TV News LIES

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. changed America for the better by helping our nation make progress toward achieving his dream of ending racism and ensuring equality for all. But as we honor King with a national holiday, President Trump is doing all he can to reverse the great civil rights leader’s historic accomplishments. 

Unfortunately, King’s dream, which he eloquently expressed in his speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, has yet to come true. Systemic racism has been diminished but still exists. Black Americans are suffering unjustly as a result.

For example, according to federal statistics, about 20 percent of Black households lived in poverty in 2024, compared with about 9 percent of white households. The median Black household annual income was about $56,000 in 2024, compared with about $88,000 for white households. The Black unemployment rate in November was 8.3 percent, compared with 3.9 percent for whites.

Yet instead of trying to narrow the gaps separating Black and white Americans, as King advocated, Trump is focused on eliminating supposed discrimination against white people — especially white men.

Trump issued three executive orders at the start of his second term declaring diversity, equity and inclusion programs to be “illegal and immoral discrimination.” This ended such programs in the federal government and successfully pressured many businesses, nonprofits and colleges to scale them back or end them.

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The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit over the Trump administration’s immigration operation in Minneapolis describes a mass “racial profiling campaign” resulting in “an unprecedented level of violence” against Minnesotans of color.

“People targeted by ICE have been handcuffed, tackled, and beaten by federal agents. Agents have broken car windows, dragged people from their cars, and used pepper spray and tear gas against compliant, non-violent people,” the lawsuit reads.

The three plaintiffs in the case, who are all US citizens, are Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a 20-year-old Somali man who grew up in the United States after his family came to the country as refugees, Mahamed Eydarus, a 25-year-old Somali-American and Javier Doe, a 22-year-old Hispanic man.

On December 10, 2025, Hussen encountered immigration agents while on his lunch break. The lawsuit describes agents pushing him into a restaurant, dragging him outside, placing him in a headlock, and then driving him to an ICE field office where he was denied medical assistance and water – despite Hussen’s repeated statements that he was a US citizen.driving him to an ICE field office where he was denied medical assistance and water – despite Hussen’s repeated statements that he was a US citizen.

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Several faculty groups have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain information about Jewish professors, staff and students at the University of Pennsylvania – including personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses – as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is demanding the university turn over names and personal information about Jewish members of the Penn community as part of the administration’s stated goal to combat antisemitism on campuses. But some Jewish faculty and staff have condemned the government’s demand as “a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history”, according to a press release put out by the groups’ lawyers.

The EEOC sued Penn in November over the university’s refusal to fully comply with its demands. On Tuesday, the American Association of University Professors’ national and Penn chapters, the university’s Jewish Law Students Association and its Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, and the American Academy of Jewish Research filed a motion in federal court to intervene in the case.

“These requests would require Penn to create and turn over a centralized registry of Jewish students, faculty, and staff – a profoundly invasive and dangerous demand that intrudes deeply into the freedoms of association, religion, speech, and privacy enshrined in the First Amendment,” the groups argued.

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A federal judge late Sunday ordered the Trump administration to restore nearly $12 million in grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), after the organization’s funding was abruptly cut last month. 

Judgeof  the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction that will restore the grants and block the cuts from taking effect while the case proceeds.

Howell concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services had a likely “retaliatory motive” for the terminations, due to the AAP’s outspoken opposition to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

“This is not a case about whether AAP or HHS is right or even has the better position on vaccinations and gender-affirming care for children, or any other public health policy,” Howell wrote. “This is a case about whether the federal government has exercised power in a manner designed to chill public health policy debate by retaliating against a leading and generally trusted pediatrician member professional organization focused on improving the health of children.”

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The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges on Monday, two days after his capture by US special forces in an operation ordered by Donald Trump that sent shockwaves around the world.

The brevity and formality of the arraignment hearing in federal court in Manhattan – barely 30 minutes during which Maduro was asked to confirm his name and that he understood the four charges against him – belied the far-reaching consequences of the US action.

As Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores addressed the court in lower Manhattan, the UN security council held an emergency meeting just a few miles to the north, where a dozen countries condemned the US “crime of aggression” and secretary general António Guterres suggested the operation constituted a breach of international law.

Maduro, 63, insisted to federal judge Alvin Hellerstein that he was “still president of my country”, had been illegally “captured” at his Caracas home, and was “a prisoner of war”.

“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man,” Maduro said in Spanish during repeated attempts to speak over the judge.

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It’s not quite a new year resolution, and it’s certainly not a prediction. Think of it instead as a hope or even a plea for the next 12 months. May the coming year see those leaders who have done so much damage to their own countries, and far beyond, at last be called to account. Let 2026 be a year of reckoning.

Start with the man whose reach is longest, by dint of the mighty power he wields. Such is the nature of the US electoral system that Donald Trump, who returned to power less than a year ago, will face the judgment of voters in 10 months’ time. His name will not be on the ballot but, make no mistake, the midterm elections of 3 November will deliver a verdict on the second Trump presidency.

A slew of congressional defeats for his party would be satisfying in itself, wounding that gargantuan ego of his, but it would also have practical significance. Few predict the Republicans losing control of the Senate, where Democrats would have to flip at least four seats to take charge – near-impossible given the geography of the 35 seats up for grabs in November. But, in normal circumstances, it should be the safest of political bets that the House of Representatives will no longer be in Republican hands a year from now.

Such a reverse would dispel the aura of indomitability that has enveloped Trump since he beat Kamala Harris, allowing him to bully and intimidate multiple US institutions, including much of its media, into ceding to him far more power than is rightfully his. It would render him a lame duck, incapable of passing new laws through a hostile chamber.

Above all, it would see Trump confronted at last with a body both eager and able to hold him to account: a Democratic House would have the appetite and the muscle for serious scrutiny. Armed with subpoena power, it could investigate everything from the cost of Trump’s tariffs for US taxpayers to the astonishingly brazen pattern of corruption and pocket-lining that has characterised this administration. And up its sleeve would be the constant threat of a third impeachment trial.

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