Jack Schlossberg, grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, who is currently running for Congress, speaks to members of the New York State Nurses Association before joining the picket line in support of nurses on strike outside Mount Sinai West on January 12, 2026, in New York City. (Photo by Edna Leshowitz/Getty Images)
Kennedy’s niece, Maria Shriver said, “since the name-change” to honor Trump “no one wants to perform there any longer.”
The descendants of former President John F. Kennedy are denouncing President Donald Trump’s order to shutter the Kennedy Center and calling bullshit on his reasons for doing so.
On Sunday, Trump abruptly announced on Truth Social that beginning on July 4, the performing arts center in Washington, DC, which he recently renamed after himself, would shut down for two years for “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding.”
Trump said the decision was based on input from a group of “many Highly Respected experts,” who said the center was “tired, broken, and dilapidated” and needed to be shut down for a facelift.
However, the family of the center’s namesake said it has more to do with the recent pullout of talent in protest after it became the “Trump-Kennedy Center” last year and the president began asserting control over its programming, which included the world premiere of a hagiographic documentary about his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, this weekend.
In a post on social media, JFK’s niece, Maria Shriver, gave what she said was a “translation” of Trump’s comments about the center’s sudden closure.
She suggested the president meant to say: “It has been brought to my attention that due to the name change (but nobody’s telling me it’s due to the name change), but it’s been brought to my attention that entertainers are canceling left and right, and I have determined that since the name change no one wants to perform there any longer.”
Speaking as Trump, she continued: “I’ve determined that due to this change in schedule, it’s best for me to close this center down and rebuild a new center that will bear my name, which will surely get everybody to stop talking about the fact that everybody’s canceling… right?”
Among those who have pulled out of planned performances at the center are the Washington National Opera, Lincoln composer Philip Glass, the Broadway show Hamilton, the actress and producer Issa Rae, and several others—many of whom directly cited Trump’s takeover as their reason.
Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, who is running for Congress as a Democrat in New York, was even more direct in his condemnation.
“Trump can take the Kennedy Center for himself. He can change the name, shut the doors, and demolish the building. He can try to kill JFK,” he wrote. “But JFK is kept alive by us now rising up to remove Donald Trump, bring him to justice, and restore the freedoms generations fought for.”
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ICE deploys pepper balls, tear gas, and flashbang grenades on hundreds of people in Portland Oregon on February 1, 2026. (Photo by Sean Bascom/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.”
The mayor of Portland, Oregon demanded that federal immigration enforcement officials leave his city after they were seen lobbing tear gas and flash bang grenades at demonstrators.
As reported by The Oregonian on Sunday, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson reacted with outrage after seeing federal agents deploying tear gas and firing rubber bullets at thousands of protesters who on Saturday marched to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the city’s South Waterfront neighborhood.
Wilson called the agents’ attacks on protesters a vast overreaction to a “peaceful daytime protest, where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat, and posed no danger to federal forces” stationed at the facility.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson said. “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”
The mayor also heaped scorn on federal agents for employing such tactics when several children were present in the crowd.
“To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children,” he said. “Ask yourselves why you continue to work for an agency responsible for murders on American streets. No one is forcing you to lie to yourself, even as your bosses continue to lie to the American people.”
Erin Hoover Barnett, a former Oregonian reporter who attended the demonstration, told the paper that she saw “what looked like two guys with rocket launchers” who started dousing the crowd with tear gas on Saturday.
“To be among parents frantically trying to tend to little children in strollers,” she said, “people using motorized carts trying to navigate as the rest of us staggered in retreat, unsure of how to get to safety, was terrifying.”
A Portland protester identified only as Robin gave an account similar to Barnett’s during an interview with local news station KPTV.
“About eight or 10 of them came out with guns whatever kind of guns they have and flash bombed just started throwing them at the crowd just exploding everywhere,” said Robin. “It was like a war zone. It felt like we were under attack. I definitely got hit. I had to run around the corner and pour a bunch of water on my face.”
One local protester identified only as Celeste told local news station KOIN 6 that she was out on the streets because she wanted to “fight tyranny.”
“What’s happening in our streets with ICE is ridiculous,” said Celeste. “It’s illegal. It’s got to be stopped. And no one’s going to stop it. Except we the people. We’ve got a tyrant in the White House, and no one will stop him but us.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing to be the US attorney general on January 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rep. Yassamin Ansari ripped the Justice Department’s “indefensible and horrifying disregard for the victims,” and stressed that “rich and powerful men continue to evade accountability for their heinous crimes.”
Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari on Sunday called for the impeachment of US Attorney General Pam Bondi after the Department of Justice published dozens of unredacted nude photos of young women or teenagers as part of its legally required release of files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The DOJ released the final batch of documents on Friday, well beyond the December 19 deadline established by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Although President Donald Trump signed the law, his ties to the late billionaire and heavy redactions of previously released records have fueled concerns about the process.
While reviewing the more than 3 million pages published last week, New York Times journalists found “nearly 40 unredacted images” of “nude bodies and the faces of the people portrayed,” the newspaper reported. “The people in the photos appeared to be young, although it was unclear whether they were minors. Some of the images seemed to show Mr. Epstein’s private island, including a beach. Others were taken in bedrooms and other private spaces.”
The paper continued:
The Times notified the Justice Department on Saturday of nude images that journalists had encountered and flagged more of them on Sunday. A spokeswoman said that the department was “working around the clock to address any victim concerns, additional redactions of personally identifiable information, as well as any files that require further redactions under the act, to include images of a sexual nature.”
“Once proper redactions have been made, any responsive documents will repopulate online,” the spokeswoman said.
Officials have largely removed or redacted the images that the Times flagged for them. The images appeared to show at least seven different people, although the Times did not seek to identify them.
Flagging the report on social media late Sunday, Ansari (D-Ariz.) declared that “this is an indefensible and horrifying disregard for the victims by Trump’s US Department of Justice. They are still withholding the full Epstein Files, and rich and powerful men continue to evade accountability for their heinous crimes. Attorney General Pam Bondi should be impeached.”
Even before the nude photos were discovered, progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) similarly called for Bondi’s impeachment on Friday, pointing to not only her DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files, but also its efforts to force Minnesota to turn over voter data and the arrest of journalists, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
Since Friday, survivors of Epstein’s abuse have also slammed the DOJ, with 18 of them saying in a joint statement that the latest release “is being sold as transparency, but what it actually does is expose survivors. Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous.”
“As survivors, we should never be the ones named, scrutinized, and retraumatized while Epstein’s enablers continue to benefit from secrecy. This is a betrayal of the very people this process is supposed to serve,” they continued. “This is not over. We will not stop until the truth is fully revealed and every perpetrator is finally held accountable.”
New Epstein survivor statement on the latest DOJ release: “…survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected.” pic.twitter.com/06tNGaTB1g
CNNreported Monday that lawyers Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards requested “immediate judicial intervention” by US Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer to address at least “thousands of redaction failures on behalf of nearly 100 individual survivors whose lives have been turned upside down by DOJ’s latest release.”
“There is no conceivable degree of institutional incompetence sufficient to explain the scale, consistency, and persistence of the failures that occurred—particularly where the sole task ordered by the court and repeatedly emphasized by DOJ was simple: Redact known victim names before publication,” the attorneys wrote.
While the DOJ didn’t reply to the outlet’s request for comment, Henderson said in a statement to CNN that “with every second that passes, additional harm is being caused to these women. They are scared, they are devastated, and they are begging for our government to protect them from further harm.”
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US Rep Maria Elvira Salazar and US President Donald Trump. Photos via Official Pages
On January 29, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security and tightened the blockade against the island nation
In the stillness of a Havana night, the only sounds are the hum of a generator in a distant hospital and the murmur of a family gathered in candlelight. For them, “US national security” is not an abstract concept debated on American cable news; it is the tangible reality of a 20-hour blackout, the smell of spoiled food, and the fear for a child’s refrigerated medicine. This is the face of a policy that the United States government calls a response to an “extraordinary threat.” The true threat, however, is not military. It is the 67-year defiance of a small island nation that has refused to relinquish its sovereignty.
On January 29, 2026, the Trump administration transformed a long-standing campaign of pressure into a blunt instrument of suffocation. With an executive order, it weaponized the US tariff system against any nation, including countries like Mexico, that dares to sell oil to Cuba. This is no longer about isolating or containing the Cuban people from the rest of the hemisphere; it is a deliberate strategy of total economic asphyxiation, a move unseen in its aggression since the Cold War.
The machinery of suffocation
Cuba’s electrical grid, water pumps, public transport, hospitals, and schools run on imported fuel. By coercing third countries, the US aims not merely to sanction but to disrupt a nation’s very metabolism. The Cuban government’s statement cut to the core: this is “blackmail, threats, and direct coercion” designed to prevent fuel from entering the country. The result is collective punishment, a violation of international law that uses hunger, darkness, and disease as political weapons to break the will of a people.
A constant war: the imperial playbook from Eisenhower to Trump
To call this a “foreign policy” is to undersell its nature. It is an evolving, multilateral instrument of war, relentlessly pursued by ten consecutive US presidencies with a single goal: the destruction of Cuba’s socialist project.
Eisenhower (1960) initiated the aggression with the first blockade after Cuba nationalized US-owned refineries.
Kennedy (1961-1962) escalated with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, made the blockade total, and greenlit Operation Mongoose, a secret program of sabotage and attempted assassination of Cuban leaders, including over 630 attempts against Fidel Castro.
Clinton (1992-1996) delivered what was hoped to be a “knockout blow” after the Soviet Union’s fall, passing the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts. These laws extended the US blockade extraterritorially, punishing foreign companies for trading with Cuba and asserting US authority over global commerce.
Trump (2017-2026), after a fragile thaw under Obama, not only reversed course but plunged deeper into cruelty. He added Cuba back to the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list, a move widely condemned as political fiction, and enacted 243 new sanctions. His most recent act, the 2026 executive order, seeks to seal the island’s fate by starving it of energy.
The strategy has always been naked in its intent. A declassified 1960 State Department memo by Lester D. Mallory advocated creating “hunger, desperation and overthrow of government” by denying “money and supplies.” The human cost is the point, not a side effect.
The “brutal dilemma” and its human toll
This engineered crisis has measurable, horrific consequences. By the 1990s, the tightened blockade caused a 40% drop in caloric intake and a 48% surge in tuberculosis deaths. Today, it blocks the purchase of medical ventilators, spare parts for water purification, and, crucially, the fuel to power them.
This suffering is framed as a necessary sacrifice by members of the Cuban-American mafia that serve in the US Congress. US Representative Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, recently articulated the chilling calculus: “It’s devastating to think about a mother’s hunger, a child who needs immediate help… But that is precisely the brutal dilemma we face…: to alleviate short-term suffering or to free Cuba forever.”
This promised “freedom” is a return to the pre-1959 past, when US corporations controlled 80% of Cuba’s public utilities and 70% of all arable land. It is the “freedom” to exploit, purchased with the calculated suffering of an entire generation.
The “Donroe Doctrine”: imperialism unleashed
Trump’s escalation is the cornerstone of his administration’s “Donroe Doctrine,” a 21st-century revival of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine that declares the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean to be US property. Following the illegal attack of January 3, 2026, on Venezuela, Trump stated plainly: “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” Under this doctrine, any nation that chooses an independent path, especially one organizing its economy for human need, like Cuba’s world-renowned healthcare system, is deemed a “national emergency”.
The war abroad and the war at home
For the American people, it is critical to see this not as a distant issue but as part of a continuous logic. The same administration that invokes “national emergencies” to strangle Cuba’s economy uses “emergencies” to unleash ICE raids in US cities and kill its own citizens like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The same mindset that labels 11 million Cubans a collective threat for practicing self-determination labels migrants and minorities as domestic threats. The logic of the blockade and the logic of the border are one and the same: the violent control of populations and resources, and the designation of entire groups of human beings as disposable.
The flickering candle in that Havana home, then, is more than a light against the darkness. It is a defiance of an imperial order. The struggle of the Cuban people to keep their lights on is a fundamental struggle for the right of all peoples to determine their destiny, free from the coercion of an empire that confuses dominance with security and mistakes cruelty for strength. As in the past, Cubans will collectively rise to the challenge in order to not only survive, but overcome the blockade.
Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023).
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Cuban President and First Secretary Miguel Diaz-Canel is seen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025, and US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Mauro Pimentel and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House accused Cuba of supporting terrorist groups as the Trump administration cut off much of the island’s energy supply and threatened countries with tariffs if they continue to send Cuba oil.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday said the country is open to expanding “bilateral cooperation” with the US, following President Donald Trump’s comments that the White House is “going to make a deal with Cuba”—but diplomatic officials emphasized that they vehemently reject Trump’s recent accusations that they harbor terrorists and pose an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US.
“Cuba categorically declares that it does not harbor, support, finance, or permit terrorist or extremist organizations,” said the ministry.
The statement was released days after the White House issued an executive order to address what it called threats that Cuba poses to the US, threatening to impose new tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
Trump’s invasion of Venezuela—which had been the top energy supplier to Cuba—and his push to take control of the South American country’s oil has left Cuba’s economy struggling with a virtual energy blockade and rolling blackouts. The US has also been pressuring Mexico to stop supplying energy to the island nation, prompting fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Millersaid last month that the US has the right to take over any country if doing so furthers its interests, and said the Trump administration should “secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere.”
In the executive order last week, the president made sweeping accusations against Cuba, claiming that it provides support for countries including Russia and China—though the Trump administration has also sought improved relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—and offering no evidence for the allegation that it also supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Cuban storytelling platform Belly of the Beast called the accusation “laughable, if it weren’t so serious,” and spoke to some of the hundreds of Palestinian medical students who are studying to be doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine and other institutions.
“The vast majority of Palestinians in Cuba are medical students,” said Ihab Masri, who is studying there alongside students from about 100 other countries. “Trump is a person who says he stopped 10 or 12 wars… a person who not only justifies but also denies the genocide in Gaza that they commit and have committed. You can’t trust someone like that.”
In his attempt to block oil shipments to Cuba, Donald Trump now claims the country is a safe haven for Hamas and Hezbollah, without presenting any evidence. Cubans say it’s complete nonsense. The real story? Hundreds of Palestinian students training to be doctors in Havana. pic.twitter.com/3X24dhF6mN — Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) February 1, 2026
Trump’s executive order also accused Cuba of spreading “its communist ideas, policies, and practices around the Western Hemisphere, threatening the foreign policy of the United States.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday emphasized that “Cuba does not host foreign military or intelligence bases and rejects the characterization that it is a threat to the security of the United States. Nor has it supported any hostile activity against that country, nor will it allow its territory to be used against another nation.”
The US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than six decades and has had hostile relations with the country since the communist revolution gave rise to the late President Fidel Castro and overthrew authoritarian leader Fulgencio Batista, who was backed by the US.
US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) warned that Trump’s “latest economic assault against the island is designed to cause a humanitarian collapse, deepening our collective punishment of the Cuban people and forcing more migration.”
“Cuba poses no threat to the United States, but that’s not the point. Trump is manufacturing an excuse for cruelty and regime change,” added the congressman, while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced Trump’s executive order as “pure cruelty” that could “kill countless innocent Cubans.”
This Executive Order will kill countless innocent Cubans. I am horrified by the Trump Administration's attempt to strangle an entire people. Homes, schools, hospitals without power. Children without food or medicine. Cuba poses no threat to the US. This is pure cruelty. https://t.co/C28fHUmbW9
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week that Trump’s threat against countries that continue to supply energy “reveals the fascist, criminal, and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends.”
On Monday, the global organization Progressive International joined Cuban officials in denouncing Trump’s executive order as a “cruel and criminal act of economic warfare that will bring nothing but starvation, deprivation, and despair to [Cuba’s] people.”
“With this new executive order, the logic of siege has reached its apotheosis: Sanction not only Cuba but every nation that dares show solidarity, effectively demanding that sovereign states choose between the interests of their own people and the dictates of an empire,” said the Cabinet of Progressive International.
The group called on the international community to “coordinate diplomatic resistance, demand that governments refuse to enforce secondary tariffs, and amplify Cuban voices against this assault on international law, human dignity, and basic human rights.”
“History will judge those who saw this moment and turned away. Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally—from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics—and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force,” said Progressive International.“
“Stand with the Cuban people now,” the group added. “Stand against this siege, this economic assault, this unfolding humanitarian disaster; join together in the provision of key supplies to the island, from medicine to food to fuel for its people; and stand for the right of all nations to self-determination and human dignity, or be complicit in its destruction.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
