U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office of the WHite House in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2025. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Refusals to comply with Supreme Court decisions equal a constitutional crisis.
I was at an event last week where a prominent GOP pollster who often appears on CNN was discussing the details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s political profile as we approach the 100-day mark of his administration. The back and forth was interesting to me and my fellow political nerds. However, during the presentation, my inner voice sounded like Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: “This is not normal.”
Unfortunately, far too many political insiders are acting as if Trump is a normal if a little eccentric president. They think that they can negotiate with him on issues and influence his staff to move him in their direction. No matter what Trump does, they see it as just a negotiating tactic.
April 14, 2025 should go down in American history as the day when Trump’s steps in the direction of authoritarianism made it clear to all that this is not a normal presidency. After Monday’s events, there can be no more debate about what Trump is and where he is taking America.
Let’s break down what happened. In a meeting with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, President Trump openly defied a 9-0 Supreme Court decision that said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident wrongly deported to El Salvador, must be returned to the United States. As The New York Times put it:
The meeting in the Oval Office on Monday was a blunt example of Mr. Trump’s defiance of the courts. The president and his top White House officials said the decision over Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three, would have to be made by [El Salvador President] Mr. Bukele.
If this was not enough, President Trump went on to outline plans for sending American citizens convicted of crimes to El Salvador. More from The New York Times:
President Trump just said he was open to sending American citizens convicted of violent crimes to President Bukele’s prison in El Salvador. Trump had a similar response when Bukele first offered to jail convicted American criminals in February.
“I’m all for it,” Trump said, adding that his attorney general was studying whether the idea was legally feasible. “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem, no,” he said, adding: “I’m talking about violent people. I’m talking about really bad people.”
Another sign that we are in a constitutional crisis happened just outside the Oval Office on Monday. President Trump had barred The Associated Press from covering certain White House events because they had refused to use his preferred nomenclature for what the White House refers to as the “Gulf of America.” Last week, a federal judge ordered the White House to restore AP access to White House events. The federal judge who ruled in this case was Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee. In his decision, McFadden wrote that:
No, the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints… The Constitution requires no less.
On Monday, the White House blocked the AP reporter from attending the Oval Office press conference with President Trump and Bukele. Again, Trump failed to obey a court order.
Now, barring a reporter from the Oval Office may not seem to be a big deal. However, it is the government telling the media what it can report on. Plus, the courts ruled directly in the AP’s favor. The lines are clearly drawn here.
President Trump in the Oval Office on Monday openly defied decisions of the judicial branch. One was a 9-0 ruling of the Supreme Court and the other ruling was by a federal judge he appointed. As a nation, we are clearly in a constitutional crisis. This is not something theoretical or something that might happen sometime in the future. The crisis is at hand. The fabric of the American republic is being torn in two.
What we need is bold opposition from Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. If the current leadership is unwillingly to respond, they need to step aside. The first action that each of us can take to protect the American experiment is to stop pretending that Trump is a normal president.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Amnesty International (12/5/24) found that “Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza.”
Imagine for a moment that a magnitude 8 earthquake occurred somewhere in the world, and the Western corporate media refused to use the word “earthquake” in reporting it, instead talking ambiguously of a “tectonic incident” that had caused buildings to collapse and people to die.
Obviously, reporters would be called out for deliberate linguistic ineptness and a bizarre obfuscation of truth. And yet just such a verbal sleight of hand has been on display for more than 14 months in the Gaza Strip, where corporate media outlets continue to dance around the word “genocide” while the Israeli military carries out the systematic mass killing of Palestinians.
Since October 2023, nearly 45,000 people have officially been killed in Gaza—although as a letter to the Lancet medical journal (7/20/24) pointed out back in July, the true death toll at that time was likely to exceed 186,000. A new report (BBC, 11/8/24) from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights indicates that almost 70% of the over 8,000 Palestinian fatalities verified by the UN over a six-month period were women and children; a survey of medical volunteers in Gaza found that “44 doctors, nurses and paramedics saw multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza” (New York Times, 10/9/24).
From the beginning of the Israeli assault, officials like President Isaac Herzog (HuffPost, 10/13/23) made it clear that they saw themselves as being at war with a population.
As per Article II of the Genocide Convention, “genocide means…acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These include “killing members of the group,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Israeli leaders again and again have effectively admitted genocidal intent. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Times of Israel, 10/9/23), at the beginning of Israel’s assault, declared:
I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed…. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog (HuffPost, 10/13/23) likewise insisted, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible…. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Mother Jones, 11/3/23) invoked a biblical justification for genocide: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” The Bible (1 Samuel 15:3) says of the Amalekites: “Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants.”
And Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi couldn’t have been more clear (X, 10/7/23), posting the following comment to X at the outset of hostilities in October 2023: “Now we all have one common goal—erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth.”
In other words, Gaza is a pretty textbook case of genocide. But the term “genocide” is ostracized by the corporate media world because it violates the political line of the United States, the global superpower that is currently enabling Israel’s genocidal behavior—to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in aid and weaponry. And the media’s refusal to call a spade a spade has produced all manner of linguistic gymnastics.
‘Blistering retaliatory offensive’
A New York Times memo (Intercept, 4/15/24) said of the word “genocide,” “We should…set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation, whether in quotations or not.” The same memo declared, “It is accurate to use ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ in describing the attacks of October 7.”
In the eyes of the Associated Press (12/4/24), for example, the genocide in Gaza is merely “Israel’s blistering retaliatory offensive,” while Fox News (11/3/24) detects a “fight against terrorists” and the Washington Post (12/3/24) sees “one of the most deadly and destructive wars in recent memory.”
Or take the New York Times, where a memo (Intercept, 4/15/24) leaked earlier this year explicitly instructed journalists to avoid using words like “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “occupied territory” when discussing “Palestine”—another word whose use was highly discouraged. On October 7, the one-year anniversary of Israel’s ongoing assault, the US newspaper of record headlined the affair as “The War That Won’t End,” with the G-word appearing only in a fleeting reference to “accusations of genocide and war crimes.”
This particular Times dispatch begins with Yaniv Hegyi, an Israeli who “fled his home last October 7, after terrorists from Gaza overran his village in southern Israel.” As ever, the selectivity with which US media deploys the T-word safely obliterates the chance that domestic audiences will be confronted with the fact that the state of Israel has literally been terrorizing Palestinians since the moment of its foundation on Palestinian land in 1948—or that Zionist terrorism preceded even that moment.
Only after we’ve been introduced to Hegyi, victim of “terrorists,” do we meet Mohammed Shakib Hassan, a Palestinian who “fled his home on October 12, after the Israeli Air Force responded by striking his city in northern Gaza.” Which brings us to another tactic that has been institutionalized in the US political and media establishment alike: the perennial Israeli monopoly on “responding,” “retaliating” and generally engaging in “self-defense” no matter what it does—including genocide.
Never mind that Israel would have nothing to “retaliate” against if it hadn’t up and invented itself on other people’s land, and then spent the next 76 years (and counting) occupying, forcibly displacing and slaughtering Palestinians en masse. Fortuitously for Israel, the corporate media are ever standing by to set the record askew.
‘Propaganda war never stops’
The Wall Street Journal (12/5/24) calls for ethnic cleansing as an alternative to genocide: “Not one of the groups yelling genocide calls on Egypt to let women and children escape to safety by opening its border with Gaza.”
That said, the media have been increasingly unable to abide by a de facto blanket ban on the word “genocide,” given, inter alia, Amnesty International’s recent determination (12/5/24) that Israel is committing just that in the Gaza Strip. In such cases, then, the term inevitably finds its way into news reports—but only as an allegation.
CNN (12/5/24), for instance, reported that Amnesty had “said that it had gathered ‘sufficient evidence to believe’ that Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza amounts to genocide against the Palestinian people—a charge the Israeli government has vehemently denied.” The rest of the article similarly alternates between Amnesty’s charges and Israel’s vehement rebuttals.
This template was also followed by AP (via ABC, 12/4/24), NBC News (12/5/24) and the other usual suspects. Significantly, this sort of rebuttal option is never extended to Palestinians; you’d never see Yaniv Hegyi fleeing his home from “conduct by Gazans that the Israeli government says amounts to terrorism—a charge the government of Gaza has vehemently denied.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board (12/5/24) took it upon themselves to pen a diatribe against the organization that had chosen to “lend…its once-good name to the genocide lie,” and thereby “assure… its good standing in the anti-Israel herd.” Bearing the headline “The Propaganda War on Israel Never Stops,” the rant came accompanied by an entirely irrelevant 23-minute documentary on “the worst antisemitic riot in American history” in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which took place in 1991.
According to the Journal, Amnesty has committed an “inversion of reality”: It’s actually Hamas that is the “genocidal” actor—and, by the way, there are “terrorist headquarters in hospitals” in Gaza. This is just about the most unabashed apology for war crimes you can ask for. Israel has pulverized the bulk of Gaza’s medical infrastructure, and an October UN press release noted that
Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles, while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment.
By converting Israel into the victim not only of “terrorists” but also of a “propaganda war,” the Journal is engaging in its own criminal “inversion of reality.” But for a corporate media committed to complicity in genocide by linguistic omission, it’s all in a day’s work.
Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Simon Walters, UK Ambassador to Israel, speaks at the “International Rally – United We Bring Them Home” rally in Hostage Square on May 18th, 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel. [ Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images]
British military personnel will be put in “harm’s way” to defend Israel against Iran, the UK’s Ambassador to Israel has declared in a stark admission that could see British forces ordered to risk their lives defending the apartheid state.
Speaking to Israeli journalists at his Ramat Gan residence, Ambassador Simon Walters made the extraordinary commitment that “the United Kingdom will be a close ally and is prepared to put its own aircraft and its own personnel in harm’s way to defend Israel.”
Walters revealed that British forces have already been actively involved in military operations supporting Israel, noting that the Royal Air Force flew alongside Israeli and US pilots during Iran’s missile and drone attack in April. “Without going into detail, on October 1, the British armed forces again played a role in trying to disrupt the Iranian attack on Israel,” Walters disclosed.
These revelations come as an Al Jazeera investigation has exposed the extent of British military support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The investigation found that the UK and the US have established an air bridge crucial for sustaining Israel’s military campaign. In revelations that are highly controversial, British forces have conducted nearly half of all reconnaissance missions over Gaza since Israel’s assault on Gaza began. Reconnaissance carried out by the UK is said to have surpassed Israel’s own surveillance operations by more than double.
With Israel facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant having been served arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Britain’s direct military support could expose London to allegations of complicity in international crimes. Under international law, states providing material assistance to forces committing serious violations can be held responsible as accomplices
Addressing the ongoing controversy over British arms sales to Israel, Walters acknowledged that the risk of violations of international law “is evidently present here”. He noted that UK NGOs are currently pursuing legal action against the government to force additional restrictions on arms exports to Israel, battles which the government is actively contesting in court.
The Ambassador also expressed concerns about Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners, pointing out that Israel has denied Red Cross access to detainees from Gaza. “Had the Red Cross visited regularly, it would provide reassurance of the conditions, it would not only protect the prisoners,” he stated, adding that such visits would also protect guards from accusations.
Israel is accused of torture and sexual abuse of Palestinians, including rape of detainees in prisons. Famous Gaza surgeon, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, is the latest high-profile figure who was killed by Israel while in detention. Al Bursh is said to have been severely tortured. His body was left naked from waist down suggesting that he was also raped by the Israeli army.
On the situation in Gaza, Walters challenged the notion that military pressure alone could achieve Israel’s objectives. “I hear people calling for the continuation of the war until Hamas is destroyed and I think they are kidding themselves,” he said. “They are imagining an outcome that will never come.”
Walters also highlighted concerns about Palestinian rights in the illegally Occupied West Bank, particularly regarding restrictions around olive harvesting and attacks by Israeli extremists. “At the end of the day, this is an aspect of the Occupation, which many Israelis do not see and are not aware of,” he concluded.
Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The State Department and USAID staffers denounced the president’s “unwillingness to de-escalate” Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza, which have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians.
One hundred U.S. foreign service officials have signed a “scathing” internal memo blasting President Joe Biden’s “unwillingness to de-escalate” Israel’s assault on Gaza and his failure to stop Israeli “war crimes and/or crimes against humanity” in the embattled Palestinian enclave.
Axios reported Monday that the five-pageinternal dissent memo was signed by officials at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The memo was reportedly organized by Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Middle East Affairs who earlier this month accused Biden of being “complicit in genocide” as Israeli forces indiscriminately bombarded the Gaza strip by air, land, and sea—killing thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children.
“Members of the White House and [the U.S. National Security Council] displayed a clear disregard for the lives of Palestinians, a documented unwillingness to de-escalate, and, even prior to October 7, a reckless lack of strategic foresight,” the memo states.
The missive accuses Biden of “disregarding the lives of Palestinians,” over 40,000 of whom have been killed, wounded, or gone missing since Israel launched its retaliatory war that has also displaced over 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Israel’s relentless attacks and its cutting off of electricity, food, and fuel supplies to the already besieged territory “all constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law,” the memo asserts. “Yet we have failed to reassess our posture towards Israel. We doubled down on our unwavering military assistance to the [Israeli government] without clear or actionable red lines.”
More unprecedented dissent from within the State Department: An internal State Department dissent memo accuses President Biden of "spreading misinformation" and says that Israel is committing "war crimes" in Gaza https://t.co/Cm52hgAadr
Responding to the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel that killed around 1,200 people, Biden has repeatedly proclaimed his “unwavering” support for Israel and requested another $14 billion in U.S. armed assistance to the key Middle East ally—which already receives nearly $4 billion from Washington annually.
The president has dismissed calls to cut or place conditions on U.S. aid, while Biden administration officials have been derided for claiming they have no leverage over Israel.
Biden has also rebuffed widespread and growing calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, instead advocating for a so-called “humanitarian pause” to allow civilians to flee and aid to enter the strip.
The signers of the memo denounce Biden for “questioning the number of deaths” in Gaza by saying he had “no confidence” in Palestinian health officials’ casualty reports—figures deemed reliable by United Nations agencies, human rights groups, international and Israeli mainstream media, and even the State Department.
Biden was accused of “genocidal denial” following his remarks. Directly contradicting the president, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf warned last week that the death toll in Gaza may be “even higher” than reported, as thousands of bodies lie unrecovered beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
The memo’s signers also accused the president of “spreading misinformation” about the war.
Axios said the memo was sent to the State Department’s policy office on November 3 through the official dissent channel established during the Vietnam War era to allow diplomats to express their disapproval of U.S. policies and practices. Dissent memos are meant to stay within the agency, but are sometimes leaked to the public.
Multiple dissent memos about the Gaza war are currently being circulated within the State Department, according toPolitico.
A State Department spokesperson told Axios that the agency “is proud there is an established procedure for employees to articulate policy disagreements directly to the attention of senior department leaders without fear of retribution.”
“We understand—we expect, we appreciate—that different people working in this department have different beliefs about what United States policy should be,” the spokesperson added.
