Trump declares “major combat operations” underway against Iran

by Peoples Dispatch 

The strikes, launched jointly by the US and Israel, come amid ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the US, mediated by Oman. Iran has begun its “overwhelming” retaliatory action against Israeli targets.

The United States and Israel launched multiple airstrikes against the Iranian capital, Tehran, on the morning of Saturday, February 28. Initial reports indicate that several high-level locations were the targets of the first round of strikes, including the presidential palace and the residence of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

In a video released shortly following the strikes, Donald Trump declared: “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world.” Trump also warned that there may be US casualties.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed the strikes were launched to “preemptively remove threats to the state of Israel.” Meanwhile, a state of national emergency has been declared in Israel in preparation for Iranian retaliation.

The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition Recognized Fascism Didn’t Begin in Europe

By George Yancy

Black anti-fascists have long warned about creeping fascism, from slavery to mass incarceration to ICE terror.

Back in 2016, I was asked what I thought about Donald Trump. Even back then, I saw him as an aspiring fascist, and I responded:

Simply put. He is a conduit through which white America expresses its most vile desire for white purity. An apocalyptically dangerous white man who sees himself as the center of the world. That kind of hubris bespeaks realities of genocide.

The Cuban Revolution holds out against US imperialism

 By Vijay Prashad 

Indian scholar Vijay Prashad argues that the Cuban Revolution is now the frontline in the fight against US imperialism.

In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security, a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council (which permits sanctions under strict conditions) the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

Trump’s ultimatum to Cuba: fuel or surrender!

Trump’s latest executive order is an intensification of the six-decade US policy which seeks to suffocate and strangle Cuba’s economy to force regime change

February 02, 2026, by Manolo De Los Santos

Cuba stands on the precipice of a severe fuel shortage, a crisis with the potential to paralyze its economy and inflict greater and more profound suffering on its 11 million people. This is not an accident of geography or a failure of planning. It is a direct, calculated result of the United States government’s actions, most recently the fuel blockade announced by the Trump administration’s executive order that places tariffs on any country selling oil to Cuba. This follows another executive order by Trump in April 2019 that activated Title III of the Helms-Burton Act which began a policy of threatening third-country shippers and insurers with devastating secondary sanctions if they delivered any oil to Cuban ports.

Why take a second look at recidivism?

words by Charles Brooks

The fear of the formerly incarcerated posing a threat to communities and neighborhoods after their release from prison continues to not only drive policies and laws but the opposition to sentence reform as well.  

Despite volumes of evidenced based research of recidivism, the perception remains strong, enabling the capacity to build a political agenda that weaponizes trauma, fear, and emotional anxiety. 

Despite news headlines around the country of falling crime and recidivism rates, conservative outlets, such as the Manhattan Institute publishes this 2024 report, "Why “Rehabilitating” Repeat Criminal Offenders Often Fails", and wrote the following: “...After a hundred years of theorizing, testing, evaluating, and criticizing, social science has consistently demonstrated that serious criminal behavior remains stubbornly stable over time, situation, and place. Those who commit crimes today will be those who commit crimes tomorrow, and they will be the same people who commit crimes until they are incapacitated by age, infirmity, imprisonment, or death….”