Author: Carma Henry

Jason Fauntleroy, an African American man from Butler County, Ohio, is battling the city of Trenton to keep a street he unintentionally purchased at an auction for $5,000, as officials try to reclaim it through eminent domain.

  The American people must urgently realize that weaponizing misinformation is not just a threat but a pervasive danger that infiltrates every aspect of their lives. It impacts our social fabric, political decisions, economic stability, health choices, and climate. The status of those who spread misinformation only serves to amplify this threat, no matter how seemingly insignificant. The Oxford Dictionary defines misinformation as disseminating false information, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

       Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has decided to end its third-party fact-checking program in the U.S., claiming this change will promote free speech. Mark Zuckerberg stated this move is meant to reduce censorship and errors but calling it a “relaxation” of content moderation is misleading. This isn’t about loosening the reins—it’s about purposefully allowing harmful and hateful content to flourish under the guise of free expression.

       “Every nation’s history includes unsettling truths that many would prefer to forget or deny. But true patriotism demands confronting the truths of our history—no matter how embarrassing or dishonorable—and undertaking the difficult work of learning from the lessons of our past in order to move forward. For the United States, that work requires reckoning with our shameful legacy of racial subjugation of Black people in this country—from slavery and Jim Crow to mass incarceration and police violence—as well as our long history of express discrimination against other people of color, women, and LGBTQ persons.

       Well, Trump has been found liable in civil court for his past behavior and his misrepresentations about his acts with a woman, he has been indicted for election abuses in more than one state, he was once associated with refusing to rent housing to Black renters in New York, he has been sued by contractors but he managed to get away without jail time in every instance.

        Over the past three years, a collective of volunteer re-searchers, lawyers, and commentators created The Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, dedicated to holding accountable four weapon manufacturing corporations based in the U.S. Their tribunal amassed copious evidence to prove that Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), and General Atomics (a company which manufactures weaponized drones) are guilty of committing war crimes. On January 15, 2025, as the world marks the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, a press conference will announce the Tribunal’s verdicts and release the report of 10 international jurors who have weighed the evidence submitted to them.

       Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. remains one of the most powerful moral voices in American history, known for his unyielding commitments to justice, equality, and moral high ground. He is revered in large part for his leadership during the Civil Rights Movement, which transformed the nation by advancing civil rights, challenging systemic racism, and calling on Americans to live up to the highest ideals and promises of the founding fathers—”all men are created equal.” Today, America continues to grapple with division, inequality, and polarized politics. King’s vision is as relevant in 2025 as it was when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964.

       If Trump’s working-class voters believed that deporting 13.3 million people will somehow improve their economic lives, many will soon learn that mass deportation harms all working people, not only migrants, and will help exacerbate a growing, oppressive inequality. 

     If there was ever a single worst time in history to undermine climate science and America’s climate leadership, it is right now. So it is an outrage that incoming President Donald Trump’s picks for key administration posts signal his intent to do just that. And the clear pro-fossil fuel, anti-science agenda extends beyond Trump’s picks for the positions most obviously related to climate policy. We know that nominations like fossil fuel industry shill Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and oil executive Christ Wright as head of the Department of Energy spell disaster for the lives and livelihoods, and health and wealth, of countless communities and working families. But those are not the only foxes in the henhouse.

The Mature Cat