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Nov 19, 2025 - World

Exclusive: Images are first indication that Israel has used cluster munitions in nearly 20 yearsIsrael used widely banned cluster munitions in its recent 13-month war in Lebanon, photos of munition remnants in south Lebanon seen by the Guardian suggest.The images, which have been examined by six different arms experts, appear to show the remnants of two different types of Israeli cluster munitions found in three different locations: south of the Litani River in the forested valleys of Wadi Zibqin, Wadi Barghouz and Wadi Deir Siryan. Continue reading...

Nov 19, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump surrendering American security for the sake of cozying up to Saudi Arabia should have even MAGA questioning their life choices, Axios CEO Jim Vandehei told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Wednesday's "Morning Joe.""If you're in MAGA and you're America First, what the hell are you thinking today?" said Vandehei. "You're watching the fact that you have the White House and Congress. The only thing that they've done in the last two months is vote to release the Epstein files over the objection of the president, who doesn't didn't want any of the files to be released in the first place. Nothing else. Then you put next to that the fact that you have a quasi-state dinner with the Saudis.""Now, remember, like, it was the Saudis who were on the airplane that crashed into our Towers, killing 3000 Americans. That's just a fact," said Vandehei. "And it's also a fact that the journalist that he was deriding when he was talking to the press yesterday was sawed into pieces. And the CIA, under Trump, had a report that linked it pretty directly to at least the crown prince being aware of it. And you have him talking to the Saudis about getting deals from us, where we're going to let them have our F-35s on their soil. We're going to give them access to our AI technology" — even as the Saudis say they could pass that tech along to China."It's understandable there's a burgeoning revolt among MAGA activists, Vandehei continued, because "this isn't what we paid for, this isn't what we voted for. This isn't what we asked for in your competence.""If you're a republican, you got to boil at some point because you've got Nirvana. You've got as much power as I've ever seen, vested in one party at one time in one city," said Vandehei. "And yet, if you look at the number of laws actually being signed, the things that will outlast the short term deals, very few of them. And then you look at the polling and you look at that working class white voter who put you into office and they're frustrated ... every issue that they care about, including things being really expensive and them being very worried about whether they're going to get a job or their kid's going to get out of college and enter the job market that we've seen in 5 or 10 years, not even really discussed.""And it does come down to competence," he added. "If you have the right people doing the right work at the right time, you get really good results. That's like the trick of leading anything, running a company, running a government." - YouTube youtu.be

Nov 19, 2025 - World

The GOP could face a difficult midterm period, according to a Republican strategist who says some will be "whistling by the graveyard".Victory is not guaranteed for the Republican candidates in next year's voting, an anonymous strategist claimed, suggesting that Donald Trump would be crucial to the GOP's campaign efforts. Speaking to Politico, the unnamed analyst said there will be trouble for some GOP members in inspiring voters to turn up in the 2026 elections, even if their support for Trump is unwavering. They said, "Any Republican not preparing for a turnout challenge in 2026 is whistling by the graveyard. If Trump is on the ballot, Republican turnout is strong. And if he’s not, it craters. It collapses. There’s an entire group of people who are Trump voters, but Trump alone. There seems to be no way to get them to the ballot."It is believed the president will be more involved in the midterms than first expected. Trump's top political director, James Blair, confirmed the president would have a hands-on approach to next year's voting. Blair also backed the GOP to perform fairly well, so long as it can fix an "overcomeable problem". He said, "With a lot of campaigning next year, with a lot of resources in the right districts for the right candidates. The president will campaign a lot to get people out." Blair added that "candidates still have to connect with these voters, too," and cannot just ride on the president's name alone. Some believe the president's influence is still strong in those deciding votes. Tom Eddy, the Republican chair in Erie County, Pennsylvania, is the "ace in the hole". Headway in the midterms was attempted earlier this week by the GOP, but Judge Jeffrey V. Brown of the District Court for the Southern District of Texas prevented Republican-drawn maps for the midterms. Judge Brown ruled that the Republican maps drawn by the Texas state legislature were illegal and prohibited them from being used in the next election. The ruling prevents Republicans from eliminating five Democratic-held seats. Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer for Slate, described Brown's 160-page decision as an "extraordinary rebuke" in a new analysis of the case."Remarkably, Brown found that it was Trump’s own Department of Justice that had injected race into the plot as part of its 'hamfisted' effort to cook up a pretext for new maps," Stern wrote. "And he laid out a gobsmacking amount of smoking-gun evidence that all points in the direction of unlawful racism."

Nov 18, 2025 - World

This live blog is now closed.Trump shrugs off Khashoggi murder during Saudi prince’s White House visitA reminder that Donald Trump’s family has a strong personal interest in Saudi Arabia. In September, London real estate developer Dar Global announced that it plans to launch Trump Plaza in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.It’s Dar Global’s second collaboration with the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by the US president’s children, in the kingdom. Last year, the two companies announced the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah. Continue reading...

Nov 18, 2025 - World

Donald Trump will debase the White House today like never before.Far worse than bulldozing its East Wing, Trump will use the People’s House as the grotesque backdrop for reducing to rubble any pretense of American moral leadership in the world. He will prostrate himself — and our nation — at the feet of one of its most malign actors.All for the money.The killer’s name is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The world came to know him as MBS when he first gained widespread notoriety for ordering the brutal murder in 2018 of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and legal permanent resident in the U.S.Little more than seven years after Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — his dismembered body never to be found — MBS will be fêted today at the White House. Trump will be there to greet him as a dignitary — ready with smiles, handshakes, photo ops, and promises of billions in deals (presumably not limited to his family in this case).Trump has spent seven years evading the truth, but the intelligence record is unambiguous. On Oct. 2, 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for his marriage. He never walked out. Turkish authorities and U.S. intelligence confirmed the gruesome details: he was bound, injected with a fatal sedative, then dismembered, his body chemically dissolved. This was not some “rogue operation.” The CIA examined audio recordings from inside the consulate, intercepted calls, and text messages. MBS sent at least 11 texts to his top adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, who oversaw the 15-man hit squad sent to Istanbul. A member of the hit team called a senior aide to MBS from inside the consulate immediately after the murder to report the job was done.The CIA’s assessment wasn’t vague. Officials called it “blindingly obvious” that MBS gave the order. A killing this organized, this brazen, couldn’t have happened without his approval.And what did Trump do with this intelligence? He didn’t just ignore it — he rejected it outright. He issued a disgraceful, exclamation-point-laden statement dismissing his own CIA’s findings, claiming they only had “feelings” with “no smoking gun” — a deliberate, contemptible lie designed to protect a killer.Trump framed his surrender as “America First” by prioritizing arms sales and oil over the murder of a journalist who lived here. In a moment that never truly engendered the scorn it deserved, he wondered aloud whether people really wanted him to give up “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”That’s what it always comes down to: Money. Arms. Oil. Trump declared that abandoning Saudi Arabia would be a “terrible mistake,” ensuring “we’re with Saudi Arabia and staying with Saudi Arabia” — to hell with justice, truth, and American values.The rest of the world hasn’t forgotten. When the Biden administration released the declassified intelligence report in 2021, it confirmed what everyone already knew: MBS viewed Khashoggi as a threat and supported using violent means to silence him.MBS hasn’t changed. Saudi Arabia is executing prisoners at a record rate and maintaining an unprecedented human rights crackdown. Dozens of activists and writers languish in Saudi prisons for speaking freely.This is not just a crackdown on adults. Human rights groups have documented that Saudi authorities are reneging on their promise to halt the death penalty for juveniles, executing individuals for crimes allegedly committed when they were children, in addition to the hundreds executed for non-lethal, drug-related offenses.But today, Trump rolls out the red carpet — literally. There will be a South Lawn arrival ceremony, an Oval Office meeting, a Cabinet Room signing ceremony, and an East Room dinner hosted by Melania Trump. They’ll sign deals on AI, defense, and semiconductors potentially worth $142 billion. There will be smiling photo ops and glowing praise.What there won’t be is accountability. What there won’t be is justice for Jamal Khashoggi. What there won’t be is any acknowledgment that the man being honored in the White House ordered a journalist lured to his death and dismembered with a bone saw.Seven years later, Trump is doubling down on that betrayal. It would be interesting to see if any of Khashoggi’s erstwhile colleagues in the press dare mention his name today.It appears that the media has moved on. Congress has moved on. But Jamal Khashoggi is still dead, his body never found and his murderer is being celebrated as an honored guest.For Donald Trump, everything has a price.And as long as he’s our president, so does America’s soul.Ray Hartmann writes on Substack at Ray Hartmann's Soapbox