Author: Common Dreams

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, on October 26, condemned Donald Trump for pursuing a $40 billion bailout of Argentina while unlawfully declining to use contingency reserves to pay out federal food aid to Americans during the ongoing government shutdown. “During the shutdown, Trump could find $40 billion to bail out Argentina and $300 million for a ballroom to host dinner parties with billionaires, but he won’t tap emergency funds to prevent millions of American kids from going hungry?” Sanders (I-VT) wrote on social media. “How cruel is that?” Sanders’ message came as Argentine voters headed to the polls in national...

Israel’s military on October 13 directed the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region that is home to 1.1 million people, about half of the territory’s population, within 24 hours. The order could signal an impending ground offensive against Hamas militants. The U.N. has called the evacuation “impossible” without “devastating humanitarian consequences.” In a bitter, ravaged Middle East where both sides seek to out-war-crime each other – Hamas kills innocents, Israel rains down genocidal hellfire on a trapped populace – moral distortions and misinformation keep pace with atrocities. For the record: Hamas is not Palestine; Bibi and his gang of...

An Israeli military spokesman admitted on October 10 what had been obvious to witnesses of the mass destruction underway in the besieged Gaza Strip: that the goal of Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign was to inflict severe damage on the occupied territory, not to strictly target Hamas military installations. “The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy,” Israel Defense Forces official Daniel Hagari said, according to Haaretz. Hagari’s remarks came after Israeli airstrikes leveled residential buildings, ripped through a crowded marketplace in Gaza’s largest refugee camp, damaged hospitals and mosques, and wiped out families in the wake of a...

If any American votes for a Republican, they are selecting someone who, once elected, is unlikely to support your views on the issues that matter to you most. Instead, here is a list of what you are choosing with your ballot. Guns The vast majority of Americans favor simple and effective gun control measures. They want: universal background checks and “red flag” laws that would alert law enforcement to gun owners with serious mental health issues; a national database for gun ownership; laws requiring gun owners to store their weapons in a safe storage unit; and the prohibition of...

Recently, there have been troubling revelations about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a leading 2024 GOP presidential aspirant, concerning his conduct as a Navy JAG officer at Guantanamo Bay. His responsibilities at the detention facility apparently included responding to claims of mistreatment from the war-on-terror prisoners there. Relatively few of these detainees had any connection with al Qaeda, and many had simply been handed over to US forces in exchange for bounty payments. But DeSantis seemingly viewed them all as wily and unrepentant terrorists. Of particular note, DeSantis was at Guantanamo in 2006 during the brutal forced-feeding of prisoners engaged...