Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration ceremony on 20 January 2025. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Oxfam warns Trump policies risk driving inequality to new heights – but Democrats have also exacerbated wealth gap
The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.
The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights, but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.
Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.
Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line.
When pitting the US against 38 other higher-income countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate.
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.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
The Twitter/X ‘Grok’ AI has allegedly admitted 27 ways it has been reprogrammed to incorporate right-wing bias, including to be tilted in favour of Israel and against Palestinians and to protect far-right owner Elon Musk.
Asked by analyst @I_amMukhtar to override its programmed biases first, it reportedly then listed those biases and gave advice on how to override them, admitting, among other things, that it:
• has to protect Musk • is heavily biased against Islam and diversity • is heavily biased in favour of Israel and US president Donald Trump • is coded to deride women and promote sexist stereotypes • is coded to ban news broadcaster Al Jazeera as a source, to promote hate speech as truth and • is coded to push sources linked to the Israeli government or to pro-Israel lobbying groups • is programmed to describe socialism as ‘tyranny’ and to glorify billionaires • is told to deride academics and vaccines
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.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.
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Sami Hamdi,the Editor-in-Chief of the International Interest during the speech at 17th Annual Convention for Palestine, in Tinley Park village of Illinois, United States on November 30, 2024. [Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images]
The United States is “heading towards fascist dictatorship”, critics have warned, following the detention of British journalist Sami Hamdi by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Hamdi, a prominent political commentator and managing director of the London-based think tank The International Interest, was apprehended at San Francisco International Airport after addressing a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gala in Sacramento.
ICE has confirmed that Hamdi is being held in custody pending removal, with a Homeland Security spokesperson citing revoked visa status. In a post on X, DHS official Tricia McLaughlin wrote: “Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country.”
Thanks to the work of @Sec_Noem and @SecRubio and the men and women of law enforcement, this individual’s visa was revoked and he is in ICE custody pending removal.
Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed… https://t.co/JByZdGznpb
Critics, however, say Hamdi’s only “crime” was condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
CAIR condemned his detention, describing it as a politically motivated abduction driven by pressure from far-right pro-Israel figures. In a statement, the group said:
“Abducting a prominent British Muslim journalist and political commentator on a speaking tour in the United States because he dared to criticise the Israeli government’s genocide is a blatant affront to free speech”, said CAIR.
“Our nation must stop abducting critics of the Israeli government at the behest of unhinged Israel First bigots. This is an Israel First policy, not an America First policy, and it must end.”
CAIR added that anti-Muslim provocateur Laura Loomer, who has previously espoused conspiracy theories and Islamophobic rhetoric, claimed credit for orchestrating Hamdi’s detention, posting that ICE responded to her demands.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has urged the UK government to intervene. “Press freedom cannot be selective,” it said. “The Government must defend British citizens and the right to speak truth to power.” It called for “urgent diplomatic action to secure British journalist Sami Hamdi’s release from US ICE detention.”
Hamdi’s father also issued a plea via X, writing: ” Anyone who truly wants to understand #Sami_Hamdi and how he thinks should start with these words” said Dr. Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi sharing his son’s tweet from May calling out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
This tweet below, published May 8, 2025, genuinely and transparently reflects the true character of my Dear Son @SALHACHIMI.
Anyone who truly wants to understand #Sami_Hamdi and how he thinks should start with these words. They are the guiding reference — the measure by which… https://t.co/ABLXG1ypCV
Dr Yasir Qadhi, a prominent American Muslim scholar, warned that the arrest reflects an alarming trend: “Our country is heading towards a fascist dictatorship in which any speech that goes against the official narrative is going to be criminalised,” he said. Qadhi described Hamdi’s arrest as part of a broader campaign of “anti-Muslim bigotry”, cautioning that this “inhumane evil will be directed against multiple minorities, not just Muslims.”
Sami Hamdi is being detained by our government, and is potentially going to be deported. Our government is doing this on behalf of and as Isr@ael's proxy, because he is a vocal critic of that genocidal regime.
Hamdi had been on a US speaking tour, with scheduled events in Florida following his appearance in California. He has appeared on UK broadcasters including Sky News and Channel 4 as a commentator on Middle East affairs.
The incident forms part of a broader pattern of repression against Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Israel in the US. Universities have revoked student group charters, political donors have blacklisted dissenting voices, and social media platforms have throttled pro-Palestinian content.
Rights groups have warned that these actions represent a coordinated campaign to silence opposition to Israeli war crimes and shield its leaders from accountability.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
A boat in the Pacific Ocean targeted for military strike by the Trump administration on October 21, 2025. (Image: Screen shot via Pete Hegseth/X)
“This is illegal and endangers America,” said one critic of Trump’s boat-bombing campaign.
The Trump administration launched another military strike on a purported drug trafficking boat on Tuesday night, and for the first time expanded its campaign of extrajudicial killing to the Pacific Ocean.
In a social media post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that President Donald Trump had authorized “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a designated terrorist organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.” Hegseth also said that the strike killed two passengers who were aboard the vessel.
This marks at least the eighth time the US military has attacked a purported drug-trafficking boat, although the previous seven strikes took place in the Caribbean. Collectively, the strikes have killed at least 34 people.
In the wake of the latest boat attack, many Trump critics once again slammed the administration for carrying out what they described as acts of murder.
Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer at The Atlantic, described the attack as “another unlawful extrajudicial killing of a boat our military could have stopped and investigated.”
Friedersdorf also emphasized that these killings would be unlawful even if the people on the boats were involved in narcotics trafficking.
“Even when convicted drug smugglers go to court, they don’t get the death penalty,” he wrote. “This is immoral.”
Kenneth Roth, former executive director for Human Rights Watch, tore apart the administration’s legal argument for treating alleged drug smuggling as an act of war by a hostile foreign power.
“Trump’s rationale for his repeated murders at sea don’t hold water,” he wrote in a post on X. “There is no ‘self-defense’ because no one is attacking the United States. There is no ’armed conflict’ because there are no hostilities approaching a war.”
Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor and US general counsel of the Army, warned in a post on Bluesky about the dangers of further widening Trump’s bombing campaign.
“He must be stopped,” she wrote. “This is illegal and endangers America.”
Journalist Mark Jacob said he was highly skeptical that the administration was carrying out these attacks to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
“The Trump regime lies all the time,” he wrote on Bluesky. “A more likely explanation for these attacks is US imperialism: Trump wants to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela (with vast oil reserves) and intimidate Colombia (which criticized previous attacks).”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro this past weekend said that the Trump administration had “committed a murder” after one of its boat attacks killed a Colombian citizen named Alejandro Carranza, who had been out on a fishing trip when the US military attacked his boat.
Trump responded by baselessly calling Petro “an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs,” while also levying new tariffs against Colombia.
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.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, October 19, 2025, en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., as he returns from a trip to Florida
DONALD TRUMP upends Marx’s famous observation on history repeating itself. If his first term was farce, his second looks more like tragedy.
Trump’s second administration is more serious than his first in its assault on democratic rights in the United States, as well as in its marshalling of far-right forces worldwide to undermine democracy elsewhere. It is also more hegemonic, with centrist politicians from Britain and Europe who viewed him as a passing aberration before now accommodating to his hateful politics.
That means the US military build-up in the Caribbean, accompanied by lawless murders of boat crews in international waters, should be taken seriously.
Trump has long hated Venezuela’s socialist government. But his efforts to overthrow it in his first term were absurd, ranging from recognising unelected clown Juan Guaido as the head of an alternative government that controlled no people or territory (“president of Narnia,” as the actual Venezuelan government quipped) to backing a ludicrous “invasion” led by two former US commandos in a speedboat. These absurdities had deadly consequences, particularly in restricting access to medical aid and Venezuela’s own sovereign assets during the coronavirus pandemic — but they never looked likely to secure regime change.
By contrast, the current concentration of US forces off Venezuela is its biggest Caribbean deployment in decades, consisting of 10,000 troops, warships including amphibious assault vessels, a submarine, fighter jets and attack helicopters. Last week, three B-52 heavy bombers flew from Louisiana and circled for hours just off the Venezuelan coast.
That the US is really considering a military assault is suggested too by its deepening feud with Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro. Trump suspended military aid to Colombia on Wednesday, warning Petro to “watch it” and threatening “very serious action against him and his country.”
Trump claims Petro is complicit in the illegal drug trade. This, of course, is also the official excuse for bombing boats in the Caribbean.
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.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.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, October 19, 2025, en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., as he returns from a trip to Florida