It’s the little things we need to savor 🙂

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It’s the little things we need to savor in these stressful times. And one of those is watching everything connected to Donald Trump turn to poop. And the best part is: We did that!

What triggered this Trump collapse was all of us who helped Democrats win the November 4th elections in blowout fashion. Since that thumping, Trump has spiraled out of control as the GOP members of Congress—and even an increasing percentage of his base per recent polls—are breaking from the convicted felon in the White House.

And it’s not just Trump’s political standing that looks like something a dog drops on the sidewalk. It’s everything he touches! This first line of a Wall Street Journal article published Saturday sums it up well: “Stocks and cryptocurrencies linked to President Trump are in a deep slump, leaving some of the president’s biggest fans with steep losses.”

As the WSJ detailed, Trump’s media company that operates his social media platform Truth Social—which I refer to as “Whites only”—has tumbled 75% since January. A digital meme coin named for Trump ($TRUMP) has dropped by 86% since January. Worse for Melania is that her digital meme coin ($MELANIA) has dropped 99% in value since Inauguration Day. In other words, it’s worth 1% of what it was just 10 months ago.

We know Trump cashed in before the bottom fell out of these investments but it still says a lot that people don’t want to buy the Trump products. Why? Simple, who wants to invest in anything tied to a guy whose approval ratings are lower than certain STDs?! At this point Trump is just slightly more popular than syphilis.

I’m not exaggerating—okay slightly. A brand new Gallup poll released Friday finds Trump a 36% approval rating. The only time in Trump’s approval numbers were ever lower in the monthly Gallup poll was shortly after Trump’s Jan 6 terrorist attack when he only clocked a 34% approval rating. That number was so low because even a chunk rank and file Republicans had peeled away from Trump.

That same scenario is playing out now. In a Fox News poll released last week, 76% of voters view the economy negatively. That is why only 70% of Republicans approve of how Trump is handling inflation. It’s been a long time since we last saw 30% of Republicans disapprove of Trump on any issue!

This also explains why Republicans bucked Trump on the release of the Epstein files. Trump had been slamming Republicans non-stop over the proposed release of the files concerning his former BFF. But the GOP members of Congress no longer felt they needed to please Trump so they made it clear in huge numbers they would support transparency. That is the only reason Trump flip-flopped on the issue to pretend he supported its release.

Trump has become the living manifestation of the famous quote, “There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.” But in Trump’s case, this low energy loser doesn’t have the physical stamina needed to follow them. As the NY Times (finally) reported, Trump is sliding both physically and cognitively. We all knew this but the NY Times did add some data to back this up such as noting that most of Trump’s public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m. Even more damning for Trump is the NY Times found when compared to his first term, Trump’s official appearances have decreased by 39 percent.

Then there is Trump’s falling asleep just about every time he leans on something—or close to that! And thankfully the NY Times finally noted what Dr. John Gartner from Duty To Warn has told me in past interviews, namely that Trump’s lies are not like in the past that were designed to help him politically. They are instead increasingly fabricated tales that bear no resemblance to reality—in other words, more akin to what Dr. Gartner sees with people with dementia.

But with all that said, don’t dismiss Trump as not being dangerous. In fact, you can see the increased number of his desperate freak outs. (Not to be confused with Puff Daddy’s “Freak-offs.”) We just saw an example after the shooting of the two National Guard soldiers by a CIA trained killer who Trump had granted asylum to in April. Trump declared that he would “permanently pause migration from all third world countries,” threatened to denaturalize people and then went on a tangent about Minnesota and Somalia. This is all designed to give red meat to his MAGA base before they peel off further.

By Saturday, he declared the airspace of Venezuela was closed in “its entirety.” Forget that he has no legal basis to do this, Trump is desperately throwing poop at the wall to see what might stick to help him before he sinks further. Don’t be surprised if Trump declares war on Venezuela or some other country for that matter to rally people behind him.

However, despite Trump’s efforts to regain control of the media narrative, it’s about to get worse for Trump. We are about to see a ton of Epstein related files given the Epstein Files Transparency Act requires their release by December 19. As this law provides, the Trump regime must “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices, that relate to Epstein.”

Of course, Attorney General Pam Bondi will never release information that is bad for Trump given her top priority is protecting the “President.” But when the documents are released, it will cause a media feeding frenzy. And we can expect a great deal of the press will be about all the redactions and the missing files—such as the hard drives taken by the FBI from Epstein’s houses that contain the secretly recorded surveillance footage of all the people entering his homes. We need to see this to ensure those who were involved in this child sex ring are fully prosecuted.

That means the Epstein story will once again dominate the media in late December and January. Again, that is bad for Trump.

But none of this would be weighing Trump down if we didn’t deliver the big wins on November 4th. That is what set the chain reaction off. So be proud. As Trump circles the toilet bowl, remember it was us who flushed it!

Fight Oligarchy

Bernie Sanders

“Oligarchy is a system in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control the economic, political, and media life of a nation. It is a system in which ordinary people have very little power to determine the future of their country. If you’re an American, it is the system in which you’re living. That must change. In the wealthiest nation on earth we must build a political movement that creates a government that represents all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.”
—Bernie Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders breaks down the unprecedented crises we face today in Trump’s America, as Trump undermines democracy at every turn—and how we can effectively fight back.

From the moment that Sanders began his Fighting Oligarchy tour in the early days of the Trump administration, it was clear that his message resonated with Americans across the political spectrum. Record-breaking crowds numbering in the tens of thousands showed up across the country. Large numbers of Americans, in red states and blue states, were prepared to stand up and fight back. In this book, he shows how we can continue that fight.

In a series of short, pointed chapters, Sanders explains how the United States today is an oligarchic society in which a small handful of multibillionaires exercise enormous economic and political power. He describes what it means when the very rich get much richer, while the majority of Americans struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table. And he observes how a corrupt campaign finance system allows billionaires in both parties to increasingly control our political system.

Sanders also discusses how, under Trump, we are rapidly moving toward authoritarianism–with a president who is undermining our democracy as he attacks Congress, the courts, the media, and law firms and universities in search of more and more power for himself. With relentless optimism and focused energy, Sanders reminds readers that true power rests with the people—and he presents a path forward to a reinvigorated democracy.

About the author

Bernie Sanders

48 books1,531 followersFollow

Bernard “Bernie” Sanders is the senior United States Senator from Vermont, elected on November 7, 2006. Before becoming Senator, Sanders represented Vermont’s at-large district in the United States House of Representatives for 16 years. Sanders also served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont from 1981 through 1989.

(archives.gov)

(FDR in 1941 image from docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu)

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Citation: Franklin D. Roosevelt Annual Message to Congress, January 6, 1941; Records of the United States Senate; SEN 77A-H1; Record Group 46; National Archives.

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This speech, delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt on January 6, 1941, became known as his “Four Freedoms Speech” due to a short closing portion in which he described his vision for extending American ideals throughout the world.

Very early in his political career, as state senator and later as Governor of New York, President Roosevelt was concerned with human rights in the broadest sense. During 1940, stimulated by a press conference in which he discussed long-range peace objectives, he started collecting ideas for a speech about various rights and freedoms.

In his 1941 State of the Union Address to Congress, with World War II underway in Europe and the Pacific, FDR asked the American people to work hard to produce armaments for the democracies of Europe, to pay higher taxes, and to make other wartime sacrifices. Roosevelt presented his reasons for American involvement, making the case for continued aid to Great Britain and greater production of war industries at home. In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people deserved.

At a time when Western Europe lay under Nazi domination, Roosevelt presented a vision in which the American ideals of individual liberties should be extended throughout the world. Alerting Congress and the nation to the necessity of war, Roosevelt articulated the ideological aims of the war, and appealed to Americans’ most profound beliefs about freedom.

In his Four Freedoms Speech, Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that all people should have. His “four essential human freedoms” included some phrases already familiar to Americans from the Bill of Rights, as well as some new phrases: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These symbolized America’s war aims and gave the American people a mantra to hold onto during the war.

As America became more engaged in World War II, painter Norman Rockwell created a series of paintings illustrating the four freedoms as international war goals that went beyond just defeating the Axis powers. In the series, he translated abstract concepts of freedom into four scenes of everyday American life. Although the federal government initially rejected Rockwell’s offer to create paintings on the four freedoms theme, the images were publicly circulated when The Saturday Evening Post, one of the nation’s most popular magazines, commissioned and reproduced the paintings. After winning public approval, the paintings served as the centerpiece of a massive U.S. war bond drive and went on a national tour to raise money for the war effort.

After the war, the four freedoms appeared again, embedded in the Charter of the United Nations.

Transcript

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress:

I address you, the Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. I use the word “unprecedented,” because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.

Since the permanent formation of our Government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. Fortunately, only one of these–the four-year War Between the States–ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, one hundred and thirty million Americans, in forty-eight States, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.

It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other Continents. We had even engaged in two wars with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the principles of peaceful commerce. But in no case had a serious threat been raised against our national safety or our continued independence.

What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained clear, definite opposition, to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas.

That determination of ours, extending over all these years, was proved, for example, during the quarter century of wars following the French Revolution.

While the Napoleonic struggles did threaten interests of the United States because of the French foothold in the West Indies and in Louisiana, and while we engaged in the War of 1812 to vindicate our right to peaceful trade, it is nevertheless clear that neither France nor Great Britain, nor any other nation, was aiming at domination of the whole world.

In like fashion from 1815 to 1914– ninety-nine years– no single war in Europe or in Asia constituted a real threat against our future or against the future of any other American nation.

Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign power sought to establish itself in this Hemisphere; and the strength of the British fleet in the Atlantic has been a friendly strength. It is still a friendly strength.

Even when the World War broke out in 1914, it seemed to contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But, as time went on, the American people began to visualize what the downfall of democratic nations might mean to our own democracy.

We need not overemphasize imperfections in the Peace of Versailles. We need not harp on failure of the democracies to deal with problems of world reconstruction. We should remember that the Peace of 1919 was far less unjust than the kind of “pacification” which began even before Munich, and which is being carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to spread over every continent today. The American people have unalterably set their faces against that tyranny.

Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being’ directly assailed in every part of the world–assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace.

During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and small. The assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small.

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to “give to the Congress information of the state of the Union,” I find it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia will be dominated by the conquerors. Let us remember that the total of those populations and their resources in those four continents greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere-many times over.

In times like these it is immature–and incidentally, untrue–for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.

No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion -or even good business.

Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. “Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the “ism” of appeasement.

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.

Democracy At Work Premiered Nov 17, 2025 Capitalism Hits Home with Dr. Harriet Fraad[ CHH S08E21] The Violent Crimes of Lost, Angry Men In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Harriet Fraad explores how rape and mass murder become some men’s reactions to their reduced status as providers for dependent women and children. Men who never recognized the life-sustaining care they received from women are lost and angry.  Vulnerability and emotional need are inaccessible for many men. Anger and violence seem like socially accepted masculine ways to reestablish lost economic power and an emotional outlet for loneliness. As this epidemic continues to crescendo with the current administration in power, we must understand the correlations at play and explore ways to curb this unnecessary violence. Capitalism Hits Home with Dr. Harriet Fraad (CHH) is a @democracyatwrk production. The show explores the intersection of capitalism, class, and personal lives, examining the economic realm and its impact on individual and social psychology. Learn more about CHH: https://www.democracyatwork.info/capi… We make it a point to provide the show ad-free. Your contributions help keep this content free and accessible to all. If you would like to make a one-time donation, you can do so by visiting us at: http://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Wajahat Ali Nov 28, 2025 Trump, Stephen Miller, and MAGA have already lost. No matter how hard they try to send people of color “back” to our “third world countries,” there’s just too many of us. We’re here & we’re winning. https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/de…

From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, we’re asking you not to shop from three major corporations enabling Trump’s fascist agenda.

Our Targets

	HOME DEPOT enables ICE terrorism by allowing Trump’s jackboots to violently detain and kidnap workers on its properties.
	TARGET caved to MAGA backlash by pulling Pride merch off the shelves, and canceled DEI programs that support Black workers and businesses.
	AMAZON provides technology to power ICE deportations while Jeff Bezos spends a fortune kissing up to Trump — funding both his MAGA agenda and vanity projects like his ballroom.

To send a strong message, we need not just you, but your family, friends, and community, to commit to supporting mutual aid or small businesses instead of Home Depot, Target, and Amazon next weekend.

Here are three steps to take right now:

1. Learn more: Make a plan to join the blackout from November 27 – December 1. Understand what we’re asking, why we’re doing this, and how to spend your dollars where they’ll do good.
2. Let us know you’re with us: Pledge to pause shopping at Home Depot, Target, and Amazon. Don’t give any money to the companies undermining democracy. Support local businesses or mutual aid efforts instead.
3. Spread the word: Use our graphics and customizable social posts to get others involved. Try to triple your impact by getting three other people to join the blackout.

We don’t have to be broke: Study shows states have many progressive revenue options—if the governors and legislators will take advantage of them

By Tim Redmond

November 24, 2025 (48hills.org)

The outlook for California’s budget is, of course, bleak. I say “of course” because most states are in serious trouble: Federal support makes up close to a third of most state budgets, sometimes more—and as the Trump Administration has set about destroying state funding to give tax cuts to billionaires, the situation has left governors and legislators looking for ways to cut programs.

We keep hearing terms like “tough budget choices” and “challenges.” That’s politics-speak for austerity, for more devastation of the remaining program that help the poor and working class.

But a new report from the Action Center on Race and the Economy offers another alternative: State governments have plenty of ways to raise new revenue from taxes on the rich and on big corporations. There’s enough money out there to come close to replacing what Trump has taken away.

State officials, the report says, need to stop just blaming Washington and start demanding that the very rich in their own states “pay us what you owe us.”

From the report:

We are in the midst of what many are deeming the largest transfer of wealth in U.S. history from Black, brown and poor communities to the ultra-wealthy. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that Trump’s 2025 federal tax cuts will result in the richest 1% receiving $117 billion in tax cuts in 2026 alone. The impacts of this transfer will be felt by children in under-resourced classrooms, families who will suffer avoidable deaths due to hospital closures or lack of healthcare, students who will be burdened with more debt to pursue education, and immigrants ripped off the streets by militarized forces whose budgets have ballooned at the expense of the programs poor people need to thrive.

Federal giveaways to the ultrawealthy create massive budget deficits for our state governments, as well as local governments who depend on federal and state dollars. Across the country, many states are mimicking the actions of the federal government by reducing taxes on the ultra-wealthy and their corporations or enacting austerity measures to further cut the vital public services residents depend on. These actions are justified by the myth that there simply isn’t enough money to fund the programs our communities depend on the most; meanwhile, billionaires and megacorporations continue pocketing record-breaking profits.

We must resist austerity at all levels of government and make it plain that the wealth to fully fund our communities exists. The only path forward is to expose the CEOs and corporations in our states that are creating the crisis and champion common-sense revenue solutions that will make them pay. We can resist the billionaire-first agenda. Our state budgets can be a powerful tool to make up for disinvestment at the federal level. The only way to combat the federal tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy is by championing strong progressive revenue solutions that recuperate those funds for our communities at the state level.

The report offers some fascinating ideas, among them a digital ad tax. The giant tech companies make most of their money from selling ads—and much of that is never taxed:

Together, Big Tech has created a booming digital advertising empire that’s fast approaching $1.1 trillion.49 This empire is built on extracting our personal information and surveilling our every activity and location without paying us a dime for access to our personal information.

The vast majority of digital advertising money is collected by a tiny handful of companies—Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok and Microsoft. Google alone accounts for a quarter of the entire digital ad marketplace.

Taxing those ads would bring in billions to fund social services:

Because the tax is based on where ads are viewed, Big Tech companies would have to stop advertising in the state altogether to avoid being taxed. This is a smart and legal progressive revenue raiser that will capture funds from Big Tech’s booming advertising empire.

The report also calls for state wealth taxes, which fits with the theories of French economist Thomas Piketty. It also reflects what the Patriotic Millionaires argue: That the very rich pay almost no taxes on their real income. From the report:

The wealthier you are, the larger percentage of your wealth comes from unrealized capital gains. However, this wealth remains largely untaxed as wealthy individuals often hold onto their investments for many years and pass it on.

The same goes for capital gains and the “carried interest” loophole:

States like New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, and Connecticut with large concentrations of private equity, hedge funds, and venture capital firms, have the most to gain from closing the loophole.

The report also dives into regressive spending (a big chunk of California’s deficit comes from overspending on prisons.)

And here’s an interesting concept I didn’t know about:

Raising progressive revenue is the easiest way to reduce Wall Street’s power in our state and local governments, because if we have the revenue we need, we do not need to rely on borrowing from these Wall Street entities. Another avenue for reducing their power is called fiscal mutualism. Fiscal mutualism is an economic concept where pension funds invest in municipal bonds issued by local governments. This helps lower borrowing costs for those governments, making it easier for them to finance public projects without needing to pay exorbitant interest rates and fees to Wall Street. By having a local pension fund invest in municipal bonds, a city can secure lower interest rates on its debt and the pension fund earns a steady return on its investment. Fiscal mutualism defined the first half of the twentieth century, with virtually every state restricting pension investments to federal, state, and local bonds. This closed-loop created a symbiotic relationship where pension trustees were invested in the stability and growth of their city and schools by purchasing bonds, and in return the city or school district made interest payments that directly benefited the retirement of its workforce. Tax-exempt municipal bonds generally offer lower yields than corporate investments, but wealthy investors accept the lower yield in order to receive the tax-exemption benefit. Fiscal mutualism eroded when legislative changes lifted regulations for pension investments, leading pension trustees to abandon fiscal mutualism in favor of higher-yield corporate investments.

The report challenges states like California, where the governor and most of the Legislature talks about the horrors of Trump, to stop complaining and bring some of that money back home.

Gav?

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian-American, was freed on November 27, 2025 after over nine months in Israeli detention.

 (Photo: @infinite_jaz/X)

While expressing relief, the 16-year-old’s uncle noted the “hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison.”

Jessica Corbett

Nov 27, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

“Words can’t describe the immense relief we have as a family right now,” said Zeyad Kadur, the uncle of Mohammed Ibrahim, the 16-year-old Palestinian-American who was finally released on Thursday after over nine months in Israeli detention.

In February, Israeli forces arrested the Florida resident, then 15, at a family home in the illegally occupied West Bank over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers. Ibrahim’s release follows a monthslong pressure campaign from his relatives, rights groups, and American lawmakers, who have specifically urged President Donald Trump to demand the US citizen’s freedom.

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“Israeli soldiers had no right to take Mohammed from us in the first place,” said Kadur. “For more than nine months, our family has been living a horrific and endless nightmare, particularly Mohammed’s mother and father, who haven’t been able to see or touch their youngest child for nearly a year, all while knowing Israeli soldiers were beating him and starving him.”

“We couldn’t believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe,” he continued. “Right now, we are focused on getting Mohammed the immediate medical attention he needs after being subjected to Israel’s abuse and inhumane conditions for months. We just want Mohammed to be healthy and to have his childhood back.”

According to the Guardian, which first exposed Ibrahim’s case in July: “Relatives said he was taken to a hospital for intravenous therapy and blood work immediately after his release, and noted he is severely underweight, pale, and is still suffering from scabies contracted during his detention. Ibrahim had lost a quarter of his body weight in detention, his family said.”

Kadur said Thursday that “we’d like to thank the more than a hundred organizations, local Florida community members, volunteers, and members of Congress who continued to speak up for Mohammed and demand his immediate freedom. We are also deeply grateful to the countless people who refused to stop telling Mohammed’s story, and to those who called their representatives every single day to demand they act to free him. Thank you for bringing Mohammed’s story to the American people and the world.”

The uncle added:

There are hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison, being subjected to Israel’s abuse and torture. No mother, father, parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or child should ever have to go through what Mohammed just went through. As we support Mohammed and are beyond relieved he is free, we will continue to demand justice for Sayfollah Musallet, an American and Mohammed’s first cousin, who was beaten to death and murdered by a mob of Israeli settlers on July 11, 2025. We expect the American government to protect our families.

Mohammed was forced to spend his 16th birthday unjustly imprisoned by Israel, separated from the people who love him. Now that Mohammed is with his family, we can finally wish him a happy birthday. His mom, Muna, can prepare his favorite meal and be with her son. We are proud of Mohammed and love him dearly. The family requests time to be with their son after this painful experience.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding shared Kadur’s statement and also called for justice for Musallet.

https://x.com/theIMEU/status/1994085448793120899?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1994085448793120899%7Ctwgr%5Ec5b17a8755de1cc56e1b81c0d21efc8008b3208b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fmohammed-ibrahim-israel

Ibrahim’s freedom came as people in the United States celebrated Thanksgiving.

“Something to be thankful for today: Mohammed Ibrahim freed from captivity,” wrote Drop Site News’ Ryan Grim on social media.

US Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) similarly said, “On a day of thanksgiving we are so grateful Mohammed Ibrahim is on his way home.”

https://x.com/anewpolicyorg/status/1994065636159275112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1994065636159275112%7Ctwgr%5Ec5b17a8755de1cc56e1b81c0d21efc8008b3208b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fmohammed-ibrahim-israel

Robert McCaw, government affairs director at the largest US Muslim rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that “Mohamed’s homecoming is a blessing, but it does not erase the torture and suffering he endured.”

“The US government has a responsibility to investigate Israel’s abuse of an American citizen and ensure that no other child—American or Palestinian—is subjected to the same treatment,” McCaw added.

The US government provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, and has continued to do so over the past two years, as Israeli forces have waged a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip—a genocide that “is not over,” despite last month’s ceasefire agreement, as Amnesty International highlighted in a Thursday briefing. Amid that assault, there has also been a surge in Israeli soldiers’ and settlers’ violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“Mohammed should have spent this year studying for his learner’s permit and enjoying time with his family—not locked in a military prison, beaten, starved, and terrified. His release is cause for celebration, but it must also be a turning point,” said CAIR’s Florida chapter. “The US cannot continue providing unchecked support to a government that tortures American children.”

“CAIR and CAIR-FL are calling on the US State Department, members of Congress, faith leaders, and civil society organizations to press for a full, public accounting of Mohammed’s treatment and to demand concrete consequences for the Israeli officials responsible,” the group added. “The organizations also reaffirm their commitment to supporting Mohamed and his family as he recovers from the trauma of his imprisonment and to advocating for all children subjected to abuse under Israel’s military system.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

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A young boy is seen reading on the floor between library shelves on July 8, 2011.

 (Stephen Simpson/Getty Images)

“It is illegal to remove books from public libraries because some people do not like them,” said a coalition of 33 library groups, publishing companies, and civil rights organizations.

Stephen Prager

Nov 27, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

Public libraries in Tennessee have begun to shut down as they carry out an order from state officials to remove children’s books containing LGBTQ+ themes or characters.

For Popular Information, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims reported Tuesday that the “book purge” is required to be carried out at all 181 libraries in the Tennessee Regional Library System, which encompasses most of the state, aside from cities like Nashville and Memphis.

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It comes after Tennessee’s Republican Secretary of State, Tre Hargett, sent a pair of letters earlier this fall. The first, sent on September 8, said that in order to receive state and federal grants, which run through his office, libraries needed to comply with a Tennessee law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices from agencies, as well as President Donald Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology,” which effectively ended the federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary individuals.

As the report notes, neither of these orders says anything about library books. However, Hargett argued that compliance with the executive order mandated book bans because it states that “federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.”

Not only do executive orders typically not apply to state and local governments, but the federal funds Tennessee’s libraries receive are not used to purchase books at all. Instead, according to the secretary of state’s website, they “provide all state residents with online access to essential library and information resources, including licensed databases, a statewide library catalog and interlibrary loan system, bibliographic services, and materials for the disadvantaged.”

The Every Library Institute, an advocacy group that supports federal funding for libraries, said that Hargett’s instructions “contain significant errors, likely exceeding the secretary’s authority and reflecting a political agenda rather than a neutral or accurate interpretation of federal or state law.”

“Hargett is setting a dangerous precedent by placing Tennessee’s state and municipal government under the authority of any executive order by any president,” the group continued. “Executive orders are not laws.”

But Crosby and Sims argued: “Even if the executive order did apply to Tennessee local libraries, simply having books with LGBTQ stories and characters does not constitute ‘promoting gender ideology.’ The classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood involves a wolf eating a little girl, but does not promote violence. Children’s books are stories, not instruction manuals.”

On October 27, Hargett sent another letter, giving libraries 60 days to undertake an “age appropriateness review” of all books in their children’s section to find any books that may be inconsistent either with Tennessee’s age appropriateness law or with Trump’s executive order.

As Ken Paulson, the director of Middle Tennessee University’s Free Speech Center, noted, the age appropriateness law, which was last updated in 2024, “is modeled after obscenity laws and prohibits nudity, excessive violence, and explicit sexuality, hardly the stuff of children’s sections. Further, the law applies to school libraries, not public libraries.”

Though Hargett provided no criteria for how to assess what books would need to be purged, he did provide an example of one he felt violated both orders: Fred Gets Dressed, a 2021 picture book by the New York Times bestselling author Peter Brown. As Popular Information noted:

The book, which was written by a straight, cisgender man, does not feature any LGBTQ characters. Instead it is based on a childhood experience of the author in which he tried on his mother’s clothing and makeup. If a book about a boy trying on his mother’s clothes is the strongest example of “promoting gender ideology” that Hargett could identify, it raises questions about the necessity of the review.

Earlier this month, the state’s Rutherford County Library System, which serves the cities of Smyrna and Murfreesboro, shut down several of its library branches for up to a week to “meet new reporting requirements” from Hargett’s office.

It’s unclear why the Rutherford County system determined it needed to shut down in order to carry out the review, nor has it been made clear whether other library systems will be expected to do the same.

As former librarian Kelly Jensen noted for the blog Book Riot, the Rutherford County system has made its own efforts to ban transgender-friendly books, but backed off from the policy earlier this summer for fear of litigation after a Murfreesboro law branding “homosexuality” as a form of “public indecency” resulted in the city being forced to settle a lawsuit for $500,000.

Kelly wrote that for Rutherford library system’s board, Hargett’s order is “a convenient means of subverting their fears of litigation, which drove them to change their anti-trans book policy earlier this summer. If the directive is from the state, then they ‘have to’ comply. The Tennessee secretary of state is granting permission slips to public library boards to ban away.”

This week, a group of 33 major publishers, library advocacy groups, and free speech and civil rights organizations signed onto a letter to Hargett expressing “profound concern” over its review mandate.

The coalition included PEN America, the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the transgender rights advocacy organization GLAAD. Major publishing houses also signed on, including Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster.

“These types of reviews create immense administrative burdens for library systems and often lead to illegal censorship, which raises liability risks for local communities and the state,” the groups said. “Many libraries, uncertain about the legal and procedural basis for the mandate, have had to redirect limited resources, with some temporarily closing branches to complete these reviews, which are implied to be necessary for future funding.”

“The demands in your letter need immediate clarification, as it is not reasonable to expect libraries to follow directives that would risk violating applicable law, including the US Constitution,” they added. “It is illegal to remove books from public libraries because some people do not like them. This is a well-settled legal principle.”

The Rutherford County Library Alliance, which has challenged municipal anti-LGBTQ+ laws as well as the censorship policies of the library’s own board, said that “we have seen firsthand the concrete harm of the Secretary’s directives—library closures during story time, intimidation of professional librarians, and the breakdown of democratic representation in our public library system.”

“We hope Secretary Hargett will fulfill their duty to promote library development by supporting our constitutionally-guaranteed rights and our highly trained librarians,” the alliance added, “rather than enabling censorship from 0.001% of our community for 100% of our community.”

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Stephen Prager

Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Published: November 25, 2021 (TheOnion.com)

SUDBURY, MA—Their forks clattering to the table mere moments after the 16-year-old’s sudden announcement, Thanksgiving guests at the Ross family dinner reportedly froze in disbelief Thursday after teenage son Ryan informed them of the genocide of Native Americans. “No, no, it can’t be! Not my precious holiday!” said mother Alexandra Ross, 47, one of several dumbfounded family members who at first listened in rapt amazement to the high school junior’s statement that the first Thanksgiving was nothing like what was taught in schools before breaking the silence by spitting out their mashed potatoes and turkey into their napkins and screaming at the top of their lungs. “This changes everything! Everything! What were we doing here gathered with your grandmother on a terrible day like this? Oh God, burn the tablecloth! Burn the little pilgrim figurine! Burn it all down!” At press time, family patriarch Jim Ross had proclaimed that he “couldn’t stand the horrible truth” before grabbing the carving knife and slitting his own throat from ear to ear in front of his stunned teenage son.