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<title>Lawsuit challenges legality of Trump’s firing civil service employees during shutdown</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/lawsuit-challenges-legality-of-trumps-firing-civil-service-employees-during-shutdown/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/lawsuit-challenges-legality-of-trumps-firing-civil-service-employees-during-shutdown/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 11 Oct 2025 22:52:46 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
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<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287642</guid>
<description><![CDATA[You can’t tell it from the headlines from traditional media, but President Trump’s announcement that he is going to fire thousands of civil servants during the government shutdown is not a done deal. It’s illegal (there is a process for firing civil servants); a law he signed in his first term provides back pay during<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/lawsuit-challenges-legality-of-trumps-firing-civil-service-employees-during-shutdown/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/lawsuit-challenges-legality-of-trumps-firing-civil-service-employees-during-shutdown/">Lawsuit challenges legality of Trump’s firing civil service employees during shutdown</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/lawsuit-challenges-legality-of-trumps-firing-civil-service-employees-during-shutdown/trump-layoff-headlines-blur/" rel="attachment wp-att-287643"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/trump-layoff-headlines-blur.png" alt="blur of news headlines about trump layoffs" width="1221" height="770" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287643" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/trump-layoff-headlines-blur.png 1221w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/trump-layoff-headlines-blur-300x189.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1221px) 100vw, 1221px" /></a>
You can’t tell it from the headlines from traditional media, but President Trump’s announcement that he is going to fire thousands of civil servants during the government shutdown <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/10/substantial-layoffs-begin-federal-agencies-white-house-says/408752/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">is not a done deal.</a> It’s illegal (there is a process for firing civil servants); a law he signed in his first term provides back pay during the shutdown (he had two); and a federal judge “demanded details on the administration’s layoffs plans by Friday afternoon.”
Unsurprisingly, the <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/10/substantial-layoffs-begin-federal-agencies-white-house-says/408752/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">move to fire civil service employees on shutdown is unique to Trump</a>.
<blockquote class="highlight">No previous shutdown has triggered such action. Typically, as in the current lapse, shutdowns lead to large numbers of employees being sent home on furlough, who are then recalled when the government reopens. Under a provision Trump signed into law in his first term, those employees are now guaranteed back pay—though the administration has also threatened to circumvent that statute. </blockquote>
Moreover, these threatened firings are probably not immediate and may be reversed:
<blockquote class="highlight">Any RIF notices issued in the coming days will likely come with a 60-day notice period before employees are actually terminated. While administration officials have suggested the layoffs represent a permanent action, OMB has advised agencies they may revise their layoff plans once the government is reopened.</blockquote>
“These are largely people that the Democrats want,” <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/11/trump-fires-federal-workers-government-shutdown-live-updates/86626716007/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump told reporters this week</a>. 
In other words, it’s theater. And it’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/10/trump-federal-workers-layoffs-government-shutdown/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">designed deliberately to lay siege</a> to some programs associated with the Democratic Party: Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and Treasury.
From The Washington Post (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/10/trump-federal-workers-layoffs-government-shutdown/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">near the bottom of a story</a> headlined, Trump administration begins laying off federal workers amid shutdown):
<blockquote class="highlight">A federal judge in the Northern District of California this week ordered the administration to provide by Friday the “status of any currently planned or in progress RIF notices to be issued during/because of the government shutdown, including the earliest date that those RIF notices will go out.”
The government had not provided that information by the time Vought announced the dismissals, but it later furnished it. Shortly after Vought’s social post, the lawyers for the unions requested an immediate halt to any layoffs pending an upcoming hearing. The government said it opposed that motion (emphasis added).
</blockquote>
The lawsuit was filed September 30 when the threats of firings and layoffs began, according to the Post. The Trump Administration continues to ignore court orders at will, with no obvious negative repercussions. 
“A shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers to cause more chaos or permanently weaken more basic services for the American people, and the simple fact is this administration has been recklessly firing—and rehiring—essential workers all year. This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks,” according to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/10/substantial-layoffs-begin-federal-agencies-white-house-says/408752/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">quoted in Government Executive</a>.
That includes <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251011/p52#a251011p52" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tapping money from one budget</a> (<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-military-pay-troops-government-shutdown-8601ea092fe746cc35b88076e70c4598" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">research and development funds</a>) in order to meet military payroll during the shutdown. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/kjephd.bsky.social/post/3m2x4tfowwk25" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">From author Kevin Elliott</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it’s to establish personalist control over the … MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine.</blockquote>
Sen. Murray continues:
<blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:a23utge5gk6ckgm3ypx3weyr/app.bsky.feed.post/3m2u7mdulfs2u" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreic3nhgdiuwujt3vmbvogq3nrr3kvfqf2yvcns76wxjffjzrmuxtgu" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode="system">
Once again: if President Trump & Russ Vought decide to do more mass firings, they are CHOOSING to inflict more pain on people. “Reductions in force” are not a new power these bozos get in a shutdown.
We can’t be intimidated by these crooks.
<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:a23utge5gk6ckgm3ypx3weyr/post/3m2u7mdulfs2u?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a>
— Senator Patty Murray (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:a23utge5gk6ckgm3ypx3weyr?ref_src=embed">@murray.senate.gov</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:a23utge5gk6ckgm3ypx3weyr/post/3m2u7mdulfs2u?ref_src=embed">October 10, 2025 at 10:39 AM</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Not surprising, flip-flopping Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said: “Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country.”
Look beyond the headlines and first graph. Look beyond the NYT, WaPost and CNN. For certain, skip FOX et al. If you have a friend who is a news nerd, ask them what to read instead. Here’s <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/kegill.bsky.social/lists/3ki2ssp7pp525" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">my main Bluesky politics list</a>. Happy to chat.
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The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/lawsuit-challenges-legality-of-trumps-firing-civil-service-employees-during-shutdown/">Lawsuit challenges legality of Trump’s firing civil service employees during shutdown</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></content:encoded>
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<title>The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: ‘Facts and Circumstances’: An Update.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances-an-update/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances-an-update/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dorian de Wind, Military Affairs Correspondent]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[At TMV]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Authoritarianism]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[2025 Nobel Peace Prize]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Gaza Peace Plan]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287591</guid>
<description><![CDATA[UPDATE: And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to…”a brave and committed champion of peace – to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness,” the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado (above). According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, “As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances-an-update/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances-an-update/">The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: ‘Facts and Circumstances’: An Update.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_287636" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287636" style="width: 375px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-10-072311.png" alt="" width="375" height="384" class="size-full wp-image-287636" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-10-072311.png 375w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-10-072311-293x300.png 293w" sizes="(max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287636" class="wp-caption-text">ABC News screen capture</figcaption></figure>
UPDATE:
And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to…”a brave and committed champion of peace – to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness,” the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado (above).
<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2025/press-release/">According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee</a>, “As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”
 “[Ms.] Machado is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Committee continues.
Read more about the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2025/press-release/">HERE.</a>
Original Post:
Three weeks ago, we looked at the history and background of the Nobel Peace Prize and at the <a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances/">“facts and circumstances</a>,” and speculation, surrounding this year’s award of one of the world’s most prominent and prestigious honors.
With the announcement of the award of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize only two days away, interest and speculation are increasing.
Of course, interest in this year’s Nobel Prize award has been heightened in no small measure by the intense lobbying to have the Prize awarded to Donald Trump. Pressure that includes multiple nominations and shout-outs from U.S. political allies and organizations, including from foreign leaders and the fact that Trump himself has not been shy about promoting his qualifications for the Prize, an effort that <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-nobel-peace-prize-russia-ukraine-rcna225251">Zeeshan Aleem calls</a> “yet another stroke of Orwellian audacity…”
Some of this “audacity” is discussed in two recent articles.
In an October 3, 2025, piece, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nobel-peace-prize-donald-trump-ccd0c9821366448ad219cf0c751ed67e">Mark Lewis at AP News writes</a>, “…the U.S. leader has repeatedly sought the Nobel spotlight since his first term, most recently telling United Nations delegates late last month ‘everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.’”
Lewis adds:
<blockquote>Trump has said repeatedly that he “deserves” the prize and claims to have “ended seven wars.” On Tuesday, he teased the possibility of ending an eighth war if Israel and Hamas agree to his peace plan aimed at concluding the nearly two-year war in Gaza.</blockquote>
Referring to those “six or seven wars,” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nobel-peace-prize-donald-trump-what-to-know/">Kerry Breen at CBS News writes</a> more recently, “Not all of hose conflicts have been fully settled, and it’s not clear if the United States’ actions or influence were decisive in all of them, foreign policy experts previously told CBS News…”
Breen adds, “Mr. Trump told reporters in June that the Nobel Committee “should give” him the Nobel Peace Prize, and that he “should have gotten it four or five times.” 
What are the chances of Trump being awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize?
Again, AP News: “Longtime Nobel watchers say Trump’s prospects remain remote despite a flurry of high-profile nominations and some notable foreign policy interventions for which he has taken personal credit.”
And, 
<blockquote>
Experts say the Norwegian Nobel Committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals. Trump’s own record might even work against him, they said, citing his apparent disdain for multilateral institutions and his disregard for global climate change concerns.</blockquote>
. 
As mentioned, Trump has received multiple high-profile nominations s for the Nobel Peace Prize, including by several US members of Congress.
In August, GOP Representatives Andy Ogles and Marlin Stutzman <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-peace-trump-tapped-nobel-prize-amid-talks-end-russia-ukraine-war">nominated Trump</a> for “his bold and ongoing pursuit of peace, his proven record of successful negotiation, and his willingness to engage directly in the resolution of active conflicts…”
“He is a champion of America First statesmanship, proving that strength and prudence—not globalism—are the keys to lasting U.S. foreign policy. No other world leader can claim to have halted wars and begun resolving centuries-old disputes,” <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-peace-trump-tapped-nobel-prize-amid-talks-end-russia-ukraine-war">Ogles says</a>.
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-peace-trump-tapped-nobel-prize-amid-talks-end-russia-ukraine-war">Stutzman, calling Trump “the president of peace,” adds</a>, “There is no one on the planet more deserving of this year’s Nobel Prize and multiple world leaders have recognized that.”
Of course, if Trump is successful in implementing his Peace Plan in Gaza, it could be a laurel for his potential laureate crown.
<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/df530fcf-917d-44af-981b-021f99ff2ee6?fbclid=IwY2xjawNTuOdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFqamdMemhZc1U3VnNZRTFYAR75Q2H4c_Wlm6UQvjc9VHNSAtiF6ZziKLQVam56PHfbmyGcRUHIJtl7j_9caw_aem_mSwkhukZbFrbMV59mk197w">According to the Financial Times</a>, an European diplomat said, “It has been hard to take some of [Trump’s] proclamations seriously — but this is different. Gaza would be a big deal.” 
However, since the deadline for nominations for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize closed on January 31 (members of the committee were entitled to add more nominees to the list during their first meeting on February 28), it remains a question whether such an achievement will be a factor for the 2025 Peace Prize laureate selection.
Trump himself seems somewhat pessimistic. Discussing his peace plan for Gaza, he told a recent gathering of top brass at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/why-experts-say-trump-is-unlikely-to-win-the-nobel-peace-prize-this-year">Nobody’s ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing…</a>” 
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances-an-update/">The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: ‘Facts and Circumstances’: An Update.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></content:encoded>
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<title>As Israel prepares to celebrate hostages’ return, UN readies immediate life-saving aid to Gaza.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/as-israel-prepares-to-celebrate-hostages-return-un-readies-immediate-life-saving-aid-to-gaza/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/as-israel-prepares-to-celebrate-hostages-return-un-readies-immediate-life-saving-aid-to-gaza/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Brij Khindaria, Foreign Affairs Columnist]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:15:28 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Breaking News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[International]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
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<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287623</guid>
<description><![CDATA[While President Donald Trump prepares to join Israelis to celebrate the release of hostages after two years of horrific Hamas captivity, the United Nations humanitarian community is preparing to immediately alleviate the unimaginable misery of Gaza’s people. “We and our partners are prepared to move—now” to deliver food, water, medical and shelter assistance to people<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/as-israel-prepares-to-celebrate-hostages-return-un-readies-immediate-life-saving-aid-to-gaza/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/as-israel-prepares-to-celebrate-hostages-return-un-readies-immediate-life-saving-aid-to-gaza/">As Israel prepares to celebrate hostages’ return, UN readies immediate life-saving aid to Gaza.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[While President Donald Trump prepares to join Israelis to celebrate the release of hostages after two years of horrific Hamas captivity, the United Nations humanitarian community is preparing to immediately alleviate the unimaginable misery of Gaza’s people. 
“We and our partners are prepared to move—now” to deliver food, water, medical and shelter assistance to people in Gaza, said UN chief António Guterres. “To turn this ceasefire into real progress, we need more than the silencing of the guns.”
There must also be “full, safe and sustained access for humanitarian workers and sufficient funding for recovery efforts”.
Fortunately, UN and humanitarian partners have already secured clearance from the Israeli authorities for 170,000 metric tons of food, health and nutrition supplies, shelter items and other critical aid. This is encouraging but it does not necessarily mean that Israeli soldiers will allow the aid supplies to enter Gaza quickly or easily even if a ceasefire holds.
“These supplies are currently in the region — mainly in Israel, also in the West Bank, in Jordan, Egypt and Cyprus — and they are ready to be shipped to Gaza, as partners submit more supplies for approval,” a UN spokesperson said.
The supplies will scale up local food production, malnutrition screening and treatment, restoration of essential health services, repair of the decimated water grid and a massive surge in emergency shelters, among other things.
The Israeli cabinet approved the Trump-brokered deal late on Thursday but the IDF is still awaiting orders from Prime Minister Netanyahu Benyamin to stop shooting. That would open a bombing-free 72-hour window during which Hamas must release the remaining hostages, alive and dead. Trump said he expects them to be handed over next Monday or Tuesday.
People in Gaza have welcomed the deal as have many world nations.
But UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned that peace will remain fragile without a “comprehensive process of transitional justice” to ensure accountability for gross human rights violations.
Trump expects a genuine start to lasting peace. “We reached a momentous breakthrough in the Middle East, something that people said was never going to be done. We ended the war in Gaza, and really, on a much bigger basis, created peace, and I think it’s going to be a lasting peace, hopefully, an everlasting peace, peace in the Middle East,” he said.
But the road could be long since the deal is a first tentative step in Trump’s 20-point peace plan that looks forward to rebuilding Gaza, a violence-free cohabitation between Israelis and Palestinians and eventual statehood for all Palestinians.
Trump expects to sign a formal agreement on the 20-point plan in Egypt over the weekend and be present in Israel to receive the hostages on Monday or Tuesday. He may also visit Gaza if feasible.
Advancing on the rest of the peace plan will be much trickier even if the living hostages and the remains of the dead really do come out of Gaza and Israel really does release the Palestinian prisoners demanded by Hamas. 
Among them are 250 held on murder charges, including Marwan Barghouti who since 2004 is serving five cumulative life sentences plus 40 years but is widely respected in both Gaza and the West Bank as a potential leader of all Palestine. 
Accomplishing other parts of the Trump’s plan will be extremely complex because they include Israeli withdrawals from Gaza, the demilitarization of Hamas and its handing over the strip’s governance to a new international entity including other Arabs from the neighborhood.
The World Bank estimates that rebuilding Gaza may cost more than $55 billion and could take as much as 20 years. Earlier, American and Israeli officials said that might require moving most Gazan’s out of the territory entirely for safety reasons during the rebuilding process.
But Trump assured on Thursday that no one will be asked to leave Gaza. That will disappoint extremists in Netanyahu’s cabinet like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir but some Israeli analysts think the prime minister could jettison the two ministers if they create obstacles. He was wary of offending them earlier because his coalition government could collapse without their support. He may now savor the role of peacemaker and seek other coalition partners.
He might also recoil from arousing further global opprobrium against his leadership, if Trump’s peace really does get off the ground and looks like picking up speed with regional Arab and widespread international support. 
He could steer clear of placing hurdles in the way of long term peace because Trump will personally sign the agreement. That makes Trump responsible in the region’s and world’s eyes to make the plan work and dismantle Netanyahu’s manipulations. 
Trump seems determined not to put US taxpayer money into the rebuilding of Gaza and stabilizing Palestine, including the West Bank. He is relying very heavily on the cash-rich Gulf kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait to put up the funds.
They will refuse if they think Trump cannot control Netanyahu or stop Israel from bombing Gaza again and further destroying the West Bank. That could trigger a wider regional war and cause severe reputational harm to Trump and the US around the world. 
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/as-israel-prepares-to-celebrate-hostages-return-un-readies-immediate-life-saving-aid-to-gaza/">As Israel prepares to celebrate hostages’ return, UN readies immediate life-saving aid to Gaza.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<title>Trump offers Argentina $20 billion lifeline</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-offers-argentina-20-billion-lifeline/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2025 04:45:25 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[“The U.S. Treasury is prepared, immediately, to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets [by buying Argentine pesos],” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen announced on Truth Social Thursday. Along with intervening to prop up the sagging peso, which has lost more than 27 percent of its value against the dollar this year,<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-offers-argentina-20-billion-lifeline/"> […]</a>
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]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[“The U.S. Treasury is prepared, immediately, to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets [by buying Argentine pesos],” <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251009/p142#a251009p142" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen announced on Truth Social Thursday</a>. 
<blockquote class="highlight">Along with intervening to prop up the sagging peso, which has lost more than 27 percent of its value against the dollar this year, the U.S. has also finalized a $20 billion currency swap arrangement with Argentina’s central bank. The agreement, essentially a loan of $20 billion in dollars, followed what Bessent called four days of “intensive meetings” with Argentine Economy Minister Luis Caputo in Washington…
The administration’s bold move represented just the fourth time since 1996 that the United States has purchased another nation’s currency in the open market, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
</blockquote>
According to the WSJ, President <a href="https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/fact-check-team-us-farmers-face-uncertainty-as-china-shifts-soybean-imports-to-brazil-soybean-china-beijing-trade-war-brazil" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump is exploring</a> $10,000,000,000 to $14,000,000,000 in aid to <a href="https://soygrowers.com/news-releases/asa-responds-to-argentina-soybean-actions/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">farmers who are losing in his trade war</a>. China normally buys the bulk of US soybeans. Now China has turned to Brazil, as it did in 2018 during Trump’s prior trade war.
But guess what. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-buyers-book-least-10-argentine-soybean-cargoes-sources-say-2025-09-23/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Argentina is also selling soybeans to China</a>. So we’re supporting a country that’s taking part of our soybeans market.
Moreover, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/09/argentina-receives-us-bailout/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">economist Brad Setser</a>, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned: “Lending money to Argentina is easy; getting repaid is what is hard.” 
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<title>Conservative pundit out of touch with ICE operations in Chicago</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/conservative-pundit-out-of-touch-with-ice-operations-in-chicago/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2025 23:11:07 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[Beltway pundits set my teeth on edge when they repeat Trump Administration talking points mindlessly. Let’s take Rich Lowery at the National Review today, for example. When I say mindlessly, I refer to repeating ICE assertions that are questionable or false. The word should have gone out long ago: Don’t riot outside ICE facilities. Don’t<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/conservative-pundit-out-of-touch-with-ice-operations-in-chicago/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trumps-debate-tactic-a-flame-blower-of-lies-and-deception-known-as-the-gish-gallop/infographic-lies/" rel="attachment wp-att-281813"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/infographic-lies.jpg" alt="lies" width="1798" height="1058" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-281813" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/infographic-lies.jpg 1798w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/infographic-lies-300x177.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1798px) 100vw, 1798px" /></a>
Beltway pundits set my teeth on edge when they repeat Trump Administration talking points mindlessly. Let’s take <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/10/the-war-against-immigration-enforcement/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rich Lowery at the National Review</a> today, for example.
When I say mindlessly, I refer to repeating ICE assertions that are questionable or false.
<blockquote class="highlight">The word should have gone out long ago: Don’t riot outside ICE facilities. Don’t ram cars into ICE vehicles… Don’t act as though the Gestapo has descended on your city and that civil disobedience, or violence, is the only answer.</blockquote>
Let’s take these one by one:
One. Protests are not riots; they are an exercise of the First Amendment to the Constitution. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cWsFut7PnRI" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">I watched a video</a> of an ICE agent nonchalantly shoot Rev. David Black of the Presbyterian Church of Chicago, dressed in black and praying, <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/aclu-ice-protests-broadview-first-amendment/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in the face with “exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent</a>.” Then they chased him and hit him with pepper spray.
The “rioting” behavior came from ICE; it’s legal to pray outside a federal facility. 
<blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:n74wy26n6klbv7xgrndeog7s/app.bsky.feed.post/3m2qebrl4pk2x" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreibr7cnbmcaqgrrhwi6ya7zl67bvaihkrigj6xwchcnq6aq7msg6lq" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode="system">
CNN on the pastor shot in the head with a pepper ball by ICE in Chicago. 
This is not an isolated incident. Even among priests! www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMSy8o4y/
<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:n74wy26n6klbv7xgrndeog7s/post/3m2qebrl4pk2x?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a>
— Clara Jeffery (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:n74wy26n6klbv7xgrndeog7s?ref_src=embed">@clarajeffery.bsky.social</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:n74wy26n6klbv7xgrndeog7s/post/3m2qebrl4pk2x?ref_src=embed">October 8, 2025 at 9:51 PM</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale, or usurped states’ police power by directing federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for the government’s own benefit,” according to a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/07/chicago-protests-lawsuit-journalists-00596425" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">lawsuit filed Monday</a>. For the record, today is Wednesday. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/07/chicago-protests-lawsuit-journalists-00596425" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The lawsuit alleges</a> that ICE “[violated] protesters’ and journalists’ First Amendment rights.”
Two. In an altercation where ICE shot an American citizen in her car, they alleged that she had rammed their vehicle. Instead, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/07/chicago-woman-shot-immigration-agents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">body cam footage</a> shows the driver of the ICE truck turning his steering wheel into her car. Moreover, her lawsuit, also filed Monday, alleges that “body-camera footage captures one of the officers saying: ‘<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/07/chicago-woman-shot-immigration-agents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Do something, bitch</a>,’ before opening fire.” The ICE agents, of course, alleged that the women they shot rammed their vehicle, a claim repeated credulously in the National Review.
This behavior by ICE agents isn’t isolated. <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251008/p135#a251008p135" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">From MSNBC</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">
ICE is endangering its own agents. According to the Trump administration, ICE agents suffered about 90% fewer assaults under President Joe Biden than under President Donald Trump. Biden’s ICE better protected agents by adopting interior enforcement policies that reduced chaotic interactions with the public… If ICE returned to Biden’s interior enforcement policies, officers, Americans and immigrants would all be safer.
</blockquote>
Three. Last week, in a PR move, ICE descended on a south Chicago apartment complex after midnight, <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/05/congress-members-rally-south-shore-apartment-ice-raid" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">landing a helicopter on the roof</a> as though they were in Iraq. “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/03/chicago-area-immigration-raids-dhs/86497161007/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hundreds more arrived in trucks</a>,” according to USA Today. Read that again. HUNDREDS.
<blockquote class="highlight">
Federal law enforcement agencies including DHS, ICE, and Customs and Border Protection would not say if the Black Hawks used in the raid were from the U.S. Army, National Guard, or a non-military department. </blockquote>
They <a href="https://people.com/ice-agents-overnight-chicago-raid-11823082" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">rammed open doors</a> and threw flash bang grenades.
<blockquote class="highlight">Rodrick Johnson, 67, was among the U.S. residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid, he told the Sun-Times. He told the outlet agents broke through his door, dragged him out in zip ties and left him tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before he was released.
“I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer,” he told the Sun-Times. “They never brought one.”</blockquote>
They marched <a href="https://time.com/7323334/ice-raid-chicago-pritzker-trump/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">naked, zip-tied children</a> into the night. They marched residents — including American citizens — of the five-story building into the street <a href="https://people.com/ice-agents-overnight-chicago-raid-11823082" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">and U-Haul vans</a>. Supposedly, the ICE agents were looking for gang members. They say they found two.
<blockquote class="highlight">Photos of the aftermath show toys and shoes littering the apartment hallways that were left in the chaos as people were pulled from their beds by the operation that included FBI and Homeland Security agents.</blockquote>
ICE agents left the doors to the building open. <a href="https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-immigration-raid-on-chicago-apartment-building-leaves-residents-reeling-i-feel-defeated" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Residents returned to find their belongings … gone</a>.
<blockquote class="highlight">When he got home from work, [Dan] Jones said he entered his unit to find all of his electronics and furniture missing, and all of his clothes and shoes thrown on the floor. Jones said he had no idea who took his belongings and hadn’t received answers from Chicago police.</blockquote>
Supposedly 37 people were arrested. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-border-patrol-raid-sweeps-citizens-families-chicago-crackdown-intensifies-2025-10-04/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Only six people reportedly had criminal histories</a>, and two were reportedly gang members. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-trump-immigration-crime-ice-criminal-dangerous-violent-99557d9d68642004193a9f4b7668162e" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hardly the worst of the worst</a> in this massive spectacle. No names have been released, so who the heck knows if anyone will ultimately be charged.
If this isn’t Gestapo behavior, I don’t know what to call it.
The essay author relied on first draft information provided by ICE and nothing from the subsequent reporting showing their duplicity. Shame on the National Review and Lowery.
It’s lies by omission. 
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<title>Trump immigration crackdown spikes food costs: US Labor Department</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-immigration-crackdown-spikes-food-costs-us-labor-department/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2025 20:43:44 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[If you’ve been shocked at your recent grocery store bill, hold on to your hats. Prices are going up, according to the Trump Administration’s Labor Department. [S]ouped-up immigration enforcement has devastated the agricultural workforce and created a significant “risk of supply shock-induced food shortages,” according to a document filed in the Federal Register last week…<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-immigration-crackdown-spikes-food-costs-us-labor-department/"> […]</a>
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]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-immigration-crackdown-spikes-food-costs-us-labor-department/adobestock_775333072-cropped/" rel="attachment wp-att-287586"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AdobeStock_775333072-cropped.png" alt="adult woman feeling worried about grocery prices while shopping in supermarket." width="5013" height="3278" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287586" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AdobeStock_775333072-cropped.png 5013w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AdobeStock_775333072-cropped-300x196.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 5013px) 100vw, 5013px" /></a>
If you’ve been shocked at your recent grocery store bill, hold on to your hats. <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251008/p43#a251008p43" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Prices are going up</a>, according to the Trump Administration’s Labor Department.
<blockquote class="highlight">[S]ouped-up immigration enforcement has devastated the agricultural workforce and created a significant “risk of supply shock-induced food shortages,” according to a document filed in the Federal Register last week…
“The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers,” the document says, adding that “this threat will grow” given new federal funding for immigration enforcement under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
</blockquote>
It’s not just prices going up. It’s farm income going down. <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/10/ohio-soybean-farmers-left-high-and-dry-as-trumps-tariff-tornado-obliterates-china-market.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump’s already devastated soybean farmers</a> by ticking off China, our primary export market until 2025.
Guess what the Labor Department thinks should be the solution, as outlined in this proposed rule making?
<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/trump-labor-department-immigration-ICE-food-crisis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lower wages</a>. That’s right, entice foreign workers to come to a country hostile to brown people via controversial H-2A visas but with lower wages. Moreover, the current rule requires those signing for the H-2A worker to provide housing; this rulemaking rescinds that, “allow[ing] farm employers to charge H-2A workers for their housing.”
<a href="https://ufw.org/farm-workers-condemn-2-46-billion-in-trump-wage-cuts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">According to United Farm Workers</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">The proposal will cut income for farm workers by at least one third, with cuts ranging from $5 to $7 per hour, depending on the state. In total, farm workers will lose $2.46 billion annually in wages and $17.29 billion over the next ten years.</blockquote>
Last month, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/15/farm-labor-shortage-pennsylvania-trump-immigration-00560820" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Politico highlighted the plight in Pennsylvania</a>:
<blockquote>In Tioga County, where President Donald Trump won 75 percent of the vote in 2024, farmers are losing patience with the White House’s promise of a quick solution for farm workers. Their urgent need is highlighted by stories like those of a multigenerational dairy farm that sold off all its dairy cows because the owner could not find workers and another where a farmer’s job listings have received no responses…
The U.S. agricultural workforce fell by 155,000 — about 7 percent — between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.
Farmers often turn to undocumented laborers because of the red tape and high costs associated with the H-2A program, which allows migrant workers to fill jobs in seasonal agricultural industries. They also complain that H-2A, the nation’s largest temporary visa program, is off-limits to employers looking to hire for year-round operations like dairy farms.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/trump-labor-department-immigration-ICE-food-crisis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Labor Department filing says</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">“The Department anticipates an imminent and significant decline in the number of available illegal aliens who had, in significant part, previously worked unlawfully in the U.S. agricultural sector.” This cannot be compensated for with a boost to imports, the Department claims, and will lead to shortages in fresh produce and other crops requiring human workers.</blockquote>
A quick reminder that the Trump Administration does not seem focused on the illegal hiring of undocumented workers or the clear need for additional workers who receive a living wage.
The predicted domino effect has begun in earnest. 
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<title>US news orgs response to Trump’s governing via Truth Social: ho-hum as he calls for Illinois, Chicago arrests</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/us-news-orgs-response-to-trumps-governing-via-truth-social-ho-hum-as-he-calls-for-illinois-chicago-arrests/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2025 19:48:50 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[If we needed another example of how traditional news organizations in the United States report on President Trump’s unorthodox practice (with questionable legality) of governing via a digital network that he owns and profits from, we got it Wednesday morning when he called for the arrest of Brandon Johnson, the Chicago mayor, and JB Pritzker,<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/us-news-orgs-response-to-trumps-governing-via-truth-social-ho-hum-as-he-calls-for-illinois-chicago-arrests/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[If we needed another example of how traditional news organizations in the United States report on President Trump’s unorthodox practice (with questionable legality) of governing via a digital network that he owns and profits from, we got it Wednesday morning when he called for the arrest of Brandon Johnson, the Chicago mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor.
<img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/trump-TS-illinois-2@2x.png" alt="trump truth social arrests" width="1107" height="363" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287570" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/trump-TS-illinois-2@2x.png 1107w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/trump-TS-illinois-2@2x-300x98.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1107px) 100vw, 1107px" />
Both elected officials are Democrats, and <a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-is-the-anti-lincoln/">Chicago is a sanctuary city</a>. 
<a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251008/p45#a251008p45" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reuters released a wire story</a> about three hours later. AP updated theirs almost four hours later.
The <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/08/president-donald-trump-mayor-brandon-johnson-gov-jb-pritzker-jailed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chicago Tribune</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/08/trump-jail-brandon-johnson-jb-pritzker-chicago-illinois" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> had the story at the top of their web site home pages by 1:30 pm Eastern when I checked, about six hours after the post. None of the following US outlets <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kathygill" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">had the story on their website home page</a> (mobile version):
<ul>
<li> ABC News </li>
<li> CNN </li>
<li> NPR </li>
<li> The Atlanta Journal Constitution </li>
<li> The Detroit News </li>
<li> The LA Times </li>
<li> The New York Times </li>
<li> The (Philly) Inquirer </li>
</ul>
These outlets featured the story, just not at the top:
<ul>
<li> CBS News </li>
<li> NBC News </li>
<li> PBS </li>
<li> The Washington Post </li>
</ul>
This is the President of the United States, claiming that elected representatives of a major (blue) state and city (Chicago is the nation’s third largest) should be thrown in jail. 
Regardless of how many proclamations Trump makes that he later reverses or ignores (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Always_Chickens_Out" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TACO</a>), ignoring such authoritarian impulses normalizes them. Normalizing them leads to complacency, both by individuals and organizations. Do these media institutions truly believe they would be exempt from arm twisting should Trump elevate himself to dictator?
Then there is his profiting from conducting government affairs via a business where he has a $4 billion stake (<a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/12/20/congress/trump-puts-social-media-stock-in-trust-00195582" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">via Dec. 2024 trust</a>), Truth Social. 
Presidents are exempt from many ethics rules <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/emoluments-clauses-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">but not the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses</a>, which are “among the oldest federal anticorruption safeguards.”
<blockquote class="highlight">
The Constitution doesn’t say how to enforce the Emoluments Clauses, but robust enforcement wasn’t needed in the past because presidents and other high-level officials voluntarily complied. When in doubt, previous presidents sought official legal guidance — for example, when President Barack Obama asked whether he could accept the cash award accompanying his Nobel Peace Prize, and when President Ronald Reagan asked whether he could continue to receive the state pension he earned from his time as governor of California.
[…]
But the norm shattered completely when Trump came into office. During his first term, Trump kept control of hotels and other properties that did extensive business with foreign officials and governments, as well as state governments.
Now back in office, Trump’s business entanglements have expanded even further. In addition to hotels and other properties, the Trump family also launched new cryptocurrency ventures like the $TRUMP meme coin and World Liberty Financial trading platform, which have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to the Trumps, including from buyers connected to foreign governments like the United Arab Emirates and China.
</blockquote>
Trump is not profiting from the management of Truth Social. He’s profiting from its use as a de facto mouthpiece of the federal government. And unless he is maintaining copies of the posts he deletes, he is violating the Freedom of Information Act’s records requirements.
There are very few analyses or news reports about these ethical and legal issues, <a href="https://wfirnews.com/news/trumps-net-worth-jumps-3-billion-while-in-office-raising-ethical-questions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">like this one from WFIR News Talk Radi</a>o:
<blockquote class="highlight">
President Donald Trump’s net worth has surged to $7.3 billion, a $3 billion increase from last year, according to a recent Forbes report. The financial windfall comes primarily from his crypto venture World Liberty Financial, a memecoin, and booming foreign real estate licensing deals — all while holding the nation’s highest office.
</blockquote>
Our news media are compromised. Demand better. Switch your attention to outlets that highlight the federal government’s questionable and illegal behavior, not those that ignore it.
And keep your eyes on Chicago.
~~~
Addendum: about 3-in-5 Americans (and 1-in-2 Republicans) “think the president should send armed troops only to face external threats, a sign of unease as President Donald Trump increasingly deploys National Guard troops to police American cities, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.”
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<title>Trump is the anti-Lincoln</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-is-the-anti-lincoln/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-is-the-anti-lincoln/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2025 03:39:13 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287529</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Congress passed the second Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, requiring law enforcement to “arrest people suspected of escaping enslavement on as little as a claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership.” Proposed by southern slaveholders, the Act was widely opposed in the North. Protesters who chose to assist slaves who had escaped to a free state were<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-is-the-anti-lincoln/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-is-the-anti-lincoln/">Trump is the anti-Lincoln</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_287531" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287531" style="width: 2561px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-slave-act"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/fugitive-slave-act-broadside@2x.png" alt="Fugitive Slave Act broadside" width="2561" height="1247" class="size-full wp-image-287531" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/fugitive-slave-act-broadside@2x.png 2561w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/fugitive-slave-act-broadside@2x-300x146.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2561px) 100vw, 2561px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287531" class="wp-caption-text">A broadside publicizes outrage at the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which required the return of runaways; Library of Congress</figcaption></figure>
Congress passed the second Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, requiring law enforcement to “arrest people suspected of escaping enslavement on as little as a claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership.” Proposed by southern slaveholders, the Act was widely opposed in the North.
Protesters who chose to assist slaves who had escaped to a free state were “<a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/the-fugitive-slave-act-1850" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">subject to a fine</a> not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months.” For context, that would be “<a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-1-2024" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">about three years income</a>.”
As Heather Cox Richardson noted, “white southerners insisted that the federal government must use its power not to enforce the will of the majority, but rather to protect their state systems.”
Sanctuary cities share the <a href="https://history.iowa.gov/research/collections/featured-collections/underground-railroad" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ethos of the Underground Railroad</a> that “helped fugitive slaves escape slavery beginning in the late 1700s until the end of the Civil War in 1865.”
Just as today with immigration, a minority was imposing its immoral will on the majority.
<a href="https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3985&context=mlr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The law was on the books</a>, and President Lincoln “felt his duty to the Constitution overrode the dictates of natural law, at least until the Civil War let him bend the Constitution to conform to natural law (emphasis added).” Frederick Douglas argued that “[n]atural law required the ‘preservation of the rights, and the security, and the happiness of the race’.”
In 1860, 10 years later, South Carolina seceded following Lincoln’s re-election, followed rapidly by other slave states. Lincoln chose to fight to preserve the union.
Rather than seek to preserve the union, as Lincoln did, Donald Trump is tearing it apart as he engages in retribution against (blue) sanctuary cities that voted for his opponent in the 2024 election. Leaders of those cities and states have stood firm that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/10/07/trump-portland-chicago-sanctuary-lawsuits-immigrants/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">immigrants living in their domain will be treated fairly by the law</a>.
<blockquote class="highlight">“We will not tolerate ICE agents violating our residents’ constitutional rights, nor will we allow the federal government to disregard our local authority,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) said Monday. He announced an executive order barring ICE from using city property after reports the agency had used a school parking lot as a staging area.</blockquote>
It’s no surprise, then, that <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3932" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nearly 8-in-10 American voters</a> believe we are in a political crisis. Why?
<ul>
<li> Trump’s deployment of ICE and National Guard troops to <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/04/trumps-illegal-national-guard-deployment-in-los-angeles-cost-taxpayers-120-million/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Los Angeles, CA</a>, and Washington, DC. </li>
<li> Trump’s attempted <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c740elm70z7o" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">deployment of California National Guard to Oregon</a>, in stark rebellion against a ruling of the federal courts. </li>
<li> Trump’s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/chicago-immigration-federal-arrests-helicopter-trump-ice-8dbf688f78f3b6d1b8fdb989557b28c4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tacit if not explicit approval for ICE engaging Blackhawk helicopters</a> and <a href="https://southsideweekly.com/federal-agents-storm-south-shore-building-detaining-families-and-children/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">flash bangs</a>, as though they were in Iraq, while bombarding a Chicago apartment complex. </li>
<li> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/07/texas-national-guard-troops-chicago-trump" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump’s sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago</a>. </li>
<li> Trump’s threatening to send the US military into US cities as “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-threat-invoke-insurrection-act-escalates-showdown-with-democratic-cities-2025-10-07/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">training grounds</a>” to fight “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/01/nx-s1-5558336/trump-says-u-s-military-should-be-used-to-fight-the-enemy-within" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the enemy within</a>” (<a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/inside-hitlers-mind" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hitler propaganda</a>), directly <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/posse-comitatus-act-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">counter to the Posse Comitatus Ac</a>t (1878).</li>
</ul>
Immigration enforcement is only one of the issues tearing the country apart. 
Rampant lies (e.g., that Democrats want undocumented immigrants to have federal health care benefits; that Trump will only deport criminals; that Portland is a “war zone”) and violent rhetoric (e.g., left-wing organizations are “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/stephen-miller-vengeance-charlie-kirk-murder-rcna231329" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a vast domestic terror movement</a>;” praise for “<a href="https://qz.com/1436267/trump-stochastic-terror-and-the-hate-that-ends-in-violence" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">physically hurting enemies</a>“) are the parlance of this administration, also designed to divide not come together.
<a href="https://pt.icct.nl/article/donald-trump-aggressive-rhetoric-and-political-violence" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump’s “aggressive, divisive, and dehumanizing language</a> [has been] seconded by his followers and inflicted directly or indirectly psychological and physical harm to Trump’s declared enemies.” 
<a href="https://archive.ph/Jfw2U#selection-701.0-701.435" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Thomas B. Edsall </a>of the New York Times <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251007/p87#a251007p87" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">noted</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">Trump’s assault on the left combines the use of the available tools of violent conflict — the military, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE in particular — with the prosecution of critics (and people he just doesn’t like), cuts of essential funds for liberal institutions, the use of regulation to threaten businesses with bankruptcy, the criminalization of free speech and the blackmailing of corporate America into obedience.</blockquote>
Today Trump hinted that he was open to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-threat-invoke-insurrection-act-escalates-showdown-with-democratic-cities-2025-10-07/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">claiming that the US is in a state of insurrection</a>, which would allow him “to sidestep any court rulings blocking the dispatch of Guard troops into Democratic-led cities, over the objections of local and state officials.”
<blockquote class="highlight">The [Posse Comitatus Act], which gives the president authority to deploy the military to quell unrest in an emergency, has typically been used only in extreme cases, and almost always at the invitation of state governors. The act was last invoked by President George H.W. Bush during the Los Angeles riots of 1992.</blockquote>
Today’s GOP is the party of the white slave owners of the 1800s … and the current president is the antithesis of Abraham Lincoln, founder of the Republican Party. Civil war or <a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/what-is-soft-secession-and-has-its-time-arrived/">soft secession</a> seem increasingly inevitable.
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<title>In Gaza’s open wound, Hamas clings on as Israelis sink into division and global isolation. UN chief echoes Trump’s hope for lasting peace.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/in-gazas-open-wound-hamas-clings-on-as-israelis-sink-into-division-and-global-isolation-un-chief-echoes-trumps-hope-for-lasting-peace/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/in-gazas-open-wound-hamas-clings-on-as-israelis-sink-into-division-and-global-isolation-un-chief-echoes-trumps-hope-for-lasting-peace/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Brij Khindaria, Foreign Affairs Columnist]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2025 01:00:37 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Christianity]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Holocaust]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[International]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Jews]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Muslims]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Palestinians]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[United States]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287535</guid>
<description><![CDATA[October 7 was a day of global mourning at this century’s most heinous act of terrorism in 2023, when Hamas and allied factions killed over 1250 Israeli and other nationals and abducted 250 women, children, men and the elderly into the Gaza strip. “The recent proposal by United States President Donald J. Trump presents an<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/in-gazas-open-wound-hamas-clings-on-as-israelis-sink-into-division-and-global-isolation-un-chief-echoes-trumps-hope-for-lasting-peace/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/in-gazas-open-wound-hamas-clings-on-as-israelis-sink-into-division-and-global-isolation-un-chief-echoes-trumps-hope-for-lasting-peace/">In Gaza’s open wound, Hamas clings on as Israelis sink into division and global isolation. UN chief echoes Trump’s hope for lasting peace.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/dreamstime_s_185902065-e1757947745228.jpg" alt="" width="760" height="506" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-287157" />October 7 was a day of global mourning at this century’s most heinous act of terrorism in 2023, when Hamas and allied factions killed over 1250 Israeli and other nationals and abducted 250 women, children, men and the elderly into the Gaza strip. 
“The recent proposal by United States President Donald J. Trump presents an opportunity that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end,” urged United Nations chief Antonio Guterres. “After two years of trauma, we must choose hope, now.”
“The horror of that dark day will be forever seared in the memories of us all. Two years later, hostages remain captive in Gaza in deplorable conditions,” he emphasized.
Trump has also voiced hope as his negotiators struggle in Cairo, Egypt, to at least obtain a truce leading to the immediate and unconditional return of the hostages. Of that single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, reportedly just 48 hostages remain, comprising 20 alive and 28 dead. 
But Gaza could still stay an open wound in the Levant region even if Trump’s negotiators succeed in stopping the fighting because Hamas and its allies see yielding their weapons as outright surrender. In turn, Israel’s Benyamin Netanyahu will refuse to end Gaza’s bombardment without certainty that his country will never be attacked again. 
Without a complete long term end to the fighting, Trump’s plan to get the Gulf Arab states to help administer the strip and, importantly, finance Gaza’s restoration would collapse. They may refuse to pay and shoulder administrative burdens if they fear that Israel will demolish the strip again in a few years. 
As long as Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank remain in mortal fear of future Israeli bombardment and destitution, the Jewish state may never secure a future as a liberal democracy and a prosperous state respected across the world. 
Netanyahu’s near total destruction of Gaza as a habitable land through relentless bombardment for two years is already turning Israel into a pariah state surrounded by Palestinians thirsting for revenge. 
This is especially bad news for all Jewish people around the world in whose name Netanyahu and his parliamentary allies are perpetrating such extraordinary destruction. 
Netanyahu’s Israel has declared itself to be the biblical homeland to which Jews are rightfully returning after millennia. Its government is trying to secure permanent ownership and security for all the world’s Jews in a safe haven where they can never again be persecuted or killed by haters just because of their religion.
Many in the US and Europe see this as a compelling argument but the global majority of around 5.5 billion people have had very little historical contact with Jews. Mostly Christians and Muslims sharing Abrahamic roots with Jews have known them and oppressed them for centuries. 
The global majority learned about Jews recently and mainly through a flood of harrowing images on their smart phones and TV screens of unarmed children, women, men and the elderly being killed, maimed and starved by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, tanks, drones and warplanes. They have seen schools, hospitals, mosques and churches being destroyed and rescue, health, humanitarian aid workers and journalists being killed.
They have witnessed only the heart-breaking suffering of Gaza’s people as Israeli bombs turn their land, twice the size of Washington, into an unhabitable desert.
The revulsion outside Israel for this human disaster is severe. Most see it as a wildly disproportionate response to the undeniable brutality dealt upon Israelis on October 7, 2023. Recovering goodwill for the Jewish religion among the global majority may become a hard slog because no amount of justification by Natanyahu’s government can make emotionally shocked people unsee the live-streamed images on their ubiquitous smart phones. 
Even in the US, Israel’s decades-long and nearly unconditional ally, a YouGov/Economist poll from mid-August found that 43% of Americans think that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. A Washington Post poll published this week found that 61 percent of American Jews believe that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, and 4 in 10 surveyed say that the country is guilty of genocide. Young Americans in particular are changing their minds about Israel, including many American Jews who have long admired Israelis.
A July 2025 poll aired on Israeli television showed that 74 percent of Israelis, including 60% of people who voted for Netanyahu’s coalition, support a ceasefire that brings not only immediate release of all hostages but also an end to the Gaza war.
Trump is still striving for permanent peace but Israel and Hamas seem frozen in the positions that led them to war two years ago. 
Egyptian media cited Hamas leader Fawzi Barhoum emphasizing that “the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa (Hamas’s name for the October 7, 2023, attack) has restored our Palestinian cause to its global standing and exposed the fascist occupation as a threat to the security of the region and the world.”
“We seek a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip, and the guarantee of the return of the displaced,” he added.
For his part during the October 7 commemoration, Netanyahu vowed to “achieve all the goals of the war: the return of all the kidnapped, the elimination of the Hamas regime and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel”. 
“This is a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale that defies comprehension,” lamented Guterres. 
But, tragically, the chasm persists. 
Map: Dreamstime
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<title>GOP uses fake photo to portray Portland as a war zone</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/gop-uses-fake-photo-to-portray-portland-as-a-war-zone/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/gop-uses-fake-photo-to-portray-portland-as-a-war-zone/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2025 17:57:22 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[President Donald Trump is well known for his lies as well as copyright infringement. The Guardian reports that the Oregon GOP isn’t far behind. “President Trump on Sunday deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon after a judge ruled that the Oregon National Guard could not be deployed to keep federal facilities and<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/gop-uses-fake-photo-to-portray-portland-as-a-war-zone/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_287521" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287521" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/gop-uses-fake-photo-to-portray-portland-as-a-war-zone/fake-fire-trump/" rel="attachment wp-att-287521"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/fake-fire-trump.png" alt="Fake Photos in Tweet" width="2280" height="1956" class="size-full wp-image-287521" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/fake-fire-trump.png 2280w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/fake-fire-trump-300x257.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287521" class="wp-caption-text">The Oregon GOP used fake images, covering a span of 10 years, from South America to support Trump’s assertion that Portland is a war zone.</figcaption></figure>
President Donald Trump is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/29/politics/fact-check-trump-ukraine-inflation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">well known</a> for <a href="https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwu_honors/486/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">his lies</a> as well as <a href="https://littonlegal.com.au/blog/donald-trumps-music-copyright-lawsuits/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">copyright infringement</a>. <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251006/p173#a251006p173" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian reports</a> that the Oregon GOP isn’t far behind.
<blockquote class="highlight">“President Trump on Sunday deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon after a judge ruled that the Oregon National Guard could not be deployed to keep federal facilities and personnel in Portland safe,” Oregon Republicans wrote on their official Facebook, Instagram and X accounts.
On all three platforms, the statement was illustrated with an image that seemed designed to support Trump’s false claim that protests against immigration sweeps in Portland are so out of control that the city is “burning to the ground”…
On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart.</blockquote>
Notably, it took a newspaper headquartered in the UK to investigate the claim. US media seem to have either ignored the meme or took it at face value, something that they know is untrue.
The <a href="https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwu_honors/486/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">lies from this Administration</a> are “outside of known typologies, with the unprecedented effect of undermining core democratic institutions and threatening the legitimacy of the American government (2021).”
The net result is a <a href="https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/data" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">loss in trust by more than half of the country</a>, based on Trump’s underwater status on important issues as well as his overall approval rating. 
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/06/oregon-republicans-protest-photo-south-america" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America</a>
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<title>NYC Bar Association classifies Trump’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean as murder</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/nyc-bar-association-classifies-trumps-attacks-on-boats-in-the-caribbean-as-murder/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/nyc-bar-association-classifies-trumps-attacks-on-boats-in-the-caribbean-as-murder/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2025 06:34:50 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[International]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[On Friday, the Trump Administration used military personnel to sink yet a fourth Venezuelan small boat, again killing all aboard, in his “war on cartels.” Trump sank the first boat on September 3. The President has claimed, but has provided no evidence, that the boats were smuggling drugs into the United States. Trafficking drugs is<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/nyc-bar-association-classifies-trumps-attacks-on-boats-in-the-caribbean-as-murder/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/nyc-bar-association-classifies-trumps-attacks-on-boats-in-the-caribbean-as-murder/">NYC Bar Association classifies Trump’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean as murder</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[On Friday, the Trump Administration <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/6/can-us-strikes-on-suspected-drug-boats-off-venezuela-be-legally-justified" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">used military personnel to sink yet a fourth Venezuelan small boat</a>, again killing all aboard, in his “war on cartels.”
Trump <a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/what-happened-in-the-caribbean-was-murder-and-a-dangerous-precedent/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="TMV">sank the first boat</a> on September 3. The President has claimed, but has provided no evidence, that the boats were smuggling drugs into the United States. Trafficking drugs is not a capital offense. <a href="https://archive.ph/gPc3S" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Congress has not authorized</a> armed conflict.
Monday, the New York City Bar Association issued a press statement <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251006/p131#a251006p131" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">calling the attacks “unlawful” and the deaths “murder</a>.”
<blockquote class="highlight">
None of these attacks was authorized under U.S. law and, as explained below, each of them appears to be an unlawful summary execution prohibited by both U.S. and international law. Although the President has, without proof, characterized the victims as “terrorists” and drug traffickers, that claim, even if true, provides no justification for these unlawful executions…
Both U.S. and international law provide authority for law enforcement officials to arrest alleged drug traffickers or other individuals suspected of terrorist acts… There is, however, neither a lawful nor factual justification to engage our armed forces to use lethal force in international waters in the absence of lawful armed conflict or self-defense.
We therefore call upon the President to desist from any further unlawful attacks on the high seas. We also call upon Congress to remind the President that he lacks authority to continue to misuse our military forces for similar unlawful attacks on foreign vessels and their civilian crews and that continuation of such attacks is unlawful. Congress and the courts have a critical role in requiring the President to comply with the Constitution and our treaties with respect to the use of armed force, and they must not abdicate that responsibility in the case of these (and threatened future) attacks.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.nycbar.org/press-releases/unlawful-attacks-on-venezuelan-vessels/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Being a statement from a bar association</a>, it details the limits on presidential war powers; authorization of interdiction of narcotics traffickers; and international treaty violations. It calls for Congressional action in closing, where it characterizes these deaths as murder.
<blockquote class="highlight">
Because the recent attacks on Venezuelan vessels and their crews were unauthorized by U.S. law and in violation of binding international law, they were illegal summary executions – murders. It is imperative that Congress act promptly, as pending legislation proposes, to make clear to the President and the nation that the President’s threat of similar attacks on Venezuelan vessels (and on Venezuela itself) are unlawful and must not be repeated. Only by doing so can Congress bring our nation into compliance with the Constitution and international law, reduce the risk of hostilities with neighboring countries and assure that similar abuses of Presidential power do not expand to American shores (emphasis added).
</blockquote>
Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/6/can-us-strikes-on-suspected-drug-boats-off-venezuela-be-legally-justified" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has called the attacks “extrajudicial killings</a>.” 
Celeste Kmiotek, a senior staff lawyer at the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera that “no congressional consent or specific Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) covers anti-drug operations in Venezuela.” <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/was-trumps-strike-on-an-alleged-venezuelan-drug-boat-legal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In addition</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">
The United States is a signatory to human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 6 of the covenant establishes that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their life, and Article 4 specifies that states cannot make derogations (that is, formal exemptions) related to this right, even in times of public emergency. As noted by former US State Department Attorney-Adviser Brian Finucane, the US Department of Defense Operational Law Handbook views the prohibition of murder under IHRL as a peremptory rule under customary international law, meaning a rule “so fundamental and universally accepted that [it does] not permit any derogation, even by treaty.” Assessed according to these criteria, this strike appears to have been an extrajudicial killing in violation of IHRL and Department of Defense provisions.
</blockquote>
These are war crimes, and we are going to need <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a 21st century equivalent of the Nuremberg trials</a> when this chaos is over.
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<title>What is soft secession and has its time arrived?</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/what-is-soft-secession-and-has-its-time-arrived/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/what-is-soft-secession-and-has-its-time-arrived/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2025 04:14:54 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[“Soft secession” is increasingly bandied about in the social media sphere as an idea whose time has come. But what is it, exactly? That depends on who you ask, because there is no generally accepted definition. One thing all thoughts have in common: this is not 1861 with violence at the center of the movement.<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/what-is-soft-secession-and-has-its-time-arrived/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AdobeStock_1020390767-scaled.jpeg" alt="weathered flag with cracks" width="2560" height="1463" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287510" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AdobeStock_1020390767-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AdobeStock_1020390767-300x171.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />
“Soft secession” is increasingly bandied about in the social media sphere as an idea whose time has come. But what is it, exactly?
That depends on who you ask, because there is no generally accepted definition. One thing all thoughts have in common: this <a href="https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/its-time-for-americans-to-start-talking" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">is not 1861 with violence</a> at the center of the movement. Instead, it is a series of cooperative state actions that exercise state’s rights (federalism) with refusal to follow federal government orders.
It’s a kind of separation that <a href="https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2025/09/time-for-soft-secession-by-blue-states/72581/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the Supreme Court has legalized</a>, first with the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War (<a href="https://time.com/4659391/sanctuary-cities-fugitive-slave-act/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a precursor to sanctuary cities</a>). In 1997, Justice Antonin Scalia followed with an opinion that the federal government cannot “issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers … to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.”
Authoritarian scholar Tim Snyder refers to a <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/09/30/world/donald-trumps-show-of-force/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">collective response to President Trump’s “show of force</a>.” In this context, Snyder portrays Trump’s presidency as a reality TV show and our “refusing to be co-opted into the ‘show’.” He specifically refers to the National Guard and ICE deployments across blue cities.
<blockquote class="highlight">In fact, these urban deployments are the political equivalent of a lit fuse. By sending troops to city after city, the Trump administration is creating the statistical likelihood of an incident — a service member’s suicide, a friendly fire incident, the shooting of a protester — that can be used to manufacture some greater crisis.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/its-time-for-soft-secession/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Democratic governors and attorneys general confer</a>, almost daily it seems, on how to respond to Trump’s attacks on cities, on voters, on health care. And California Governor Gavin Newsom has made it clear that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-war-over-federalism/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blue states which contribute far more in tax dollars</a> than they receive back from the federal government are not going to sit idle.
<blockquote class="highlight">
When Trump first said he was gutting federal funding to California’s public universities, a system that is the envy of the world, Newsom responded: “Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump.”
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/its-time-for-soft-secession/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">We’re talking real money</a>: “Were California to secede, almost 15 percent of America’s GDP would go with it, and the US could slip behind China as the world’s biggest economy.”
<blockquote class="highlight">
As shown in Tables 1 and 2, states such as New York ($89 billion), California ($78 billion), New Jersey ($70 billion), and Texas ($67 billion) contribute far more in federal taxes than they receive in federal grants. In contrast, states such as Alabama ($41 billion), Arizona ($40 billion), and South Carolina ($37 billion) receive more from the federal government than they contribute. These budgetary imbalances give “donor” states potential leverage over federal policy, as some leaders have suggested using this fiscal influence to counter what they perceive as punitive actions by the Trump administration toward their states, as well as preferential treatment of conservative “recipient” states. Note that with the exception of Texas, the donor states are all blue states, and with the exception of Maryland and New Mexico, the recipient states are all red states.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-war-over-federalism/"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/donor-states-giving-federal-government-more-tax-money-than-they-received-in-grants-2023.png" alt="brookings - states giving more money" width="1220" height="812" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287500" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/donor-states-giving-federal-government-more-tax-money-than-they-received-in-grants-2023.png 1220w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/donor-states-giving-federal-government-more-tax-money-than-they-received-in-grants-2023-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1220px) 100vw, 1220px" /></a>
<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-war-over-federalism/"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/recipient-states-giving-federal-government-less-tax-money-than-they-received-in-grants-2023.png" alt="brookings- recipient states" width="1220" height="812" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287508" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/recipient-states-giving-federal-government-less-tax-money-than-they-received-in-grants-2023.png 1220w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/recipient-states-giving-federal-government-less-tax-money-than-they-received-in-grants-2023-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1220px) 100vw, 1220px" /></a>
In June, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-06-09/state-coalitions-federal" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aziz Z. Huq and Jon D. Michaels wrote in the LA Times</a> that state governments should work together, “to pool resources,” such as “re-creat[ing] public-health and meteorology forecasting centers servicing member states.” California, Oregon and Washington, later joined by Hawaii, <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/03/california-oregon-and-washington-to-launch-new-west-coast-health-alliance-to-uphold-scientific-integrity-in-public-health-as-trump-destroys-cdcs-credibility/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">did just that on vaccine recommendations</a>.
As <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/its-time-for-soft-secession/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Clara Jeffrey</a> writes in <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/251006/p113#a251006p113" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mother Jones</a>:
<blockquote class="highlight">With Trump provocatively sending troops into blue cities, and using recision and the shutdown to claw back congressionally appropriated funds from blue states, it’s time to turn the tables on him. Soft secession, powered by the presidential ambitions of multiple blue-state governors, could, should it come to that, be the proving ground of a new confederacy. Hopefully the threat of CalExit or a new Union will be enough. But that extreme measures might be necessary to ensure that American democracy shall not perish from the Earth is becoming more self-evident with every passing day.</blockquote>
Amen.
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<title>END OF US DEMOCRACY</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/end-of-us-democracy/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[CAGLE CARTOONS]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2025 19:57:44 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Authoritarianism]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/end-of-us-democracy/">END OF US DEMOCRACY</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<title>Supreme Court opens with cases on voting rights, tariffs, gender identity and campaign finance to test the limits of a constitutional revolution</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/supreme-court-opens-with-cases-on-voting-rights-tariffs-gender-identity-and-campaign-finance-to-test-the-limits-of-a-constitutional-revolution/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest Voice]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2025 19:42:40 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[African-Americans]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[The U.S. Supreme Court building at dawn in Washington, D.C. Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images Morgan Marietta, University of Tennessee The most influential cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, which begins on Oct. 6, 2025, reflect the cultural and partisan clashes of American politics. The major cases in October and November address the<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/supreme-court-opens-with-cases-on-voting-rights-tariffs-gender-identity-and-campaign-finance-to-test-the-limits-of-a-constitutional-revolution/"> […]</a>
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<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692977/original/file-20250925-56-de4ohi.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2397&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" /><figcaption>
The U.S. Supreme Court building at dawn in Washington, D.C. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-u-s-supreme-court-building-royalty-free-image/1403235905?phrase=u.s.%20supreme%20court%20justices&searchscope=image,film&adppopup=true">Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images</a> 
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 <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/morgan-marietta-433887">Morgan Marietta</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-tennessee-688">University of Tennessee</a>
The most influential cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, which begins on Oct. 6, 2025, reflect the cultural and partisan clashes of American politics. 
The major cases in October and November address the role of race in elections, conversion therapy and the Trump tariffs. Later cases include campaign finance and transgender sports.
This year’s controversies focus on three dominant themes. One is the continuing constitutional revolution in how the justices read our basic law. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-seismic-change-has-taken-place-at-the-supreme-court-but-its-not-clear-if-the-shift-is-about-principle-or-party-190815">court has shifted</a> from a living reading of the Constitution, which says the Constitution should adapt to the American people’s evolving values and the needs of contemporary society, to an <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/white-papers/on-originalism-in-constitutional-interpretation">original reading</a>, which aims to enforce the constitutional principles understood by the Americans who ratified them.
Another clear theme is the deep cultural division among Americans. The core disputes at the court this year reflect controversial factual questions about gender and race: How pervasive and influential is racism in the current day? Are gender transitions a recognized fact, which means that they must be accepted in sports competitions, or can a state assert that trans athletes are not women?
A final theme is the struggle for partisan advantage embedded in several cases. 
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portion of the U.S. Constitution, torn into blue and red pieces." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692979/original/file-20250925-56-voj4yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
The justices’ constitutional interpretations could have major partisan significance. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/political-fear-and-crisis-royalty-free-image/2231487794?phrase=u.s.%20constitution&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">Douglas Rissing, iStock/Getty Images Plus</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Constitutional revolution</h2>
Until just a few years ago, the majority of justices would have agreed that the proper way to read the Constitution was as an <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution">evolving document</a>, an approach usually <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/white-papers/democratic-constitutionalism">described as living constitutionalism</a>.
The new majority reads the Constitution as an expression of enduring principles, which <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/white-papers/on-originalism-in-constitutional-interpretation">maintain their historical meaning</a> unless the American people collectively decide to amend the document, an approach known as originalism.
Since 2022, this revolutionary shift has led to dramatic changes in the law on <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-revolutionary-ruling-and-not-just-for-abortion-a-supreme-court-scholar-explains-the-impact-of-dobbs-185823">abortion</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/christianity-at-the-supreme-court-from-majority-power-to-minority-rights-119718">religion</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-sweeps-aside-new-yorks-limits-on-carrying-a-gun-raising-second-amendment-rights-to-new-heights-183486">guns</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-constitutional-revolution-is-underway-at-the-supreme-court-as-the-conservative-supermajority-rewrites-basic-understandings-of-the-roots-of-us-law-212944">affirmative action</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-supermajority-will-clarify-its-constitutional-revolution-this-year-deciding-cases-on-guns-and-regulations-212952">power of federal agencies</a> to regulate in areas such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-could-hamstring-federal-agencies-regulatory-power-in-a-high-profile-air-pollution-case-171475">environment</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-supreme-courts-block-of-vaccine-mandate-for-large-businesses-will-mean-for-public-health-4-questions-answered-174998">public health</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-constitutional-revolution-is-underway-at-the-supreme-court-as-the-conservative-supermajority-rewrites-basic-understandings-of-the-roots-of-us-law-212944">student debt</a>.
This year, the constitutional revolution – “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300231021/constitutional-revolution/">a historic constitutional course correction</a>” as legal scholars Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn and Yaniv Roznai put it – turns to transgender politics. 
<a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/little-v-hecox/">Little v. Hecox</a> and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/west-virginia-v-b-p-j-2-2/">West Virginia v. B.P.J.</a> ask whether a state can ban transgender athletes from participating in girls or women’s sports. The plaintiffs are middle school and university students who were banned by state laws from participating as a female competitor. They are asking the court to rule that transgender identity is a protected category similar to race and gender under the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv/clauses/702#the-equal-protection-clause">equal protection clause</a> of the 14th Amendment.

<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-originalism-did-it-underpin-the-supreme-courts-ruling-on-abortion-and-guns-debunking-the-myths-186440">Originalists argue</a> that the meaning of the 14th Amendment is clear and fixed. It establishes the equal status of racial minorities as holders of rights. But originalists do not believe the equal protection clause was meant to apply to sexual identities unless that is explicitly approved through a constitutional amendment by the American public.
Originalists also emphasize the role of <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/intro.7-3/ALDE_00000032/">federalism</a> as a core <a href="https://www.jackmillercenter.org/our-work/resources/tenth-amendment?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=18311871328">constitutional principle</a>. Federalism allocates a great deal of <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/education/classroom-resource-library/classroom/6.6-info-brief-federalism">authority to state legislatures</a> to make decisions when a question of rights is uncertain.
For these reasons the court majority is likely to see the regulation of who gets to participate in women’s sports as a state-by-state decision. 
<h2>Cultural divisions, disputed perceptions</h2>
The status of transgender identity also reflects the disputed perceptions of reality that have <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/one-nation-two-realities-9780190677176?cc=us&lang=en&">come to dominate American politics</a>. In essence, the Iowa and West Virginia sports cases ask the court to rule whether a transgender girl – a person assigned male at birth who has transitioned to align with their identity as a girl or woman, as the <a href="https://www.apstylebook.com/ap_stylebook/gender-and-sexuality">AP Stylebook</a> phrases it – is a girl or a boy.
The court is likely to leave such questions about what is factually true for <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-signals-shift-on-abortion-but-will-it-strike-down-roe-or-leave-it-to-states-to-decide-when-personhood-occurs-172934">state legislatures to determine</a>. 
The same need for the court to determine who can decide what is or is not a <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2016/09/academic-highlight-marietta-and-farley-on-the-courts-reliance-on-social-facts-to-decide-constitutional-cases/">legitimate fact</a> also applies to this year’s controversy over <a href="https://www.aacap.org/aacap/Policy_Statements/2018/Conversion_Therapy.aspx">conversion therapy</a>. Colorado bans the practice – condemned by many professional medical associations – in which counselors attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity.
<a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/chiles-v-salazar/">Chiles v. Salazar</a> challenges the Colorado law as a violation of the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and religious liberty. 
An original reading of the First Amendment provides strong support for open expression on controversial topics, <a href="https://www.aamc.org/news/spreading-medical-misinformation-physician-s-free-speech-right-it-s-complicated">even by medical professionals</a>. But on the factual question of whether homosexuality or gender identity in young people is indisputably innate or immutable, the court may defer to state legislatures to decide whether licensed professionals must assert only a specific set of accepted facts.
<h2>Partisan advantage</h2>
Many observers perceive a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-seismic-change-has-taken-place-at-the-supreme-court-but-its-not-clear-if-the-shift-is-about-principle-or-party-190815">partisan as well as principled divide</a> on the current court. Decisions in several cases this year potentially give a distinct advantage in future elections to Democrats or Republicans.
The most clear case may be about the regulation of campaign finance. <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/national-republican-senatorial-committee-v-federal-election-commission/">National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC</a> – a lawsuit begun in 2022 by then-U.S. Sen. JD Vance – asks the court to overturn a restriction that bars political parties from coordinating unlimited spending on campaign advertising with the official campaign. 
Many Democrats believe <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/30/supreme-court-nrsc-fec-coordination-limits-00432699">Republicans will be the larger beneficiaries</a> in the coming years if the court rules that the current limits violate the First Amendment.
Then there’s the challenge to the constitutionality of the Trump tariffs. 
<a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/learning-resources-inc-v-trump/">Learning Resources v. Trump</a> will determine whether the recent tariffs are authorized by Congress under the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45618">International Emergency Powers Act</a> of 1977. The answer hinges on the application of what’s known as the “<a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12077">major questions doctrine</a>,” which <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/the-supreme-court-tariffs-and-judicial-consistency/">limits presidential authority</a> over issues of great economic or policy importance in the absence of direct endorsement from Congress.
The major questions doctrine is an originalist concept, but in the court’s view it may not apply to actions in the foreign policy realm – including tariffs – where the president has greater discretion.
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A container ship loaded with hundres of containers, coming into a port." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/692982/original/file-20250925-56-2jffa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
Will the court strike down Trump’s tariffs on imported goods such as those on this ship in Oakland, Calif.? 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-an-aerial-view-a-container-ship-arrives-at-the-port-of-news-photo/2228077264?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Race and elections</h2>
The case that represents all three trends at the court is <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/louisiana-v-callais-2/">Louisiana v. Callais</a> on the creation of majority-Black congressional districts.
The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a> outlaws racial discrimination in voting. This landmark legislation from the civil rights era helped raise the rate of Black voter registration and turnout in Southern states from <a href="https://jointcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/VRA-report-3.5.15-1130-amupdated.pdf">less than half the white rate to exceeding it</a> over the past 60 years. 
The question in front of the court is whether the law requires a state to make sure that some congressional districts have a majority of Black voters. 
The argument opposing the intentional creation of racial districts is that the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment">equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment</a> demands the same treatment of all citizens regardless of race, banning any distinction even when designed to benefit minorities. 
Underlying the differences of opinion are competing perceptions of the prevalence and influence of racism in the current day. This dispute was clear in the court’s 2013 <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/shelby-county-v-holder/">Shelby County</a> decision, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-2013-us-supreme-court-ruling-enabled-states-to-enact-election-laws-without-federal-approval-193064">struck down</a> the part of the Voting Rights Act that limited Southern states from passing new elections laws without “pre-clearance” from the Department of Justice. That requirement aimed to ensure that new laws would not discriminate against Black voters, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
In striking down that requirement, <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep570/usrep570529/usrep570529.pdf#page=26">Chief Justice John Roberts ruled</a> that “no one can fairly say” that the South “shows anything approaching the ‘pervasive,’ ‘flagrant,’ ‘widespread,’ and ‘rampant’ discrimination that faced Congress in 1965.” 
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep570/usrep570529/usrep570529.pdf#page=62">responded</a> that removing the Voting Rights Act’s protections was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
The ultimate number of majority-Black districts in Louisiana is not only a question of constitutional principles applied to prevailing facts. It is also about partisan advantage. Partisans on both sides are well aware that a majority-Black district is also a Democratic district. 
So whether the state ends up with two or just one – or potentially even none – of its six congressional districts shaped by race could shift the future partisan balance in a closely divided Congress.
With partisan advantage, clashing perceptions of reality and revolutionary readings of the Constitution all in play, the rulings of the Supreme Court this year will reach far into American politics and culture.<img loading="lazy" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/265720/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/morgan-marietta-433887">Morgan Marietta</a>, Professor of American Civics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-tennessee-688">University of Tennessee</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-opens-with-cases-on-voting-rights-tariffs-gender-identity-and-campaign-finance-to-test-the-limits-of-a-constitutional-revolution-265720">original article</a>.
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<title>UN rights group demands compensation for enslavement and the transatlantic trade in Africans.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/un-rights-group-demands-compensation-for-enslavement-and-the-transatlantic-trade-in-africans/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Brij Khindaria, Foreign Affairs Columnist]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2025 04:48:42 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[Africans and people of African descent must receive restitution and compensation for the harms done in the past through enslavement, trade in enslaved persons, the transatlantic trade in Africans, colonialism, and other grave human rights violations. A new United Nations report said those violations left enduring legacies that continue to shape every aspect of their<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/un-rights-group-demands-compensation-for-enslavement-and-the-transatlantic-trade-in-africans/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/un-rights-group-demands-compensation-for-enslavement-and-the-transatlantic-trade-in-africans/">UN rights group demands compensation for enslavement and the transatlantic trade in Africans.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/dreamstime_s_5371270-e1759779916757.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="700" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-287493" />Africans and people of African descent must receive restitution and compensation for the harms done in the past through enslavement, trade in enslaved persons, the transatlantic trade in Africans, colonialism, and other grave human rights violations.
A new United Nations report said those violations left enduring legacies that continue to shape every aspect of their lives. It demanded formal UN recognition of reparations for enslavement and the transatlantic slave trade as an enshrined principle of international law.
“These injustices targeted Africans and continue to negatively impact their descendants as a people, so justice must be collective,” a UN human rights Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said.
“Reparatory justice for Africans and people of African descent must include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition, tailored to each historical and national context,” it demanded. 
Among concrete steps, it called on UN members to set up a new international body to support compensation claims, ensure accountability and provide closure for Africans and people of African descent. Governments should convene a high-level meeting at the UN to develop workable strategies for achieving this reparatory justice. 
The Group’s decisions were based on detailed analysis of the political, legal, sociocultural and economic dimensions of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and other related past injustices. It also suggested some pathways and options.
These demands run counter to President Donald Trump’s firm opposition to such ideas. Last February, he issued an executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in federal agencies, calling them illegal and discriminatory. 
US views on reparations for slavery are divided along racial lines, with strong support among Black Americans but significant opposition from White Americans. Objectors often cite the difficulty of calculating the harm, the time that has passed, and concerns about the fairness and divisiveness of such programs. 
The hurdles are extremely complex when reparatory justice must be adjudicated and compensation fixed on an international scale. It would involve dozens of poor nations that will look to the US and European nations to provide funds running into billions of dollars.
The UN group wants to bring closure to the descendants of millions of Africans and people of African descent. But that could also raise similar financial claims from people of other races on all continents, including Latin America and Australasia for compensation of lasting harms done to their ancestors by invading colonial settlers. 
The Working Group sets the stage for the UN’s Second International Decade for People of African Descent that runs from January 2025 to December 2034. It is aimed at implementing a Programme of Action for people of African descent that focuses on justice, equality and people’s development.
American support is unlikely. The U.S. walked out of a World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 and has since opposed or abstained from resolutions affirming the Durban Declaration saying that it singled out Israel, promoted anti-Semitic sentiments, and restricted freedom of expression. 
But Washinton has remained committed to fighting racism and has supported the work of the UN’s Permanent Forum on People of African Descent and the Second International Decade for People of African Descent. 

ID <a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-united-nations-flag-closeup-image5371270">5371270</a> © 
<a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/mtrommer_info">Matthew Trommer</a> | <a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/">Dreamstime.com</a>
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