Nobel Prize committee sticks it to Trump by giving Peace Prize to human rights jurist

Trump seeks to abolish International Criminal Court where Prize winner had served 

Jon Queally

Committee honors person who sought to punish
war crimes, rather than a person who commits them

The international reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize, which has suffered in progressive and human rights circles over recent years, may be on the path to improvement after Friday’s announcement that this year’s award has been given to Navi Pillay, a person of “exceptional courage” who has been at the forefront of accountability efforts for apartheid, prosecuting war crimes, and upholding international law for decades.

In its statement, The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Pillay—who during her career served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, her native country, and later the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court (ICC)—“has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.”

Pillay also served for six years as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 2008 to 2014, and more recently chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which generated a 2025 report concluding that the Israeli government had committed genocide in Gaza.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Right after the Peace Prize news, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US is imposing new sanctions against the International Criminal Court, saying “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us...The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC.” According to Euronews "The European Union described US sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) as "deeply regrettable" and said it was "ready to take any necessary measures to enable the court to carry out its work'". - Will Collette

Why fuel prices may go higher still

Trump is out of options - except to end his illegal war

Joshua Busby, The University of Texas at Austin and Greg Pollock, Georgetown University

If you think your energy costs are high now, the situation may be about to get a whole lot worse.

With traffic in the Strait of Hormuz – normally the primary route for oil leaving the Middle East – hovering below 15% of prewar levels, oil prices have increased from US$65 a barrel before the conflict in Iran began in February 2026 to more than $100 a barrel in mid-September.

When the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran, analysts feared prices would soon reach $150 or even $200 a barrel. That hasn’t happened yet. But seven months into the conflict, with no clear end in sight, the global oil market has now largely exhausted the safety measures that exist to keep a lid on petroleum prices.

As researchers who study the relationship between energy and national security, we have been following these dynamics throughout the conflict, and the oil market is now showing signs that significant price hikes – and perhaps even shortages – may be on the way.

The squeeze tightens

Some oil has been able to make it out of the Persian Gulf despite the closure of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia increased output via its East-West pipeline, which runs from Abqaiq on the Persian Gulf overland to Yanbu on the coast of the Red Sea. At full capacity, that pipeline can carry as much as 7 million barrels per day, although only about 4 million to 5 million barrels per day are typically exported.

But attacks on the pipeline in mid-September that Saudi Arabia blames on Iran-backed militias based in Iraq forced the Saudis to temporarily halt oil shipments through that pipeline. The pipeline has now restarted operations at very low volumes, but it will likely take at least six to eight weeks to regain full capacity. Even this short cessation has tightened already constrained oil markets, and the threat of further Houthi attacks on Red Sea oil exports will only add to inflationary pressures.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged refineries, reducing Russian production of diesel fuel and prompting the country to ban exports of it. That has removed another 3% of the global daily supply of diesel, an important fuel for trucking and shipping. When diesel costs go up, the result is inflation in the cost of goods across the global economy.

Charlestown, RI Author Publishes Political Thriller

 Local activist Thom Cahir has a new book out

"9-11 Avenged," a new book by Thom Cahir, has been released by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc.

Sweeping across four continents, this high-stakes narrative plunges readers into a shadowy world where the lines between state-sanctioned justice and domestic extremism are dangerously blurred.

The world is reeling from a new wave of brutal extremist violence. 

In the Arizona high country, retired Army Colonel Martin Jeffers lives with a burning thirst for retribution. 

Having weaponized a radical domestic militia, Jeffers has spent years purging white supremacists from its ranks, reshaping it into a highly disciplined, covert army dedicated to national defense. 

He needs only one thing to launch his private war: actionable intelligence.

That intelligence surfaces when David Abramowitz, a deep-cover Israeli Mossad agent embedded inside al-Qaeda, intercepts an active terror plot. Al-Qaeda's operations chief is assembling a massive meeting in Saudi Arabia. 

The Five Stages

Trump’s “Board of Peace” Has No Funds for Gaza Reconstruction

Where are the billions that have been collected? The ballroom? The arch?

By Shireen Akram-Boshar

This article was originally published by Truthout

Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” fund has no money for the reconstruction of Gaza, despite raising billions of dollars since January. According to the Guardian, they are also planning to grant themselves sweeping immunity for any crimes or civil liability they may incur.

The Financial Times reported that “Zero dollars have been deposited” into the board’s financial fund — but that the body has received donations directly into its JP Morgan bank account, which allows it to override transparency regulations. 

At its inaugural meeting in February, member states pledged $7 billion for the Board of Peace’s relief and reconstruction package for Gaza, and Trump promised an additional $10 billion.

The Financial Times reported that earlier this year, Morocco contributed $3 million and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) $20 million to the board’s JP Morgan account, and that this funding has helped cover the position of Nickolay Mladenov, the “director-general” of the Board of Peace, as well as salaries for the Palestinian technocrats selected by the board to govern Gaza. The UAE also provided $100 million to train a new police force in Gaza — but the funds are frozen and the program has not started. 

In April, a U.S. official traveled to Saudi Arabia to ask its leaders to follow up on its $1 billion pledge to the board, as it had become concerned that funds were not materializing, according to Middle East Eye. Officials claimed that the U.S. has been relying on the Gulf region to fund the board. 

That'll teach him!

The Non-Victory

Compared to where we were before February 28, it's a terrible failure

Robert Reich

Trump again claims victory in Iran. He’s claimed victory before, but now he has a so-called “agreement” with Iran.

That agreement, which appears to be no more than a memo of understanding — that is, a set of principles to which Iran and the United States have agreed — stops the fighting and reopens the Strait of Hormuz but it does not deal with the issue that caused Trump to initiate the conflict: Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep that in mind as you hear various renditions of what’s been decided. Recall that the Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump began bombing Iran. 

At best, the agreement Trump is touting restores the status quo to where it was when he commenced hostilities. Remember also that Iran had agreed to limit its development of nuclear-grade materials in its treaty with the Obama administration, which Trump revoked in 2018.

So what has been accomplished? Iran now is under the control of a more extremist regime than when Trump started this war. 

Oil prices are far higher, and will take some time to return to where they were before it began (if they ever do). 

Meanwhile, Trump has caused the United States to be more dependent on fossil fuels than we were prior to his inauguration for a second time, and the high oil prices brought on by his war has enriched Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The war with Iran has cost the United States an estimated $90 billion, and that’s a conservative estimate. It has caused widespread suffering throughout the Middle East. 

It has put Israel in a more precarious situation than it was before — and much of that is due to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is not a party to, and has not approved, the agreement.

This doesn’t look like a victory. Compared to where the United States and the Middle East were on February 28, when Trump began this war, it’s a terrible failure.

Trump’s Epic Stupidity Could Kill Millions of People

Worldwide economic disruption could lead to famine and pestilence. We're going to need a bigger ballroom

Dean Baker in Beat the Press   

Trump is both an incredibly ignorant person and incredibly dishonest person. As a result, when he claims ignorance of an obvious fact it is difficult to tell whether he really is as ignorant as he claims or he’s just lying.

Such is the case with Trump’s claim that he didn’t know Iran might attack its neighbors and close the Strait of Hormuz in response to his joint attack with Israel. Trump insisted that none of the experts thought this possible when in effect just about every expert thought it was both possible and likely.

Given Trump’s ignorance and propensity to lie, it is not easy to know whether Trump actually went to war totally unaware of the most likely consequences, or instead went to war anyhow, deciding that he didn’t care about the damage it would cause. Whatever the real story, the consequences are enormous and sure to get worse as the Strait remains closed longer.

The most immediate and obvious consequence is the higher price for oil and natural gas. People in the United States see this at the gas station every time they fill their tank. Paying a dollar or so more for a gallon of gas is an annoyance for everyone. It is very bad news for low- and moderate-income households, especially those who need a car for work.

But this is just the beginning of the story. Diesel prices are up by close to $2.00 a gallon. Diesel fuel prices have risen by far more than regular gas because there is more limited refining capacity. This means when some refiners lose access to their supply of oil, their production cannot be easily replaced. Also, there is less ability for users to cut back their demand.

Trump regime data shows little evidence that the killing almost 200 people on the high seas has stopped drugs from reaching the US.

Murder at sea and for what?

Julia Conley

As Republicans and several Democrats in the US Senate gave the go-ahead for the US to send more bombs and military equipment to Israel for its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, the Trump administration was continuing what it claims is an effort to rid Latin American countries of drug traffickers—killing three people aboard a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the US military’s third boat bombing in three days.

The US Southern Command posted a video on social media of the bombing, which it said targeted a boat that was “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

As with the 50 previous attacks on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, the military did not publicize any evidence that the boat was carrying drugs or that its passengers were “narco-terrorists.”

A small number of the at least 177 victims of the Trump administration’s boat bombings have been identified. The Associated Press reported in November that Robert Sánchez, who was killed in the Caribbean, was a 42-year-old fisherman who made $100 per month and had started helping cocaine traffickers navigate the sea due to economic pressures. Juan Carlos Fuentes was an out-of-work bus driver who also worked as a “drug runner” to make ends meet.

The families of at least two victims have filed legal complaints over the killings of their family members, saying they were fishermen.

Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America has compared the boat bombings, assuming they have targeted people involved in the drug trade at all, to “straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”

Pope to Hegseth: God disapproves

Pope tells Trump administration that God does not want their holy war

Sabrina Haake

The First Amendment strictly prohibits the government from favoring one faith over another, or from endorsing religion in general, whether through subtle or not-so-subtle means. As it evolved from Constitutional text into the canons of caselaw, that framework has protected the plurality for over 250 years by heeding our founders’ warnings to keep church and state separate.

In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause for public school officials to sponsor or encourage prayer in school. State regulations in New York required public schools to open each day with both the Pledge of Allegiance and a nondenominational prayer in which the students recognized their dependence upon an un-named and unspecified God. Under that law, students could absent themselves from the prayer if they found it objectionable. A parent sued.

The Court found that the recitation of a state-composed, non-denominational prayer in public schools was a form of religious indoctrination, even if the prayer was not specific to one denomination, even if it was optional.

The rub then and now is that “optional” participation in a setting controlled by the government is never completely optional. The Jewish kid, the Muslim kid, the Buddhist kid, or the child taught to love God as nature instead of a vindictive creep in the sky has to set themselves apart from the other kids in order not to participate in the prayer. Even standing there silently while the popular kids mouth the prayer all around you can signal difference— defiance against the norm, even. Given stigma and peer pressure, the Court acknowledged that there are social ‘costs’ for not adhering to the group norm. That’s why reinforcing religion as a norm is a form of government indoctrination prohibited under the First Amendment.

Hegseth: First Amendment Who???

Despite the decades-long smacking clarity of the law, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News bobblehead who renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War without permission from Congress, can’t stop imposing his own religion on the military.

Hegseth holds a monthly Evangelical prayer service at the Pentagon. He announces and promotes his monthly worship coven, what some have called “combative Christianity,” through formal announcements to the troops, and by encouraging attendees to spread the word.

Similar to the school prayer case, these ‘voluntary’ services aren’t entirely voluntary even though Hegseth says they are. They are held in the official Pentagon auditorium, and are broadcast on the Pentagon’s internal TV network, a system designed for maximum saturation at military installations available to over 1.4 million active duty personnel, 1.2 million National Guard/Reserve, 650,000 civilian employees, and thousands of military residents.

Welcome to the USA

The REAL Reason Trump is Trapped in Iran

And why American consumers are up Shit's Creek

Robert Reich

On March 19, Trump said that he’d do whatever is necessary to ease the oil crisis. He also assured America that the crisis “will be over soon.”

Bullshit.

The problem isn’t just that Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. It’s also that Iran, Israel, and the United States have all inflicted — and continue to inflict — serious damage to the oil and gas infrastructure of the Middle East. This damage will take months if not years to repair.

At one point on Thursday oil prices jumped to $119 a barrel before falling back to around $111 a barrel — all but guaranteeing that the price of gas at the pump will continue to rise, as will the prices of many other products and services indirectly affected by oil prices.

What we are now witnessing is one of the grossest military and political blunders in modern history.

It’s not hard to understand why Trump is trapped in Iran. He doesn’t listen to anyone outside his small circle of sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear.

But there’s something else. Iran has adopted an asymmetric war strategy that’s working.

I’m indebted to Marty Manley for uncovering a fascinating historical fact that sheds light on what Iran is doing. 

During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd came up with a theory of competitive decision-making that shaped American military doctrine for a generation. He called it the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

Boyd found that victory doesn’t go to the side with more firepower. It goes to the side that cycles through the OODA loop faster — observing what’s changing, orienting to its meaning, deciding what to do, and acting before its adversary does.

Get inside your opponent’s loop, Boyd reasoned, and you don’t just outpace him. You break his ability to form a coherent picture of the war he’s fighting.

Manley observes that Iran has adopted Boyd’s approach. Iran hasn’t needed to match American firepower; it’s needed only to generate economic and political problems for Washington that outrun Washington’s ability to orient, decide, and act.

Iran has gotten inside Trump’s OODA loop because Iran has responded to U.S. airstrikes by widening the war horizontally — attacking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, launching drones and missiles at Gulf state oil and gas infrastructure, provoking the U.S. and Israel to destroy even more of that infrastructure, hitting Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (causing regional outages for banking, e-commerce, and cloud services), and squeezing other choke points that the global economy depends on.

Iran’s leaders — veterans of asymmetric wars in Iraq and Syria — are applying the same asymmetric logic to Trump’s war. Inexpensive drones, short-range missiles, and sea mines can have the same effect that IEDs had in Iraq — only with far greater strategic impact, because they disrupt global supply chains.

What has Washington done? Dropped more bombs and launched more missiles.

Pope Leo to Iran War Architects: ‘Cease Fire’

Trump is as likely to listen to Pope Leo than he did Pope Francis

Olivia Rosane for Common Dreams

This is an actual Trump post from May 2025

Pope Leo XIV called for a ceasefire in the Middle East on Sunday, in his most direct appeal for peace since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on February 28.

While the pope did not mention either US President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, he directly addressed those driving hostilities.

“On behalf of the Christians of the Middle East and all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict,” Leo said, according to The Associated Press. 

“Cease fire so that avenues for dialogue may be reopened. Violence can never lead to the justice, stability, and peace that the people are waiting for.”

The remarks came following his recital of the Angelus Prayer from the Vatican at 12:00 pm local time.

“Some claim to involve the name of God in these deadly decisions, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness.”

Trump's latest money scheme

Prices at the pump are already way up.

How Will the War in Iran Affect Your Utility Bills?

By Kiley Bense

Trump's planned ballroom seems to be holding
Trump's attention more than the war he started
with Iran

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off a global energy crisis in 2022, sending prices for oil and gas skyrocketing in Europe and the U.S. for months on end. Many Americans struggled to keep up with their bills, and disconnections—when utility companies shut off power or heat because of nonpayment—spiked. 

Now, energy experts fear the Trump administration’s decision to attack Iran could trigger a similar sequence of events. Qatar has shut down production at the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facility. Liquefying natural gas allows it to be stored and moved over longer distances than pipelines can accommodate. Shipments through a critical trade route, the Strait of Hormuz, have been cut off. Fifteen percent of the global oil supply and 20 percent of global LNG normally pass through this waterway.

In response, oil, gasoline and diesel prices are up, and natural gas prices in Europe are surging. The conflict is “wreaking havoc with global gas and LNG markets, even more so than oil,” according to analysts at Wood Mackenzie, the global energy and natural resources consulting firm. Asian markets “are the most exposed,” but “Europe is also in panic mode,” the analysts said.

The world hasn’t yet seen disruption on the scale of what happened at the start of Russia’s years-long attack on Ukraine, but that’s where we could be headed. 

“If this continues for a full week, that’s the kind of trajectory that we might be on,” said Clark Williams-Derry, energy finance analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The longer this conflict lasts, the more likely we are to see higher prices that people are paying for natural gas.”

The Ukraine war, he warned, led to “a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary households, people who are paying utility bills, to the people who are providing them with fossil fuels.”

The immediate fallout from the war with Iran illustrates the problems with ramping up U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas without any policy guardrails, he said. The more LNG that America exports, the more domestic natural gas prices are tied to swings in the global market. “It’s U.S. consumers who are bidding against global consumers for the same gas,” he said.

Maybe he couldn't pay Trump's billion dollars membership fee

 I'm liking this guy almost as much as Francis

Trump's "Peace" Board is set to line his pockets

First get rid of the Palestinians, then let Jared Kusner build a giant Trump resort

Meanwhile, pay Trump a billion dollars!

Sabrina Haake

Trump Tower. Trump Steaks. Trump University. Trump Watches. Trump cologne, candles, coins, robes, ornaments, towels, pens, gerbils, and gold-tipped suppositories. It’s hard to think of anything Trump hasn’t tried to monetize.

And now, from his premier fantasy collection, there’s Trump UN.

Last September, while Trump was busy solving eight wars that leaders of those countries say never started, never ended, or had nothing to do with him, Trump hatched a plan to line his own pockets with the misery in Gaza. He came up with a Gaza Board of Peace vested with magical powers to maintain order while steering private investments to his friends and family.

Trump’s Billion-dollar racket

From a plan being circulated within the White House

For a mere billion dollar membership fee, you can join Trump’s Orwellian-themed Peace Board and dine with the world’s most brutal dictators.

Trump, who invested his dad’s money in Middle East real estate two decades ago, claimed last year that the U.S. would “run” Gaza, that he saw “long term ownership” possibilities there. His “Riviera of the Middle East” proposal with son in law Jared Kushner floated luxury tourism and an economic hub, describing Gaza as having a “phenomenal location, on the sea, the best weather” with “unbelievable” potential.

The only hitch? Someone would first need to relocate more than two million desperately poor Palestinians who have nowhere else to go.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no fan of international law or Palestinians, loved the concept. Arab leaders, not so much. Palestinians, leaders of surrounding Arab nations, and international organizations saw Trumps ‘Riviera’ as ethnic cleansing, ripe for war crimes under international law.

Israel bans Doctors Without Borders from Gaza because of refusal to provide staff list

Renowned medical aid agency explains why

MSF statement on sharing staff information and humanitarian operations in Palestine

Following many months of unsuccessful engagement with Israeli authorities, and in the absence of securing assurances to ensure the safety of our staff or the independent management of our operations, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has concluded that it will not share a list of its Palestinian and international staff with Israeli authorities in the current circumstances.

In March 2025, Israeli authorities announced that organizations seeking registration would be required to provide personal information about their staff. From the outset, MSF raised serious concerns about this request in a context where medical and humanitarian workers have been intimidated, arbitrarily detained, and attacked. Since October 2023, 1,700 health staff have been killed, as well as 15 MSF colleagues. On 30 December, Israeli authorities announced that MSF's previous registration had lapsed and was therefore expected to cease operations within 60 days.

In an effort to explore every possible option – however limited – to continue providing critical medical care, MSF informed Israeli authorities on 23 January that, as an exceptional measure, MSF would be prepared to share a defined list of Palestinian and international staff names, subject to clear parameters, with our staff safety at its core. This position was defined following consultation with our Palestinian colleagues and with the clear understanding no staff information would be shared without the express agreement of individuals concerned. 

However, despite repeated efforts, it became evident in recent days that we were unable to build engagement with Israeli authorities on the concrete assurances required. 

Another stupid Donald post

Wrong bird, wrong country, wrong year

See suppressed, Oscar-winning documentary, December 13

 

Reserve your spot HERE. “No Other Land,” an audacious and devastating film, was also 2024’s most decorated documentary.  Its subject — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — couldn’t be more consequential, and its approach, which includes a directorial team of two Israelis and two Palestinians, feels genuinely daring and bold.  “No Other Land "was unable to find a distributor in the United States, and producers eventually opted to self-distribute. In the very recent past, such a movie would often find a home with a major streamer, like Max or Netflix.  This is your chance to see it.