“The ‘big-D’ Democratic Party needs some ‘little-D’ democracy,” said Rep.-elect Don Leonard, who conditioned his support for Jeffries on efforts to end the Iran War, cut off support for Israel, and end Citizens United.MUST READ! excerpt: | But Democratic leaders seem wary of a growing grassroots rebellion against Jeffries’ leadership. Axios reported Friday that House Democrats had been “inundated” with calls and emails urging them to oppose Jeffries’ bid for speaker. One unnamed senior House Democrat reported receiving over 500 calls in two days. A Democratic chief of staff, also unnamed, said their office had received around 300 calls, many urging support for Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who has shown no public interest in running for speaker. “Democrats in both chambers can’t go back to business-as-usual politics,” said Ezra Levin, the leader of Indivisible—a progressive advocacy group—that has called for Democrats to choose a new speaker. “People want leadership that’s ready to join the rest of us in this new era of politics.” In the Senate, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is considering a challenge to Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for majority leader. Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) has said he would back Van Hollen if he runs, and several other incoming Democrats have declined to endorse Schumer. Opponents of Schumer argue that his fealty to the Democratic donor class has led to limp opposition to President Donald Trump and resistance to positions that large majorities of Democrats support, like Medicare for All, ending military aid to Israel, and bringing a swift end to the president’s war in Iran. The grievances against Jeffries are largely the same. As Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution, summed up in August, “Jeffries’ instinct is to negotiate with the Trump power structure rather than draw lines and fight it.” |
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"This isn't strength, it's recklessness. It's illegal, and someone should be held accountable, and we should start with Secretary Pete Hegseth," said US Rep. Sara Jacobs. |
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"Lawmakers can act on that right now by passing legislation to prohibit more funding for the war, and by not passing any bills that continue to fund it," said one policy expert. |
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As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is expected to face an impeachment vote in the US House in part for his role in launching the illegal war with Iran, declared Tuesday that the US had “achieved a historic MILITARY VICTORY” in the Middle Eastern country, the latest polling on the broadly unpopular conflict suggests few Americans would be convinced by such claims.
Seventy-one percent of people surveyed by Reuters/Ipsos said they wanted the US Congress to urgently pass legislation to end the war in Iran, in which more than 3,400 Iranians, 13 US service members, and thousands of people across the Middle East have been killed as the conflict has wreaked havoc on economies around the world.
Those who were demanding a swift end to the war included 93% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 51% of Republican voters who expressed their disapproval in the days after the Democratic Party’s victory in the midterm elections.
Sixty-three percent of respondents said that Congress should focus “a great deal” or “quite a bit” on ending the war in the first 100 days of the new legislative session, starting January 3, and 54% said the negative impact of the conflict, such as higher gas prices, have not been worth any benefit even as Hegseth and President Donald Trump have claimed, without offering any evidence, that the US waged the war to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“Their navy sunk. Their air force grounded. Their defense industrial base—gone. More than 80% of their nuclear industrial base—gone. Their military in ruin. The ironclad blockade, UNBROKEN,” said Hegseth Tuesday, without mentioning that the Trump administration had declared months before waging the war that it had already weakened Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. “We control the Strait of Hormuz.”
Tehran has disputed Hegseth’s repeated claims of victory, and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, on Monday evening called on the Trump administration to “SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out,” including an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports and vessels, an end to fighting on all fronts, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and gas sales, and other measures and reparations.
Meanwhile, Trump, who faced a 32% approval rating in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, attempted to deflect questions about ending the conflict, telling reporters Monday: “Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We’re just keeping it the status quo.”
He added that the US military is “fully locked and loaded with the best equipment ever made” but said, “We don’t think there’s going to be any reason to use it however.”
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft, wrote at Substack Tuesday that Trump may ultimately reject “both war and peace” and choose a “Swiss cheese status quo” that leaves the conflict simmering without any major resolution.
In that scenario, he wrote, Trump “walks away and claims to retain the blockade and sanctions infrastructure, but in reality imperceptibly begins to let it wither away.”
“Given Trump’s aversion to admitting defeat, his fear of coming across as a loser, his impatience with complicated diplomacy, his obsession with outdoing Obama’s [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and Iran’s disinterest in giving him an ego-soothing exit ramp, he may end up choosing the Swiss cheese walk-away option,” wrote Parsi.
While Hegseth continued to deny the reality of the deeply unpopular war, the anti-war group Just Foreign Policy urged Democratic leaders in the US House and Senate to listen to the vast majority of Americans and take action immediately, without waiting for the new session to begin, to cut off funding for the war.
The group reminded Democrats ahead of the election that they could block more funding for the Iran War on December 11, when current government spending expires, and force a government shutdown if Trump insists on continuing the conflict after that date.
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is considering a possible run to serve as Senate Majority Leader, threw his support behind blocking the funding.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said the results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll provide Democrats with clear marching orders.
“A 71% supermajority of Americans, including most Republicans, want Congress to end the Iran war,” he said. “Lawmakers can act on that right now by passing legislation to prohibit more funding for the war, and by not passing any bills that continue to fund it.”
Seeing the poll numbers, political scientist Yousef Munayyer said that many Americans were “enraged” by Trump’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran not just because “it was a stupid decision, [but] it was a stupid decision that was taken with no public debate at all.”
“There was not effort at all on the part of the White House to present a rationale for this or convince the public ahead of time,” said Muayyer. “They didn’t feel they had to because they felt empowered to do whatever the hell they wanted and had a Republican-controlled Congress who would allow it. Voters saw that not only as stupidity, but out-of-control stupidity that needed to be checked before it further wrecked the country.”
"Few individuals have been more instrumental to the White House’s campaign to weaken the First Amendment than Brendan Carr," said Reporters Without Borders.
excerpt: A leading press freedom organization on Monday urged Democratic lawmakers to impeach US President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman when they take control of Congress in January, pointing to the official’s efforts to “intimidate and punish” media outlets that publish criticism of the White House. The demand marked the first time that Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF), has called for the removal of a US official in the group’s 40-year history, the organization said in a statement. Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF North America, said the “severity and persistence” of FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s alleged wrongdoing “demand an extraordinary response.”
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"It’s exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants," one critic said of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act. |
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