyes,” said Ellison. “Both the rule of law and the sense of justice we all carry within us demand a full, fair, and transparent investigation into his death.”


Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, announce a lawsuit against the Trump administration at Minneapolis City Hall on January 12, 2026.
(Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)


Jake Johnson
Jan 26, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Sunday condemned the Trump administration’s response to federal agents’ killing of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis over the weekend as “flat-out insane,” noting that video footage of the shooting discredits the narrative rushed out by top officials.

“This is their employee who they trained—apparently, allegedly,” Ellison, a Democrat, told the Washington Post in an interview. “So for them to jump out there and say, ‘He’s done nothing wrong, the victim is a bad person,’ is flat-out insane and is a complete break with what we consider to be reasonable law enforcement behavior. It fails every test of professionalism.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed following the shooting that Pretti “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun,” aiming to “maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem declared that “this is a violent riot when you have someone showing up with weapons and are using them to assault law enforcement officers.”

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, described Pretti as a “would-be assassin.”

Video footage of the killing quickly exposed the Trump administration’s narrative as a demonstrative lie.

“I think that reasonable people watching the video could conclude that [Pretti] had a gun and a holster, that it was taken off of him in plain view on the video, and that after that, he was shot,” Ellison told the Post. “I think that a person who saw those things would not be hallucinating.”

Ellison is set to appear before a federal judge on Monday as part of Minnesota’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities and deadly abuses in the state.

“I share the intense grief and anger of so many that another Minnesotan—Alex Pretti, 37 years old, an ICU nurse who served veterans—was fatally shot during the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge,” Ellison said in a statement. “On Monday, my office and I will be in court arguing to end this illegal and unconstitutional occupation of our cities and the terror and violence it’s inflicting. This must stop. Now.”

“The federal government appears to have taken measures that directly led to the destruction of evidence.”

In a filing submitted hours after Pretti’s killing, Ellison and other Minnesota officials asked a federal court to prevent DHS and the Trump Justice Department from concealing or destroying evidence related to the shooting.

“According to reports, federal personnel may have seized cell phones, taken other evidence from the scene, and detained witnesses,” the filing states. “It is unclear whether federal personnel otherwise processed the scene—let alone how carefully. Then just a few hours after the shooting, federal personnel left, allowing the perimeter to collapse and potentially spoiling evidence.”

“From a law enforcement perspective, this is astonishing,” the filing continues. “The federal government’s actions are a sharp departure from normal best practices and procedure, in which every effort is taken to preserve the scene and the evidence it contains... [T]he federal government appears to have taken measures that directly led to the destruction of evidence.”

The US District Court for the District of Minnesota granted the request for a temporary restraining order, ruling that the Trump administration is “enjoined from destroying or altering evidence related to the fatal shooting involving federal officers that took place in or around 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis on January 24, 2026, including but not limited to evidence that Defendants and those working on their behalf removed from the scene and/or evidence that Defendants have taken into their exclusive custody.”

Ellison applauded the court’s decision, saying in a statement that the ruling protects the integrity of Minnesota’s investigation into Pretti’s killing.

“Alex Pretti was killed by DHS agents in broad daylight in front of all of our eyes,” said Ellison. “Both the rule of law and the sense of justice we all carry within us demand a full, fair, and transparent investigation into his death. We will not settle for less.”

Maximum Damage and Massacre: ICE Kills, ICE Lies

Alex Pretti films a thug shortly before his execution
Photo from BlueSky

Abby Zimet
Jan 26, 2026
Further

COMMON DREAMS

What to say. Alex Pretti, 37, a kind, principled, hard-working ICU nurse who cared for real soldiers in dire need was executed in the street at close range by a vicious gang of government sociopaths cosplaying as soldiers. After state terror killed him, state terror smeared him, because the man who dedicated his life to helping others was murdered by a man who has dedicated his life to hurting others. Pretti died trying to protect two women.Pretti, 37, was a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System; he had also taken part in research projects. His only previous interaction with law enforcement was for traffic tickets. Colleagues describe him as someone who "cared about people deeply" and "always rose to the level above and beyond what we expected of him." "He wanted to help people," said Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, chief of infectious diseases at the VA hospital. "He was an outstanding nurse who'd go out of his way to help." Pretti was also an "infectious spirit, quick with a joke"; the two men often talked about mountain biking, which they both loved. "You could not think of a kinder, gentler, sweeter person," said Dr. Aasma Shaukat. ”It really, truly gave him joy to interact with patients. And he always spoke about doing the right thing. He was a very principled person."

Videos from Saturday morning’s protest in Minneapolis show Pretti, dressed in brown, directing traffic and filming federal agents; forensic video analysis clearly shows his right hand holding up his phone, and his left hand empty. When agents start pushing protesters and observers back, Pretti retreats with them but keeps filming. As one thug violently shoves a woman to the ground, Pretti moves to help her, in response, the thug pepper sprays both Pretti and the woman in the face. As Pretti struggles to continue filming and protecting the woman, a swarm of six or seven nearby agents in full tactical gear rush in to pull Pretti away from her; they slam him to the ground, pin his arms down, and begin beating, punching, kicking him; one appears to pistol-whip Pretti about the head as other protesters yell for them to stop.

An agent suddenly shouts Pretti has a gun; he was reportedly carrying a legally registered handgun, in what is an open-carry state, as part of a community-led first-responder network. One goon steps in, pulls it out of Pretti’s waistband and walks away from the melee; seconds later, as Pretti strains to get up on one knee, another thug pulls out his gun and shoots him point-blank in the back. As Pretti collapses, at least one other agent begins shooting too; both continue firing 8 or 10 times as Pretti lies motionless on the ground. The closest sick fuck to Pretti claps as the shots ring out, and turns triumphantly away. Around them, people are screaming, crying and filming. “What the fuck did you just do?! What the fuck did you just do?! shrieks a woman, then ”Oh my God, oh my God.“ She starts sobbing, but keeps recording. ”You fucking people, you’re fucking killing us,“ she wails. ”Why would you do that?!“

See on Instagram

Even more than the murder of Renee Good, Pretti’s execution was brutally documented by eyewitnesses. When the firing begins, there’s video from a suddenly shocked guy inside a donut place across the street: “What?! Are you fucking kidding me?” There are painstakingly detailed forensic analyses- here and here - that clearly show Pretti holding his phone (not gun), helping the observer, pinned to the ground when he was shot. There’s video from the weeping, resolute woman recording behind him, and two sworn affidavits - for an ACLU lawsuit - based on testimony from her and a physician who watched from his apartment, went to the scene and insisted on checking for a pulse when agents (again) failed to do so: “I asked if (Pretti) had a pulse and they said they didn’t know”; they were focused on counting how many times he’d been hit.

Virtually all that first-hand evidence - video, testimony, verbal accounts - contradicts every claim the regime - lying goons, lying DHS, lying so-called president - has subsequently made. “This is a documented execution, down to evidence staging,” said one critic after the White House released a curated photo of a handgun Trump called “the gunman’s gun.” The bullshit started within minutes when mini-Nazi Greg Bovino announced that as brave thugs were conducting a “targeted operation” against a Very Scary “illegal alien,” “an individual approached (them) with a 9 mm handgun. The agents attempted to disarm the suspect but he violently resisted and an officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots...This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do MAXIMUM DAMAGE and MASSACRE law enforcement.” Also, then, “rioters.”

Their scripted claptrap kept coming, a shameless, venomous flood of lies. Fucking ICE Barbie echoed fucking Bovino, with flourishes: An “armed suspect,” now “brandishing” his weapon, approached agents “to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement...I state the facts as they unfolded on the street.” Stephen Goebbels called Pretti “a would-be assassin” who tried to murder feds and blasted Democrats who “side with the terrorists.” Dems replied, “You’re a f*cking liar with blood on your hands.” Drunktank Pete raved, “Thank God for the patriots of @ICEgov...You are SAVING the country.” The White House reminded zealots to call Pretti “a terrorist” in messaging, and Trump babbled Walz and Frey are covering up billions in “Theft and Fraud,” his racist pretext for starting the mayhem when, per Aaron Rupar, “None. Of. This. Was. Necessary.”

Nor is it normal, or even, often, legal. Again, corrupt feds blocked Minnesota investigators from access to the murder scene. They tried to block city cops too, but the police chief ordered them to stay and do their own investigation. Still, Bovino has said his thugs, murderers among them, are all back on the streets. (Kash Patel’s Keystone FBI are also on the case; he says they’ve arrested four Minnesotans for damaging an FBI vehicle and stealing “multiple items” earlier this month.) With the federal government declaring war on blue states - “Obey or else” - evil Pam Bond has saidsaid the quiet, election-stealing part out loud, effectively warning Minnesota officials the killings will continue until they fork over voter rolls. It’s not just Minnesota, activists insist; it’s all of us: “We’re performing CPR on what may already be a corpse called the Constitution.”

Fascism then and now

Photo from BlueSky

AOC calls Alex Pretti’s murder - again, point-blank, broad daylight- “a momentous, pivotal moment.” Maybe. Certainly, as Tim Walz argues, “They’re telling you not to trust your eyes and ears,” and as others argue, “Every person who voted for Trump has blood on their hands.” For now, Jonathan Last writes, our task is to at least bear witness. In the wake of the murder of Renee Good, “The murder of Alex Pretti was not a mistake, or a tragedy, or a misunderstanding. It was a choice. The president (and) his regime saw what its masked agents had done to (Good) and decided to do more of it...Killing Alex Pretti was (their) policy...which means the federal government is at war with the citizenry. Or at least the part (it) deems undesirable.” “If people in Minneapolis can be treated this way, Americans anywhere can be treated this way,” he concludes. “To avert your eyes from this reality is to insult the sacrifices Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti made for our country.”

Alex Pretti’s parents apparently found out about their son’s death, not from those responsible for it, but from an AP reporter who asked them about it. No federal official contacted them; in fact, none has yet picked up a phone to them. After struggling to get any information from DHS or other federal law enforcement, they called the county medical examiner’s office, who said, yes, they had a body matching the name and description of their son. In the wake of such horrors, Minnesota organizer Keith Edwards began an “Alex Pretti is an American Hero” fundraising campaign. The initial goal was $20,000. Reflecting Americans’ rage and grief, it has now raised over a million dollars, with donations ranging from $10,000 to, often, $5 or $10. Edwards has thanked donors with, “You are what America can look like at our best.”

Many of the moving comments come from “a whole family of us nurses who will carry him in our hearts.” They “mourn for the innumerable lives Alex WOULD have saved and the lives he WOULD have touched,” for “a life taken too soon” while “honoring the calling we all share.” From a fellow critical care nurse in the UK: “Sent with love, disbelief and abject horror. Rest in Power Alex.” Many thank his parents: “For raising someone brave who will be remembered as a beacon at the turn of the tide,” for “raising such a beautiful soul who stood up for what is right, and showed what love and dignity look like...We will not let your son be forgotten...Alex is any of us, and all of us.” “Be Good, be Pretti,” they wrote. “Murdered for being a good human being,” and, “Your actions were more than just an intervention - they were a profound hymn of human courage...Your light will guide the way for so many who follow.”

Protests continue in Minneapolis, people’s breath mixing with plumes of tear gas in the frigid air. Hours after Alex’ murder, a video showed Sarah Allen sobbing as her husband Matthew was brutally tackled and arrested by more roving goons; she told a pastor trying to console her the couple were just trying to get away from the tear gas. Mister Rogers: “Look for the helpers.” After Alex Pretti’s murder, many noted that the heartbreaking final act of his life was trying to help the woman assaulted by the masked sadists who then killed him. Reportedly, his last words were to task her, “Are you okay?” After his death, the son of a veteran who Pretti cared for in his final hours posted video of Pretti’s “final salute” honoring him. “Today, we remember that freedom is not free,” he says “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it... We grant him our honor and our gratitude.”

Alex Pretti and his dog Joule.

Photo from BlueSky

‘Fucking Insane’: Journalist Finds at Least 2,300 Illegal ICE Detentions Since July

“This is what ‘mass deportations’ looks like. Neither due process nor basic humanity,” said one lawyer. “Don’t look away.”


A protester holds a sign that reads, ‘’Due process: That’s it. That’s everything.’’ during a demonstration against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside City Hall in Houston, Texas, on January 10, 2026.
(Photo by Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 26, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

In yet another display of the Trump administration’s disregard for the US Constitution, there have been at least 2,300 cases in which federal judges have ruled that immigration officials illegally detained people without bond or due process since just July, according to one journalist.

Politico reporter Kyle Cheney shared some of the cases he’s tracked in a thread on the social media platform X late Saturday. “This is one that stands out,” he said of Sonik Manaserian, an Iranian woman of Armenian ethnicity who is a member of the Baha’i faith.

According to an order out of the Central District of California in Manaserian’s case, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “arrested a chronically ill, 70-year-old woman, who came to this country to avoid religious persecution and applied for asylum, who has lived here peacefully for 26 years and complied with all check-in requirements and other conditions of release, who has no known criminal record and poses no threat to anyone, without notice or the process required by their own regulations and without any plan for removing her from this country, then kept her in detention for months without sufficient medical care—and they do not have any argument to offer to even try to justify these actions.”

Cheney’s thread came just hours after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) fatally shot legal observer and nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, less than three weeks after ICE officer Jonathan Ross similarly killed Renee Good in Minnesota’s largest city.

“Minnesota courts have been inundated with these cases since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge last month,” said the journalist, noting a Friday order in which a judge freed Audberto J., a Mexican man residing in the state, “where he and his wife have lived and raised three children together over the last 20 years.”

While the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that its immigration enforcement operations are targeting “the worst of the worst,” like the vast majority of immigrants actually seized by agents with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in recent months, Audberto J. has no criminal history, according to the order.



“Yet another ruling from Friday, freeing a man detained by ICE in Minnesota who suffered severe head injuries during his arrest and has been hospitalized since. The man claims ICE has required him to be shackled in the hospital, against the wishes of doctors,” Cheney noted. “Here’s another Minnesota ruling that just came in tonight: A federal judge is threatening DHS with contempt for transferring a petitioner out of the state despite a court order enjoining the administration from doing so.”

The journalist added to the thread on Sunday, as judges in Minnesota continued issue to rulings. In one of those cases, “Judge [Katherine] Menendez—who issued last week’s injunction against ICE’s retaliatory use of pepper spray—just ordered the release of a Kenyan woman arrested while picking up seizure medication at CVS.”

Sharing the thread, American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick stressed “this is what ‘mass deportations’ looks like. Neither due process nor basic humanity. Don’t look away.”

Immigrant Defenders Law Center co-founder and CEO Lindsay Toczylowski said that “as you read this excellent thread, let it sink in that one of the most pervasive issues for people in ICE detention is lack of access to counsel which means in most cases people have no shot at filing these challenges to their illegal detentions in federal court.”

The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states in part that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” and protects various rights in legal proceedings. The Trump administration has also faced intense criticism recently for its disregard of rights protected by the First, Second, and Fourth amendments.

Cheney was praised by other journalists for “such good shoe-leather reporting,” as “PBS NewsHour” correspondent Lisa Desjardins put it. Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff suggested that he “should get a Pulitzer for this thread.”

John Yarmuth, a former newspaper editor and Democratic congressman from Kentucky, said that “this is a great example of a journalist doing his very critical job. Now it’s up to government officials to act to correct these injustices. AND be shamed and replaced if they don’t.”

Last Thursday, seven Democrats in the US House of Representatives voted with nearly all Republicans to pass a multibillion-dollar DHS funding bill. Pretti’s killing has increased pressure on all senators to reject it. While immigration agents’ deadly and illegal actions have fueled calls to “abolish ICE,” some lawmakers are demanding reforms at the agency and across the department.

Pointing to Cheney’s findings, anti-monopoly lawyer Basel Musharbash said: “This is fucking insane. What reforms are supposed to fix an agency that commits 2,300 adjudicated constitutional violations in just six months? And those are just the ones that made it to court!”

Will Bari Weiss Condemn Israel’s Killing of CBS Contributor in Gaza?

Abdul Raouf Shaat is among the more than 200 media workers killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023.

Relatives and colleagues mourn journalists Anas Ghneim, Mohammed Salah Qashta, and Abdul Raouf Shaat, who were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on January 21, 2026.
(Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jan 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


A cameraman and CBS News contributor was among three journalists killed Wednesday by Israeli forces while working in Gaza, prompting some observers to ask when—or if—Bari Weiss, the network’s pro-Israel editor-in-chief, would condemn the attack.

Anas Ghneim, Mohammed Salah Qashta, and Abdul Raouf Shaat were using a drone to record aid distribution by the Egyptian Relief Committee in al-Zahra in central Gaza when, according to eyewitness accounts, an airstrike targeted one of the group’s vehicles accompanying the journalists.

“The Israeli army criminally targeted this vehicle,” Egyptian Relief Committee spokesperson Mohammed Mansour told AFP.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed its troops “identified several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed a threat to their safety,” and then “struck the suspects who activated the drone.”

Israeli officials often claim—almost always without conclusive evidence—that journalists, aid workers, and other civilians it kills are Hamas “terrorists.”

CBS News said that Shaat, a 30-year-old newlywed, “worked for years as a cameraman for CBS News and other outlets.”

Among those outlets were Agence France-Presse, which issued a statement condemning the attack and remembering Shaat as a “kind-hearted colleague, with a gentle sense of humor, and as a deeply committed journalist.”

“AFP demands a full and transparent investigation into his death,” the agency said. “Far too many local journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past two years while foreign journalists remain unable to enter the territory freely.”



Shaat’s CBS News colleagues in London remembered him as a “brave journalist” who was “deeply loved by everyone who knew or worked with him.”

However, one prominent CBS figure has so far been conspicuously silent on Shaat’s killing. As of Thursday afternoon, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has said nothing publicly about the incident. Weiss is a self-described Zionist whose outlet Free Press—now a division of CBS following its acquisition by Paramount Skydance—is staunchly pro-Israel and has shown indifference toward Palestinian suffering.

For example, FP called the officially declared Gaza famine, which claimed at least hundreds of lives, a “myth” and published other reporting on Gaza that critics said fueled genocide denial.



Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, are also both reportedly close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Standing in stark contrast with Weiss and CBS News, media advocacy groups were quick to denounce the journalists’ killings. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate blasted what it called a “deliberate assassination” and “a war crime and a crime against humanity under international humanitarian law.”

Condemnation also came from groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“CPJ condemns Israel’s strike on a clearly marked civilian vehicle in central Gaza that killed freelance photojournalists... amid an ongoing ceasefire,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement. “Israel, which possesses advanced technology capable of identifying its targets, has an obligation under international law to protect journalists.”

While it is difficult to know precisely how many journalists have been killed in Gaza—where Israel bans foreign reporters from entering—CPJ says at least 208 Palestinian media workers have been killed there. RSF says the number is at least 220. The United Nations puts the figure at over 260.

The deadliest Israeli massacre of media professionals in Gaza occurred last August 10, when six journalists were killed in a tent bombing outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Later that month, an Israeli “double-tap” strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed at least 21 people, including five journalists.

According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have committed more than 1,200 violations of the ceasefire with Hamas since it took effect last October, killing over 460 Palestinians including upward of 100 children. Officials said at least 11 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza late Wednesday and into Thursday, including the three journalists, three children, and a woman.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.

Israel also continues to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, causing preventable deaths. For example, at least 10 children and infants have died of cold-related causes this winter, according to local officials.

Criminal Investigation Demanded for DOGE Theft of Social Security Data

“This week’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg,” said the executive director of Social Security Works. “We need to know exactly who has our data and what they are doing with it.”


US Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) speaks during a press conference on Social Security in front of the US Capitol on May 5, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jan 21, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Advocates and Democratic members of Congress are calling for a criminal investigation after a court filing revealed that operatives at the Department of Government Efficiency—previously headed by Elon Musk—pilfered and leaked Social Security data through a non-secure private server.

Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said Wednesday that his organization supports Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) in their call for “a full criminal investigation into DOGE leaks of private Social Security data to Elon Musk’s associates and immediate congressional action to safeguard Americans’ privacy.”



DOGE Employees May Have Improperly Accessed Social Security Data With Aim to ‘Overturn Election Results’



Democracy Watchdog Exposes ‘Heartbreaking Catalog of DOGE’s Depredations’

“This reported malfeasance was enabled by a culture created by the Trump administration, Elon Musk, and DOGE soon after the president took office—a culture of recklessly interfering in the legitimate functions of the federal government with questionable intent and zero accountability,” said Richtman, calling the data abuses part of a “relentless attack on the functioning of the Social Security Administration.”

Richtman’s statement came a day after the Trump administration acknowledged that DOGE operatives accessed and divulged highly sensitive Social Security data in ways that “were potentially outside of” SSA policy and in violation of a March 2025 court order. The Justice Department maintains that SSA doesn’t know data was shared on the third-party server.

As the New York Times reported, the Trump DOJ also disclosed that “a political advocacy group contacted two members of the DOGE Social Security team, asking for an analysis of state voter rolls the advocacy group obtained.”

“One of the DOGE employees signed an agreement with the advocacy group, which the Social Security Administration appeared to learn through a review of emails,” the Times noted. “The Justice Department did not provide details about what came of the agreement and whether sensitive data was shared inappropriately.”

In a joint statement responding to the revelations, Larson and Neal said that “we have been warning about privacy violations at Social Security and calling out Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ for months.”

“DOGE signed an agreement to share Social Security data with an organization trying to undermine state election results, sent 1,000 Americans’ personal records directly to one of Elon Musk’s top consiglieres, and shared the confidential data of Americans on a private server,” the Democratic lawmakers continued. “The ‘DOGE’ appointees engaged in this scheme—who were never brought before Congress for approval or even publicly identified—must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for these abhorrent violations of the public trust.”

Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, echoed that call on Wednesday, saying that “those who have committed illegal acts must be prosecuted.”

Lawson also demanded that Congress launch “a long-overdue investigation into just what DOGE is doing with our earned benefits and our private data.”

“Thanks to Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, Elon Musk’s DOGE minions have access to our private Social Security data. So does anyone they choose to share it with—and anyone who can hack the unsecured server they’ve stored it on,” said Lawson. “This week’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. We need to know exactly who has our data and what they are doing with it.”

The US Must Stop Pointing Fingers and Admit: We Are the Bad Guys

Our humanity demands that we cease with claiming the evil in others without recognizing it in ourselves.


A protester stood his ground as federal officers moved to push protesters from the intersection of Lyndale Ave. N. and 25th Ave. in Minneapolis.
(Photo by Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler
Jan 22, 2026

Common Dreams

Every single moving mouth and face I see in the media seems to be obligated to stress the barbarity and illegitimacy of the Maduro government to establish some acceptable moral clarity even before they can carry on with any analysis of the current political situation, or the current political conditions in the world. Likewise, each personality seems obligated to make similar statements as a prerequisite to speak on the Iranian regime and the religionists controlling the country. Each is evil they must claim, and that they expressively disagree and denounce them in all shape and form. Each is beyond the specter of acceptable civilization, they must state. Each has no inkling of morality, but is simply obsessed with power and control.

This was the same in any discussion of Hamas in Gaza. Every political critic was required to denounce the various regimes and point out their flaws without spelling out the historical influences that helped to create the regimes and set them into motion. Anyone who has ever spoken up for peace and credible reflection knows what it’s like to be baited or accused of being an apologist for the bad guy. But this is not necessary and distracts from full and meaningful analysis.

I am not going to seek acceptability by engaging in some litmus test of morality regurgitating a litany of flaws and how I don’t agree. I believe that there is a collective of people so tired of the moral denunciations that they are able to look past my refusal to criticize and denounce and hear what I am trying to say.

The reflections of the flaws of other places and countries is namely a reflection of us and on us...

I am reminded, from my experiences with my work in the drug and alcohol recovery community in Roxbury, Massachusetts and the very poignant but grassroots logic and moral challenge that often flowed from that recovery community. People would remind us that when we were so busy pointing fingers at others that there were four fingers pointing back at us. This means that when we point out the deficiencies, the cruelty, the lying, the racism, and the hatred of others it is not all in them, but it also resides in us. We are not exempt and we are not free from all the dismissive political distances that we try to create.

The hypocrisy is when people go through all of the denunciations of the other over legitimacy and brutality, over legalities and dictatorship, and fail in acknowledging this mirror that reflects back on this country first and foremost.

There is some Nicolas Maduro in us. There is some Ali Hosseini Khamenei in us. Vladimir Putin is in us. We find that Hamas is in us and has always been part of who we are. We find that Palestinian dismissal resides in so many of us as it does in Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. We need to quell our objections and realize in so many instances there is a mirror that projects a reflection onto ourselves, and we discover them is in us.

I am astounded that given all of the vigorous and vehement denunciations and dismissal of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, or denunciation of Hamas there are still four fingers pointing back at us. If we look closely enough, we find all of the criticisms and flaws that we recognize in the other and our strong objections are mirrored in this government and in this historical moment in this country.

Murders do not just happen with the brutality of other governments but happens in Minneapolis with the killing of Renee Good. That murder happened not too far from where George Floyd was also killed. As we point out the roundup of people in other countries we must remind ourselves of the undocumented immigrants and US citizens that the Trump administration has arrested. More than 328,000 have been disappeared in the illegal and unconstitutional sweeps carried out by the administration. 327,000 have been deported. At least 22 have died in ICE custody. Most of the facilities are operated by private corporations that have raked in huge profits like the GEO Group.

Just as this administration is obsessed with crushing Tren de Aragua, a notorious gang with reaches from Venezuela into the US, the parallels are frightening with the US reaching into Venezuela creating a vassal state, stealing oil and other resources, claiming that they have a right to do so, and arrogantly stating that they are running the government. There are four fingers pointing back at us.

The sheer arrogance of demanding that Greenland be controlled by the US the hard way or the easy way points to the rogue status of the US. There are many other examples of racism, hatred, cruelty, brutality, the looting of other countries, the demanding of rare earths, and in general street racketeering but on a broader scale. The expression of this current moment with the US government is that it is expressed in theft, fear, bullying, and simple old street protection and racketeering. There are four fingers pointing at this government and this country.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA, the oldest peace and justice nonviolent organization in the country, embraces this hard truth. They are us, and we urge that we move away from the paradigm of the other and, almost in confession, that leads to contrition that what the country claims as the other is us, and four fingers are pointing back upon us. Our humanity demands that we cease with claiming the evil in others without recognizing it in ourselves.

The hypocrisy is when people go through all of the denunciations of the other over legitimacy and brutality, over legalities and dictatorship, and fail in acknowledging this mirror that reflects back on this country first and foremost. Our claims of deep immorality, where objections are strongly expressed, belong to us. If we are going to denounce any place to gain credibility in our analysis or criticisms, then the talking heads and the experts need to state that this is us in all of the shapes and forms of political repression and immorality. They are us, and our denunciations begin at home—stating that we are strongly opposed to what is happening in the US, and that we do not agree with the images and political agenda in the US just like we do not agree with what is happening abroad. The reflections of the flaws of other places and countries is namely a reflection of us and on us, and four fingers are pointing back at us.


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


Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler
Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler is an advisor with FOR-USA and the founder and president of Faith Strategies USA. Until retiring from his position in 2022 Hagler was Senior Minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C.
Full Bio >