Global

At this week’s GREEP Zoom we greet the extraordinary California Congressman RO KHANNA with a critical talk on green energy, Ukraine and the future of American democracy.

Introduced by ALAN MINSKY & MIKE HERSH, with crucial input on Ukraine from HOWIE HAWKINS & CHRIS SIMPSON, with major points from DOROTHY REIK & MARION EDEY, the Congressman helps us cover the field in a beleaguered democracy and the need to shut the Diablo Canyon nuclear power reactors.

Activists HANIEH JODAT & HARTZELL GREY give us the latest grassroots reports from Kansas City, Mo.

Our favorite Alabama Doctor RUTH STRAUSS and election expert RAY LUTZ plumb the depths of the 2026 election & the challenges we face to survive the era of Donald Trump.

Then Big-Time media legend DAVID SALTMAN asks and answers the critical questions about the new path taken by Stephen Colbert & the demise of the once-great CBS News.

With producer/engineer STEVE CARUSO we join Ohio energy activist MYRIA WILLIAMS to forge a new path to the sun through the wilderness of Ohio.

“In the 21st century, the United States has spent almost $8 trillion on foreign wars, with nearly 5 million lives lost.”

And we’re only a quarter of the way into the century. Are we aiming for 20 million dead civilians by 2100? Here’s a recent Truth Social post from the current president: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.”

There’s a moral insanity to these words, hiding behind a ho-hum collective shrug. People either brush it off as “just talk” or, even more ominously, nod their heads and smile in agreement. Yeah, he’s keeping us safe. War, the planet’s great, lethal abstraction, is necessary. It keeps us safe. It eliminates evil. Yada, yada. No matter it does none of those things – indeed, does just the opposite. Public acceptance of the inevitability and necessity of war has been expanding throughout my lifetime.

Historians have ranked Trump as the worst present ever. According to Factually,  “recent expert surveys commonly place Donald Trump and James Buchanan among the lowest-rated presidents… with Trump ranked last in several 2024 specialist polls (https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/worst-us-president-historians-ranking-6854f1). 

There is considerable evidence that documents the appropriateness of this ranking. Here are some examples.

#1 – A president of “lost opportunities.” E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes on Trump’s “lost opportunities” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/16/opinion/trump-lost-opportunities.html). Mr. Dionne is a contributing Opinion writer. He has done damage “to the rule of law, to the United States’ standing in the world, to the constraints on corruption and self-dealing we once took for granted.” 

He offers a general summary in two paragraphs of his detailed article.

Corruption, greed, and the strategic misuse of executive pardons have converged in a chilling display of unaccountability, exemplified by the recent, secretive dismissal of a $10 billion IRS lawsuit in favor of a $1.776 billion "Truth and Justice Commission" fund. This multi-billion dollar slush fund, drawn directly from the Treasury Department’s permanent Judgment Fund without congressional oversight, is managed by an executive-appointed committee that operates in total shadows, signaling a dangerous shift where public assets are repurposed to insulate political allies from the consequences of the January 6th insurrection. 

In a move that has drawn sharp condemnation from legal experts and lawmakers, President Donald Trump has filed to dismiss his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department. While the dismissal closes one legal chapter, it opens a far more troubling one: a reported $1.776 billion "President Donald J. Trump Commission" fund, finalized by his Department of Justice. 

Lebanese humanitarian worker Zahraa Kobeissi, who is in her late thirties, drives across the country every day to evacuate civilians and deliver aid—undeterred by the threat of Israeli airstrikes.

“I will continue to help the displaced people until my last breath,” she told the Press TV website, exuding confidence and determination even as the Israeli regime announced a full‑fledged ground offensive in the country.

Kobeissi’s journey began during the 2024 Battles, when she first started evacuating civilians under fire. She recalled that she was injured during one of her humanitarian missions, which has since become her full‑time volunteer work. Her days follow a relentless routine: each morning, she drives evacuees out of the war zone.

“On my return trips,” Zahraa said, “I bring groceries, diapers, milk, and supplies for those who choose to remain in the south. Then I rest briefly before repeating the cycle.”

Kobeissi said she has no fear. “I remain steadfast in the South. I sleep here every night after hours of driving to transport the displaced or deliver aid.”

The death penalty is not justice. It is the deliberate, calculated killing of a human being by a government that claims moral authority through law. Every execution is an assertion that the state possesses not only the power to govern life, but the authority to extinguish it. The consequences of granting governments that authority are visible around the world today.

According to Amnesty International, at least 2,707 people were executed across 17 countries in 2025 — the highest figure recorded in more than four decades. Executions rose by 78% in a single year. Iran alone carried out at least 2,159 executions, more than double its previous year’s total and roughly 80% of all recorded executions worldwide.

The global rise in executions was not driven by justice systems becoming more effective or societies becoming safer. It was driven largely by authoritarian governments using death as an instrument of fear, repression, and political control. No country illustrates this more clearly than Iran.

This article was originally published by Truthout.

Perhaps some things should never be spoken — for, when they are, they leave us aghast, in a state of horror. Think here of the ghostly figure in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” During the height of the war on Iran, Donald Trump threatened: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Those are words that elicit something frightening, terrifying. Let’s be frank. The words, which clearly constitute a genocidal threat, are atrocious and should make all of us want to scream.

That threat came after Trump also threatened the Iranian government to “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” Not only is this not “presidential,” but it’s characteristic of someone who has a warped moral compass; it is indicative of someone who has failed to understand the dignity and preciousness of human life.