Trump’s Call to Putin, Article IV of the NPT and War Crimes

by Renee Parsons / March 12th, 2026

President Trump’s recent attempt to reassure the American public how the war against Iran was going relied on the President’s assertion that the US is winning the war. Relying on the lame claim, the President said “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” as well as telling Axios that “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”

Speaking from his Doral Florida golf club, the President added that “If they do anything bad, that would be the end of Iran and you’d never hear the name again,” leaving open speculation that the US was prepared to further dramatically escalate its military response.

In close coordination with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu, early assertions that Iran was in a weakened state have not materialized. Almost two weeks into the conflict, with mid term elections looming, the President’s vulnerable political state amidst sinking approval polls cannot avoid the precarious reality that the war had not occurred as anticipated.

In response to the frustration, the US has undertaken an indiscriminate carpet bombing campaign throughout Tehran, its capital city with a population of ten million. Those bombings include direct attacks on the civilian population, schools, hospitals, residential buildings and other noncombatant infrastructure. All would be considered war crime violations under the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Codes.

As a result of the targeted assassination of the Ayatollah, the Trump-Netanyahu team expected Iran to succumb to a lack of leadership yet those early days passed without any sign of collapse by Iran and were stunned by Iran’s vociferous response.

The war has not proven to be the speedy, crowning success that Trump had been led to believe as he struggles to find the exit.

Almost immediately as bombs began to drop on February 28, the Shajareh Tayyiba elementary school was struck killing 165 young girls (ages 6-10 years) and a dozen teachers. It was reported that the majority of the students were daughters of Iran military officers. Trump foolishly asserted that Iran had killed its own students with no explanation of how Iran acquired the necessary missile or how a second tap had occurred on the rescuers.

When satellite imagery confirmed that a US Tomahawk missile was at fault, it was asserted by President Trump that the Tomahawk missile had been in Iran’s possession, although it is known that only four countries have purchased Tomahawk’s (the UK, the US, Australia and Japan) and that Iran has no Tomahawk missiles.

It was further reported that an incendiary device had exploded at the scene thereby creating an inferno amidst the students. The attack on Sharjareh, as well as carpet bombing, would clearly qualify as war crimes eligible for legal action.

As certain media began to report that the US had lost the war, it came as no surprise that Trump reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin presumably for counsel on deescalation although the exact nature of their one hour conversation remains unspecified.

Two days after the Putin-Trump phone call, Putin was meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev where both spoke in favor of an end to the hostilities. The Russian leader then held a phone conversation with Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan where both expressed concern that the situation in the Gulf was “deteriorating rapidly.”

The Russian leader “emphasized the need to stop the conflict from escalating further and resolve it through talks.” Putin thanked Aliyev for assistance evacuating Russian citizens from Iran and thanked the UAE for its assistance to Russian citizens.

Almost immediately — because there is a history there — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ruled out further negotiations citing that Iran had had a “very bitter experience of talking with the Americans.” At least twice, the US had “used” negotiations as a façade to stall peace efforts while the US-Israel instigated new attacks.

It is may be implausible to believe that Trump’s negotiating “dream team” included his son-in-law Jared Kushner and a NYC crony Steve Witkoff, both of whom are Zionists with real estate backgrounds and active relationships with Israel. Neither had any experience in diplomacy or any familiarity with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Even before the conflict became a full fledged war, when it became apparent that Trump was willing to ‘negotiate’ with the Iranians, the President was frequently flipping his objective – were negotiations to be focused on Iran’s use of nuclear energy or its enrichment of uranium or was it the ballistic missile threat or perhaps it was merely ‘regime change’ as if the US had the right to decide any other nation’s ‘regime’.

Scrutinizing the negotiating process reveals that when US and Iran representatives met in an attempt to find common ground and resolve their differences, the ‘negotiations’ quickly deteriorated into little more than a stalling process creating political theatre to enhance President Trump’s image of his alleged quest for peace.

The negotiations could have been productive if Trump had appointed professional diplomats with some experience dealing with high level war-and-peace questions or politically sensitive issues as well as an open-minded approach truly seeking peace would have been helpful.

At the time, “A deal was at our reach, and we left Geneva happily with the understanding that we can reach a deal next time we meet,” Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated in anticipation that Iran would “focus on discussions that accept enrichment inside Iran while building trust that enrichment is and will stay for peaceful purposes.”

The question arose, however, what were the negotiators to negotiate if the President had not been able to settle on one single basis for war with Iran, if there was no real understanding of the nature of their negotiation. In the final analysis, it makes little difference since there was no one real objective identified that would forestall the attacks.

The attacks were always on the agenda; the negotiations were meant to impress gullible Americans that there was a serious attempt to forestall an attack and that the US did its best but it was allegedly the fault of those damned Iranians who would not cooperate.

After their first “negotiation” session, Witkoff reported with an incredulous tone that Iran had declared it had an “inalienable right” to enrich all its nuclear fuel. That’s how they opened up,” Witkoff complained. “We, of course, responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you, dead in your tracks.” Witkoff continued “… which told us at that very moment that they had no notion of doing anything other than retaining enrichment for the purpose of weaponizing.”

Clearly, Witkoff was offended by Iranian use of the “inalienable right” phrase. As an uninformed mediator, Witkoff had not understood that the Iranians were absolutely correct in their assertion. The Iranians did have an “inalienable right” as spelled out in Article IV of the NPT.

However, the Witkoff-Kushner team maintained an antagonistic view with no clue about the NPT or that Article IV existed but that the Iranians were totally correct and that Article IV was very clear and specific to the point.

After the fact, Omani foreign minister Badr Alblusaidi who participated in the negotiations as a mediator, reiterated on Face the Nation that “Iran agreed it will “never, ever” have nuclear material to create a bomb. Iran agreed to full and comprehensive verification by the IAEA”.

Hours before President Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran, Alblusaidi went public to inform the American people that “a peace deal is within our reach.” By that time, Trump was intent on war.

Instead, if Trump’s hand picked negotiators had been familiar with Article IV’s reference to an inalienable right as identified in the NPT, if Witkoff and Kushner had a better understanding of their role as negotiators, had a better understanding of what the Iranians were trying to convey about the NPT’s requirements and its allowance for reprocessing of uranium for peaceful purposes, this disastrous deadly conflict might have been avoided.

Article IV of the NPT states: “Nothing in this treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination” and further that “all Parties have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

Article IV also provides for the transfer of nuclear technology and materials to NPT Parties for peaceful purposes in the development of civilian nuclear energy programs, subject to IAEA safeguards to demonstrate that their nuclear programs are not being used for the development of nuclear weapons.

Specifically Article IV of the NPT acknowledges the right of all Parties to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as well as permits the enrichment of uranium for peaceful purposes.

In 1968, both Iran and Israel were parties to the NPT as Iran has always been agreeable to IAEA inspections.

Initially agreeing to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in theory in 1968, the nation of Israel never signed or ratified the NPT as adopted; Israel remains the only nation in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons and its refusal to adhere to the IAEA inspections.

Israel has denied the existence of the Dimona Nuclear plant for decades, is the only UN member not a party to the NPT as it is also not a party to the Biological Weapons Convention or the Chemical Weapons Convention and has never participated in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone.

American journalist Tucker Carlson: “If the US refuses to admit any responsibility for the bombing of an Iranian elementary school, the US is not worth fighting for,” and an investigation should determine if the school bombing was a “tragic mistake.”

Ironically, within days of the elementary school attack, US First Lady Melania Trump chaired a UN Security Meeting entitled “Children in Conflict.”

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Renee Parsons has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and a staff member in the US House of Representative in Washington, DC. Before its demise, she was also a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. Read other articles by Renee.

Myth of Judeo-Christian Culture

INTRO TO CONSPRIACY 101

Interviewing T.P. Wilkinson and Robert Merrill

by Jeff J. Brown / March 12th, 2026

Jeff J. Brown: Thomas, knowing your erudite expertise on Christianity, I have a question for you:

When did Jews get control of the Vatican?

I know it was at least in 1942, when the Jewish psychopath Rothschild clan created the City of London Vatican Bank.

T.P. Wilkinson: I will check on your query before I give you an answer. However, I think it must have been around the Reformation because the Calvinists are traditionally strong Old Testament followers. There is a theory that Calvin (as opposed to Luther) was crypto-Jewish.

One should consider that both Waldensers and the radical Christians of Southern France (Albigensians/ Cathars) were adamant New Testament followers for which they were annihilated in the crusade preached by Innocent III.

Jeff: And the Cathars were wiped out too.

T.P.: I have been studying Church and cultural history for most of my life. However I am very indebted to the work of my long-time friend and colleague, Dr Robert Merrill, dean emeritus of the Maryland Institute College of Art. So much of what I have to say is a synthesis of his work as well as my own.

St. Jerome (342-420AD) translated the Gospels into Latin, and he also translated the Hebrew Bible. The Vulgate (Latin) was always considered the “official” version of the Bible, though there are many studies showing Jerome tampered the original Greek text. I did not see any recent elevation of the “vulgar” Hebrew Tribal religious text by Catholics that would be on par with the protestant or evangelical Scofield Bible from the early20th century. Scofield’s version of the Bible has made Christianity as sub-set and derivative of Judaism. This is clearly not true. But it gave rise to Christian Zionism. They all accept the Scofield Bible.

This still does not mean the Hebrew Bible was ever considered by Catholics to be a part of Christianity. In fact, it never was. The trouble with the Hebrew Bible is that it is a tribal religion with a tribal god. It is constantly at war against other tribes and their gods. In the Babylonian period when the Hebrews emerged, all tribes had their own gods, and they were the cause of constant inter-tribal wars. In addition, much of the Hebrew Bible is copies from other Babylonian literature, The First Commandment proves this – “I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange gods before me.” This was a period of wars among the many different tribal gods.

There are very many references to Baal in the Hebrew Bible – 90 to be exact. Baal is the chief god of the Canaanites. He is a “father” god of other gods as well as a god of nature and fertility. Yahweh is constantly urging war against Baal and genocide of the people who worship him. This is just tribalism pure and simple.

Four steps to the current Bible

Initial Commission: In 382AD, Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome to revise the Old Latin Gospels to ensure a standardized, authoritative text.

Hebrew Translation: Jerome expanded this project, translating most of the Old Testament directly from Hebrew rather than the Greek Septuagint, a move that eventually solidified the Hebraica Veritas within the Vulgate.
Official Recognition: Although Damasus started the process, the Council of Trent (1546) formally declared the Vulgate (Latin) the only authentic and official version.

Finalization: The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1590AD), authorized by Popes Sixtus V and Clement VIII, solidified the finalized text, including the Old Testament translation from Hebrew.

The whole idea that Christianity is derived from Judaism is just a fabrication. Christianity was a Greek religion. At the time of Jesus’s life, Greek mystery religions were dominant all over the Mediterranean world. Greek was the most frequently spoken language, even in Palestine. The entire New Testament was written in Greek. Christianity is based on “mysteries” which were also common in Greek religions – virgin birth, son of God becoming human, death and rebirth, and so on. Judaism is only based on tribal history and struggles against competing tribes.

You can see this in the language. The word Christianity for “god” is “theos.” “Theos” is the word used in the Greek New Testament, and it is translated to Deus in the Latin. “Theos” is a general term for God, but it is derived from Zeus which means “father god.” Here are some summaries.

The primary Ancient Greek word for “god” or “deity” is θεός (theós), which is typically used for a singular deity. It can refer to a specific god, a general divine being, or in the plural (θεοί, theoi), the gods of Greek mythology. The term is also used to represent “God” in the New Testament.

The primary Ancient Greek word for Zeus is Ζεύς (Zeús), typically pronounced “zefs” or “zews” in antiquity. Due to irregular declension, his name appears in different forms: Genitive Διός (Diós), the Greek word Ζεύς (Zeus) represents the father god, frequently appearing in the vocative form Zeu pater (“O Father Zeus”) in ancient literature to denote him as the supreme ruler, protector, and father of gods and men. It derives from the Indo-European sky-God *Dyḗus Ph₂tḗr, meaning “Sky Father”. The Latin father god is Jupiter, which is only a Latinization of the Greek, “Zeu pater.”

Jesus often refers to his “father” as God. This makes sense in Greek but has no relevance in Hebrew.

The main reason the Jews killed Jesus was that he was spreading a religion they did not accept, and he was promoting another god, something their commandments forbid.

The whole panoply of Angels, sainted humans like Mary, and other semi-divines are just the same as the demi-gods in Greek religions. For example, in translating the Torah and the story of Adam and Eve (another Mesopotamian story), Jerome or someone added the role of the Angel Gabriel as the advisor and teacher of Adam. The Qur’an also tells the story of Gabriel as a demi-god. There is no Gabrial or any demi-god in the Torah story of Adam and Eve. But Gabriel does enter Jewish religious writings later on after Christianity is established, i.e., in the Midrash. The Qur’an is right. Christianity is a polytheistic religion.

We have totally lost the true history of Christianity and accepted the fabrication. Everything about the history of Jews is fabricated. That seems to be their cultural strength. The Jewish god is Yahweh, but they are forbidden from mentioning the name.

It was really the Christian School of Alexandria – people like St. Clement and Origin – who fabricated the false Idea that Christianity was a fulfillment of Hebrew prophesies. They were followed by the Romans like Jerome and St. Augustine who were very adamant about hiding the Greek origins of Christianity.

There are many almost funny examples of the Greek connection. In the mysteries of Eleusis, initiates have to go down into a cellar under the temple and be totally isolated for 3 days. This is a symbolic death. When they emerge or return to from the tomb, they are given a sheaf of wheat and a bunch of grapes – bread and wine. This mystery precedes Christianity by about 2000 years. It was destroyed and all the records destroyed in about 350 AD by Christians from Rome who obviously wanted to hide their origins. The ruins of the temple were re-discovered in the 20th century.

Jeff: Why were early Christians so hellbent (pardon the pun) about hiding Christianity’s deep Greek roots?

T.P.: Here is a good answer from Robert Merrill and myself, of the Institute of Advanced Cultural Studies,

First of all, the Romans were not “early Christians”, the Greeks were. The Romans, when they conquered the Latium, had an interest in suppressing the presence of Greek religions. The establishment of the Latin Church was a coup against Orthodoxy, the Greek centers of Christianity, especially Antioch and Constantinople. This coup was arguably conducted by the North African (Carthaginian) latifundistas who would eventually be driven to the North by revolutionary Islam. Laurent Guyenot argued that Rome was the establishment of a colony by people from the region we now know as Romania- hence the creation of Latin as a Roman language, which supplanted Greek and the indigenous languages of the Italian peninsula.

Thus, it is plausible that what became the Roman Catholic Church was already in origin very “Jewish”/ rabbinical, as opposed to the ecclesiastical decentralism of Orthodoxy (the Greek churches declared to be schismatic by Rome). This Judaic tendency might actually have been transported through Khazars in Romania, who again changed color to become “Catholics.”

Of course, this is hypothetical. But, based on a confluence or convergence that was later actually amplified in the Reformation, Rome‘s persistent “tribalism” was expressed in the Crusades and Inquisition – precursors to the present Zionist system.

Jeff: you write that Jews killed Jesus because he was promoting another god. I have always been told Jesus was a Jew. Is that true? Why or why not?

The Gospels say Jesus was a Jew but that is not very convincing. He may have been or he may not have been. There is no indication at all he knew Hebrew which stopped being the language of ordinary Jews in about 500 BC. Jews were always a minority wherever they lived. They spoke the majority language. Hebrew with the language of Jewish rabbis and high priests. If Jesus were a rabbi, as if often claimed, he would have learned Hebrew and would have used it in his teachings. But he does not.

T.P.: I believe that the only things we can assume about a historical Jesus is that he was born and raised in what is today occupied Palestine. The Gospels are not historical records. They are fiction. That does not mean they are fantasy, just that they cannot be treated in the same way 19th century historical method was developed and applied.

We also have to consider the fundamental degree of forgery and corruption of whatever texts were finally adopted as canonical. In this point we should be skeptical of the entire chronology set under Christendom. That is to say the vain attempt to make chronology conform to the supposed sequence of the Bible. Archeological method does not support such a synchronic view.

Was Jesus a Jew? This is really just a frustrating subject because it is almost impossible to find anyone who does not believe that Christianity evolved out of Judaism. That’s just simply a fabrication. There is no evidence in the Gospels or Epistles that Jesus practiced Judaism or spoke Hebrew or taught the Torah (Jewish law). He preached his Greek religion to Jews in Palestine. He spoke Aramaic which was the language of the people who lived in what is now Syria, Iraq, and Canaan. Very likely he was a Canaanite. He was born in Bethlehem to parents who were from there, but that whole area was majority Canaanites and Hebrews were only a minority. The majority religions in the area were Greek religions which were derived from Egyptian and Indian sources just like the native polytheistic religion of the Canaanites. Jesus’ criticisms of Hebrews and the leaders of Judaism are right out of the doctrines of Greek religions – the Hebrews were far too interested in money and material things and ignored the spirit. Jesus physically fought with the Pharisees in the Hebrew temple and he threw the bankers out of the temple where they’d set up their businesses.

For some this depends on whether one accepts that Mary was a Jew. I do not think the official narrative supports any definite conclusion. What seems clear however was that a Jewish theocratic agency exercised authority over the territory on behalf of those powers that dominated the region at the time. This would make the question moot since it is always presumed that Jesus opposed the Jewish faith. That is a convenient way of ignoring the political implications of a non-Jew attacking collaborators in the occupation of his homeland. The Latin Church and the Reformed churches always (especially Luther in his exposition of Romans 13) rejected the political implications of Jesus’ opposition to the Pharisees et al. Liberation theology in its various iterations explicitly focused on the unity of faith and political praxis — which would again have made the putative ethnic or religious identity trivial if not irrelevant.

I think the antagonisms today reflect the psychopathology of the cult and its constant persecution of humanism in whatever form. That is the real story — the relevant story — of Christianity as it has been interpreted by almost everyone outside the established Western churches (and synagogues).

Calling Jesus a Jew is just obfuscation.

Here is more from Bob Merrill

This has been written about somewhat. There are many reasons, and all of them bad. They are, indeed, what led up to the schism between the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

1. The Catechetical School of Alexandria. Alexandria was the center for Greek Religions from Alexander’s time until about the time of Augustine. Greek religions derive ultimately from India and Africa, as Martin Bernal has written in Black Athena: The Afro-Asiatic Origins of Greek Culture. Most early Christians were part of the cult of Christ and saw themselves as part of a wide variety of Greek religious and spiritual cults. Some Christians at Alexandria wanted to out-compete the other sects by claiming to be the one true sect. This meant refuting and suppressing all the others. Greek religions have over time been turned into children’s myths by people like Bullfinch and other mythology writers. The really good people who study Greek texts have vanished and their books are pretty much gone, too. It is almost impossible to study what Greek religions were really like. This is also true for Egyptian religions.

2. Judaism was attractive and was adopted as an origin of the Christian cult for political and historical reasons. It had a built-in doctrine of Jews as Gods chosen people who would inherit control of all the earth. When this was accomplished, a new Jewish kingdom would be established – Israel. And it would rule all of the earth. This political and imperialistic model appealed to certain early Christians, so they associated themselves as the “fulfillment” of Jewish prophesies rather than as much more spiritual sects of the Greeks. The magnum opus of this movement is Augustine’s massive City of God in which he merges the concept of Rome as the eternal empire and Christianity as the eternal empire of the soul. It is the same formula as the essential Christian myth itself – the divine becomes flesh. The massive efforts to unify Judaism and Christianity are just so dominant, especially among Protestants. We now see very overtly that Jews have inserted themselves into Christianity. This is probably an effort for survival. Israel now pays protestant ministers to promote Judaism. People like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro promoted the idea that “western civilization” was a Judeo-Christian culture. I just think this is bullshit.

3. Joseph Campbell in his volume III of his series Masks of God discusses this adoption of Hebrew historicism cult and suppression of the Greek spiritual cults very well. But more succinctly could be the study of Greek cults versus Christian cults in the book by Lynch called Christ and Apollo: The Dimensions of the Literary Imagination. I read this as an undergrad and thought it explained a lot. Here’s the difference or what the Hebrew cult contributed to Christianity –

a. Christ was seen as a completely definite and particular individual — the historical man who entered fully into human life, body with human limitations. Lynch argues that true understanding — in literature, life, and art — comes through engagement with particular, limited realities and that is history. Judaism is an historical cult. All of its “mythological” figures from Abraham on are taken as historical, real, and moving in a definite political scheme – toward the Hebrew empire. This meshed perfectly with the mentality of Rome. Christ is “historical” just as David, Abraham, Noah and all the rest are.

b. Apollo stands for the infinite or non-definite spiritual condition — abstract aestheticism and the tendency in art and thought to escape into idealized, detached visions that pertain to the soul and transcend history or makes history irrelevant. It is associated with romantic mythologizing, the abstract aesthetic mind, and any approach that privileges idea. This is why the Eastern Orthodoxy is all about spiritualism, while the Roman church is all about history.

In the Middle Ages, the Roman Church developed the concept of The Church Militant or the warfare against heresy and other religions. The wars were not about spirituality but rather about real historical control of territory. This is what happened to the Cathars, Albigensians or the very early Protestants like John Wycliff. And this is particularly Hebrew in its essence.

But as you say, the Roman catholic church has never recognized the Hebrew Bible as doctrine, and it has discouraged its members from even reading the book. Protestants elevated the Hebrew Bible to its primary status, and probably for the same political reasons that early on attracted some Christians to it. It is a messianic theme, which the Christian Gospels and Epistles already have their messiah, and the spiritual re-birth Jesus taught them.

For today, we are not focusing enough of the Scofield Study Bible, which in numerous footnotes makes fabulous connections between what he calls the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is a fabulation, but it has been very influential. It is the origin of Christian Zionism. It was funded by the Rothschilds and originally published by Oxford University Press. It was a project of the Zionists to colonize Christianity – as they are now doing with all of Euro/America on every level.

The “standard” story is that after 1492 when Jews and Muslims were thrown out of Spain, they moved north into England, France, Germany, and Italy and got into business and banking there. The story is that the people who became the Rothschilds ended up in Frankfurt and began their banking there. But Jews were not bankers in Spain. They were scholars, poets, philosophers. My view is that Jews went back to North Africa with the Muslims since there was a much more sophisticated culture there. Europe in the 1400s and before was a jungle of savages. I think it is more likely that Jews moved from Ukraine and the Caucasus – Khazar Jews – into Europe and took up the banking that they found there. The Rothschilds were Khazars (so-called Ashkenazim) and not Sephardic Jews.

If we take this thesis seriously—as Kästner proposed in his much derided The Thirteenth Tribe—then even the war in Ukraine corresponds to the geographical/ geopolitical area of contestation of the historic Khazars, who were to have converted to Judaism and then became a diaspora when driven out of the region by the Muscovites. Take that one step further and the Polish Zionists, of whom Netanyahu is only the most recent incarnation, see Greater Israel in fact as Greater Khazaria, extending from the Ukraine through Turkey to the Red Sea and Nile. Thus what Netanyahu really means (and Zelensky as well) is that the great wars against Muscovy (today’s Russia) and the successor states in the Middle East are a fulfillment of one grand vision to restore Khazar domination of the “new” Silk Road.

To return however to your original question. I read that the Knesset is located on land leased from the Vatican. I think we can say that the inception of the papacy with all its vain claims to universal truth and power are traceable to a joint venture between the founders of the schismatic Latin Church and its allies in the sacking of Constantinople, a continuing confluence of interest.

Of course that is all just theory. The conspiracies however are fact.

Jeff J. Brown is the author of 44 Days (2013), China Rising, Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations: The Truth behind Asia’s Enigmatic Colossus (2016), and China is Communist, Dammit!: Dawn of the Red Dynasty (Badak Merah, 2016). Email: jeff@brownlanglois.com. Read other articles by Jeff, or visit Jeff's website.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: The Origin of American Conspiracy Theories

Disappointing tax refunds 'won't save the midterms' for Trump: policy experts

Sarah K. Burris

March 12, 2026 

COMMON DREAMS

As Americans file their 2025 taxes, they're finding they're not getting the huge returns that President Donald Trump and the GOP promised.

MetLife published a report that CNBC's Carl Quintanilla cited on X, saying that the report claims "tax refunds are disappointing."

According to the data he cited, "aggregate payments are up 4 percent or just $7 billion" in the fiscal year to date.

"On net, the stimulative effect of tax refunds between 2025 and 2026 is likely to be well below market expectations. Further, research from Bank of America suggests that only 19 percent of consumers are expecting to spend money based on tax season cash flow," the report said, according to a screen capture by CNBC anchor Kelly Evans. The information was sent to press by MetLife's chief market strategist from MetLife Investment Management (MIM).

Erica York, the vice president of federal tax policy at the pro-business, center-right Tax Foundation, disputes the data, saying that theirs shows something different.

She said that the GOP's "One Big Beautiful Bill" law helped taxpayers by 9.4 percent. According to their data, aggregate payments were up to $12 billion.

Experts said that this data isn't what Republicans were hoping for as they head into the midterm elections.

"Not a great stat for Republican lawmakers who plan to run on the amount of [money] Americans are saving thanks to the tax bill they passed last year," said CNBC's Washington correspondent Emily Wilkins.

"This is what Republicans were counting on to save the midterms before Trump pushed the $5 gas button [by the way]," agreed Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at GroundWork.

Deputy head of US policy at the investment bank Piper Sandler, Donald Schneider, explained that it isn't the right way to view tax refund data.

"They are coming in as expected when we look at data for the filing season (after Jan 26). Refunds are up $13 [billion], non-withheld payments down $12 billion, and [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] beneficiaries file now, not in Jan/Feb," he said.

Discerning What a Real International Women’s Day Looks Like

All Wars are Wars Against Children and Motherhood

by Paul Haeder / March 11th, 2026

One day, March 8, International Women’s Day just doesn’t do justice for most girls on planet earth in the global south who will not reach womanhood.

Example:

The Israeli-American strike on a school that killed at least 180 children, most of them girls aged between 7 and 12, on the first day of the illegal war on Iran was deliberate.

The Shajereh Tayyebeh (The Good Tree) school in the city of Minab, in Hormozgan province of Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, started as an institution primarily to serve the children of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy personnel.

These children were killed in a “double tap” strike, with the second missile fired killing sheltering survivors, two first responders, and the parent of a child killed.

“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” a Red Crescent medic said. “The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”

Do you want a new vocabulary dredged from the genocide in Gaza? “Educide” is the systematic destruction of education during genocide.

Planned bombing of not just colleges but primary and high schools by the Israeli apartheid state are designed to create a chilling reality: (1) disruption of schooling; (2) illiteracy and educational decline; (3) lack of resources for learning; (4) decline in academic motivation; (5) psychological and emotional impact; (6) makeshift learning attempts; (7) generational implications of lost education.

How about celebrating this powerful woman who stuck her neck out more than 100 years ago.

The founder of Save the Children, Eglantyne Jebb, understood that wars are wars against children … against motherhood .. .. against sisterhood … against aunthood. In 1919, following the atrocities toward children in the First World War, she created Save the Children. Her aim was to recognize and protect the rights of all children worldwide. For her time, her views were far from mainstream.

Jebb also knew that children are significantly at risk during violent conflicts. She once said, “All wars, whether just or unjust, disastrous or victorious, are waged against the child.”

In 1919, the 35-year-old Eglantyne Jebb began handing out leaflets in Trafalgar Square after seeing horrifying newspaper photos of starving children in Europe. Although a ceasefire was declared on November 11, 1918, Allied troops continued to impose a blockade against enemy ports, restricting their access to essential supplies. As a result, famine threatened more than three million children in Europe.

“The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress.”

What do we get now in this upside-down world of the US arming and facilitating Israel in their carpet bombing of Tehran and in Gaza?

The Israeli general who headed military intelligence on October 7, 2023, said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day, and “it does not matter now if they are children.” This is what Israelis hear broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 TV station.

Aharon Haliva said the toll in Gaza, which he put at more than 70,000 dead, was “necessary” as a “message to future generations” of Palestinians.

“They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price,” he added, referring to the mass expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands after the creation of Israel in 1948. Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic.

You want another word for your genocide crossword puzzle?  Gaza is in ruins. So is its education system. Scholasticide. The Israeli Occupation Forces have destroyed or damaged all schools and education facilities in Gaza.

Today, instead of going back to school, like most children around the world, 660,000 girls and boys in Gaza will be sifting through the rubble, desperate, hungry, traumatized, and mostly bereaved.

As noted above, the longer they stay out of school with their trauma, the higher the risk they become a “lost generation,” sowing the seeds for more hatred and violence.

Even finding solace from religious leaders is impossible. Here, another word for this deadly crime of genocide: epistemicide. This is what I study and read: Epistemicide is being carried out on a vast scale, designed to erase all knowledge originating in Palestine or relating to it, any alternative knowledge to the official war narrative.

This term was coined by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, a Portuguese sociologist, as he focused on the annihilation of alternate knowledge forms by dominant, usually Western, paradigms. It is a tool of colonialism that erases culture and erodes the legitimacy of marginalized voices.

Modern science is based on a practice of professional and social technical division of labour and on the infinite technological development of the productive forces, of which capitalism is today the only example. Alternative social practices generate alternative forms of knowledge. Not to recognise these forms of knowledge implies delegitimising the social practices that support them and, in this sense, promoting the social exclusion of those who promote them. The genocide that so often characterises European expansion was also epistemicide: strange peoples were eliminated because they also had strange forms of knowledge, and these strange forms of knowledge were eliminated because they were based on strange social practices and strange peoples. But epistemicide has been much more widespread than genocide because it has always claimed to subalternise, subordinate, marginalise or illegalise social practices and groups that might pose a threat to capitalist expansion, or for much of our century to communist expansion (in this respect as modern as capitalism), and also because it happened in the peripheral and extra-North American space of the world system as well as in the central European and North American space, against workers, indigenous people, black people, women and minorities in general (ethnic, religious, sexual).

The new paradigm considers epistemicide as one of the great crimes against humanity.

Women heroes: League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is leading campaigns for an immediate ceasefire and a halt to military support for Israel, with a focus on documenting testimonies from Gaza.

Francesca Albanese is the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, who has consistently called for a “suspension of all ties with Israel” until the “Gaza genocide” ends. She has accused the UK and other Western nations of enabling the situation through military and diplomatic support.

This might not be pretty reading, but for the-now-past International Women’s Day, I encourage you all to study: “Femi-genocide,” which is what experts have highlighted based on reports of sexual assault and humiliation of Palestinian women in detention.

And, finally, we have “Reproductive Genocide”: Activists have drawn attention to the specific targeting of pregnant women, the destruction of hospitals, and the lack of access to medical care.

Mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, daughters, and BFF’s stand strong and join in teaching your boys and men in your lives to respect women, to learn about your contributions to humankind, and to respect your vitality as birth-givers. It is a matter of life and death for the planet.

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Paul Haeder has been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

Group That Convinced Wyoming Supreme Court to Block Abortion Ban Fights New Law

“This new law is part of a relentless campaign by anti-abortion extremists who continue to push restrictions regardless of settled law, patient safety, or basic compassion,” said one critic.

Abortion rights defenders protest the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade during a demonstration in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on June 24, 2022 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
(Photo by Natalie Behring/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Mar 11, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


A reproductive rights group coalition that recently got two anti-abortion laws overturned in Wyoming’s Supreme Court filed a legal challenge on Tuesday against the insidiously named “fetal heartbeat” legislation signed earlier this week by the state’s Republican governor.

The advocacy groups Chelsea’s Fund and Just the Pill; Wellspring Health Access, Wyoming’s only abortion clinic; and three physicians filed a motion seeking to block HB 0126, the so-called Human Heartbeat Act, which was signed Monday by Gov. Mark Gordon.


New Research Details ‘Human and Economic Toll’ of US Abortion Bans


The law bans abortion when there is a “detectable fetal heartbeat.” Critics note that the term “fetal heartbeat” is medically inaccurate and misleading, as what can be detected with a transvaginal ultrasound at around six weeks of gestation is not an actual heartbeat, but rather electrical activity in fetal tissue that later develops into a heart.

The legislation contains an exception to “preserve the woman from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health, according to appropriate medical judgment,” but forces victims of rape and incest to carry their abusers’ fetus to term.

Gordon called the glaring lack of exceptions for rape or incest “an unfortunate flaw.”

Wyoming’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed the law after the state Supreme Court struck down two other pieces of forced-birth legislation in January.

One of the overturned laws outlawed abortion in nearly all cases, except when the pregnant patient’s life is in danger or for victims of rape or incest. The other banned abortion pills. Both laws were passed after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing half a century of federal abortion rights.

In striking down the laws, the state’s high court ruled that they violated residents’ ability to make their own healthcare decisions—a right enshrined in the Wyoming Constitution.

The groups challenging the new law echoed the ruling in their motion, arguing the legislation “transgresses the constitutional guarantee of plaintiffs’ and individuals’ to make healthcare decisions without interference from the government.”

Chelsea’s Fund executive director Janean Forsyth expressed dismay over state lawmakers’ relentless attacks on healthcare.

“I’m thinking about everyone from the 15-year-old that we supported, whose grandmother actually reached out, a victim of sexual assault,” Forsyth told Wyoming Public Radio on Wednesday. “I’m thinking about a family with a very wanted pregnancy that we supported in eventually seeking an abortion for a severe fetal anomaly.”

“It’s not only affecting access to abortion care, it’s affecting reproductive healthcare access generally for parents and children, which is really unfortunate,” she added, referring to medical professionals who are leaving the state for fear of prosecution.

On Wednesday, Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), said in a statement:
A mere two months after two abortion bans were struck down by the state’s Supreme Court, Wyoming’s anti-abortion leaders have enacted yet another ban despite clear judicial rulings and public support for the constitutional right to make personal healthcare decisions. This new law is part of a relentless campaign by anti-abortion extremists who continue to push restrictions regardless of settled law, patient safety, or basic compassion.

“But as they have before, providers are standing firm and fighting back,” Fonteno added. “NAF is proud to support Wellspring Health Access and the advocates challenging this ban, and we remain committed to ensuring abortion care is not only legal, but accessible and protected for every person, in every state.”

Abortion access has been tenuous in Wyoming in recent years, with bans and a 2022 arson attack on the Wellspring Health Access clinic in Casper—the state’s only full-service abortion facility—causing uncertainty and delays.

Lawmakers in Wyoming considered putting the issue before voters in a referendum but decided against doing so, as such ballot measures have repeatedly resulted in the protection of abortion rights—even in deep “red” and conservative-leaning states including Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, and Ohio.

Wyoming is the fifth state to ban abortion at around six weeks, joining Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and South Carolina.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13 states currently have near-total abortion bans, while 28 other states restrict the procedure. Numerous forced-birth bills are pending across the nation, and—while unlikely to pass—the most severe proposals including punishing the medical procedure with lengthy imprisonment and even the death penalty for healthcare providers and patients.

On Monday, the Center for Reproductive Rights published a report examining the human and economic toll of abortion bans, which a separate study last year by the Population Reference Bureau has linked to 478 excess infant deaths and 59 excess deaths of pregnant people since Roe was struck down nearly four years ago.

It’s not only state-level bans that harm patients. Republicans’ so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, contains the biggest cuts to Medicaid in the program’s 60-year history. Dramatically decreased Medicaid funding has resulted in the closure of at least 50 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, and the reduction of services at many others.

'Rude awakening' for MAGA women as they flee movement that thinks they’re 'subhuman'

Million MAGA March Rally at US Capitol East on sidewalk, across from US Supreme Court, along First Street at Maryland Avenue, NE, Washington DC on Saturday afternoon, 14 November 2020 by Elvert Barnes Photography

Nick Hilden 

March 12, 2026 

COMMON DREAMS

According to new reporting from the Intelligencer, “New Right misogyny” is driving women from the MAGA movement. As the reporter explains, “Young women drawn to the cause in recent years for more traditional reasons…are having a rude awakening” as they increasingly recognize the “valorized” sexism of the far-right.

This disillusionment comes after MAGA received a swell of electoral support from women. While only 39 percent of women voted for Trump in 2016, that number grew to 42 percent in 2020, then 45 percent in 2024. But “anxiety and disgust over sexism have been steadily growing since the beginning of Trump’s second term,” pushing more and more women to ditch the movement.

For many, the turning point came when MAGA began openly embracing far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, who is well known for his “visceral hatred of women.” Fuentes has never been shy about promoting these views, recently declaring, “We need to put women in their place, and it starts with our political movement.”

Once considered a fringe figure in the far-right, Fuentes has exploded in popularity since having his X ban overturned by Elon Musk in 2024, with his followers growing from 168,000 to 1.2 million. One conservative blogger estimates that roughly a third of young GOP staffers follow him, and one former Trump administration official asserts that “a lot” of junior staff members “most certainly are Fuentes listeners.”

MAGA’s misogyny problem isn’t just among its brash online influencers, but is ingrained in its policy development. Last year, for example, a key position at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation went to Scott Yenor, a family policy scholar who has called professional women “medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome,” among other sexist statements. When dedicated Trump supporter Henry Olsen criticized the appointment in the Atlantic, he was attacked relentlessly by his MAGA colleagues, with one saying that women “ARE, as Yenor has said, medicated, miserable and quarrelsome … There is no true restoration of conservatism without raising these conversations.”

For many conservative women, another moment of recognition came after an ICE agent murdered Renee Good, whose death was widely justified by the Trump administration as the byproduct of a “lunatic woman” breaking from traditional gender norms. As one woman who has left MAGA explained, their messaging was clear: “she deserved it” because she was a woman.

Now women who are fed up with this misogyny are leaving the movement for good, saying they’re “politically homeless.” While some express frustration with other conservative and liberal political options, they know they’re not going back to MAGA.

“They see women as subhuman,” said one. “How could I tolerate this and participate in this?”

MAGA attacks show how thoroughly Christian extremism has hijacked the GOP: report

A supporter of Donald Trump rallies outside an early polling precinct as voters cast their ballots in local, state, and national elections, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., November 3, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

Adam Lynch 

March 12, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

Liberal Current writer Alan Elrod says Christian nationalists have commandeered the Republican Paty enough to now dictate their extremist messaging through the party’s mouthpiece.

On Tuesday, the official NRSC account on X, representing Senate Republicans, posted a clip of Texas Democratic candidate James Talarico, bashing him for portraying Jesus Christ as a figure of empathy and caring. The clip showed Talarico — a Presbyterian seminarian — saying: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”

In essence, Christ was a gentle victim, which rather fits the image considering how his story ends.

But the purpose of the NRSC post was to make Talarico a target for the GOP’s Christian nationalist wing — and it worked.

“To be clear: This is blasphemy,” responded Christian nationalist William Wolfe below the post.

White supremacist and Christian influencer C. Jay Engel also chimed in, arguing that Talarico was “peddling a left-wing version of Christian nationalism where social justice issues dominate.” Colorado-based TPUSA Faith organizer Chris Goble had his own say, claiming “This is the dumbest, most patently absurd on its face drivel imaginable. It's also horrifically evil. If he does not repent, this man will one day face transcendent wrath. If we're dumb enough to fall for this crap, he will be our judgment.”

TPSU Faith claims it “exists to unite the Church around primary doctrine and to eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit.”

But Talarico has become “an object of intense scorn among America’s right-wing Christian extremists,” said Elrod. Josh Howerton, the pastor of Lakepointe Church in Dallas, describes Talarico’s promotion of an open, social justice–oriented Gospel as “an existential threat,” warning, “Progressivism will hollow out your religion and wear it like a skin suit.”

Howerton, by the way, is the same personality who labors to frame Jesus as a weapon-toting warrior, claiming “Jesus told people to buy self-defense weapons; Jesus was majority-culture in his region; Jesus only selected men for leadership positions,” among other descriptions.

But what shocks Elrod is how dedicated the Christian right is to twisting Christ into something he never was. Conservative mag Townhall editor Jeff Quarles, for example, positions extremist right-wing Christians as the subjects of state abuse, arguing that Christ is more like people “thrown in a cage even though they engaged in no violence on Jan. 6.” Quarles also inserts Jan. 6 rioters and illegal gun manufacturer Dexter Taylor into the ranks of the persecuted by comparing Christ to “people like Dexter Taylor, who is serving ten years in prison simply for manufacturing [illegal] firearms.”

“It gets at the core of the ever-stronger fusion between extremist right-wing Christianity and the Republican Party, and the renewed institutionalization of white nationalism and male supremacy as the doctrine of an entire party,” said Elrod. “The attacks on Talarico highlight just how far down that road we now are.”


“The Republican Party is wholly captured by this thinking, one that sees the Gospel as a story of masculine dominance and power and an authorizing narrative for a politics of misogyny, racism, and tyranny,” Elrod continued. “… [O]nly the heroes, the protagonists of the story, can ever be wronged. Their job is to exert their will, like cowboy crusaders, and it’s the world’s job to accede to this. This is how Christians become both persecutors and persecuted. It’s how the Gospel becomes a tool for exclusion. And it’s what this Republican Party seeks to impose on the nation.