In recent months, attacks on Kyiv have become more frequent. Since the full-scale invasion by Russian forces in 2022, many people have come to this city seeking safety — now, even here, they are at risk.

Shattered glass and a broken window form part of the damage at a maternity hospital following shelling and strikes on Kyiv, Ukraine, July 2025. (Photo: MSF)

“MSF in Ukraine is witnessing the devastating, continuous impact of intensified airstrikes on cities and residential areas across the country,” says Ainur Absemetova, MSF’s Head of Mission. “These attacks not only destroy homes and essential infrastructure like schools, hospitals, power and water systems — they also undermine people’s sense of safety and dignity, leaving them in a constant state of fear and uncertainty.”

Kyiv is also home to major hospitals that provide specialised care. Patients with serious or complex medical needs are often transferred here from other parts of the country. Attacks on the city put both this care and the people who depend on it in danger.

“This ongoing terror intensifies existing trauma, deepens insecurity and anxiety, and increases the urgent need for emergency medical and psychological support,” says Absemetova.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Today’s vote follows the New Zealand government’s June exit from the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an international coalition working together for a managed phaseout of oil and gas production

David Tong, Global Industry Campaign Manager at Oil Change International said:

“Just days ago, the highest court in the world affirmed that every country has a legal duty to act in line with the 1.5ºC survival limit - a threshold that demands, at minimum, an immediate end to new oil, gas, and coal expansion. Yet today, the New Zealand government has raced in the opposite direction, recklessly overturning the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, after conducting an underhanded process that blocked public participation.

“The current retrograde government has once again exposed its loyalty to fossil fuel companies, but the reality is that no matter how deep Minister Shane Jones tries to dig, the oil and gas industry has no future in New Zealand.

“Next year’s election must deliver a government that not only restores the ban, but goes further to end all new fossil fuel extraction, onshore and offshore, once and for all.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Steve Knievel, Public Citizen Access to Medicines advocate, issued the following statement in response to the announcement:

“Actions speak louder than words, and despite President Trump’s crocodile tears about high drug prices, so far he has signed one multi-billion dollar giveaway to drug corporations and called on Congress to give them $10 billion more out of the pockets of seniors and people with disabilities by undermining Medicare drug price negotiations.

“Instead of letters we need legislation. If President Trump was serious about lowering drug prices for Americans, instead of promising to help drug corporations profiteer in other countries, he would work with Congress to pass legislation to lower prices here so Big Pharma can no longer charge U.S. patients and taxpayers the highest prices in the world.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian:

“Not long ago, just a few senators voting to limit arms to Israel felt like a moral victory. Today, 27 votes against sending more weapons, more than half of the Senate Democratic caucus, marks a political turning point. The days when politicians could turn a blind eye to the horror in Gaza and continue to hand the Israeli government a blank check is coming to an end. American weapons have enabled Israel’s brutal assault on the starving and besieged civilians in Gaza. The American people have long understood this. Now, the Senate is finally beginning to catch up. This fight is far from over, but the tide is clearly turning. History will remember who used their power to confront injustice, and who enabled it. We will not stop holding them accountable.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Hunger and malnutrition are taking hold of innocent people caught up in vicious conflict. Unaccompanied children are arriving alone in East Darfur, starving, and deeply traumatized,” said Abdirahman Ali, CARE Sudan’s Country Director. “Conflict, access challenges, and now severe funding cuts are worsening the catastrophe. Response services are collapsing, and the Nutrition sector, responsible for coordinating lifesaving efforts across Sudan, remains chronically underfunded. This means that the children who need help the most are receiving almost nothing. If the world continues to look away, more and more lives will slip away.”

Currently, the nutrition sector response is only 12% funded. Over 637,000 people are experiencing catastrophic, life-threatening hunger, which is the worst level possible on the global scale for measuring hunger crises.

The sharp drop in international funding has only worsened the crisis. Major cuts have forced agencies and local organizations to reduce or suspend operations in many areas. This has meant less food, fewer therapeutic nutrition programs for the severely malnourished, and no safety net for the increasing number of displaced children arriving daily. In East Darfur, the number of severely malnourished children has soared. These children, already weak from hunger and mental turmoil, struggle to fight off deadly diseases like cholera, which is spreading across the country.

Fatima*, a 45-year-old mother of five, fled the conflict in Nyala, South Darfur, and sought refuge in Alnaeem IDP camp in East Darfur. “After the long, painful journey, the community kitchen gave us comfort, as now my children were finally able to get a meal,” she said. But when the kitchen shut down due to funding cuts, everything changed. Families began skipping meals, eating late, and watching their children grow weak and sick. We started suffering again,” she added.

CARE Sudan, alongside local partner Emergency Response Rooms, is responding through three community kitchens run by community volunteers in Alnaeem camp, which shelters displaced people and families. These kitchens are a vital lifeline, serving hot meals to 18,000 people, mostly women and children. At the same time, families receive a food basket that contains sugar, lentils, oil, flour, and salt, which should be enough for one month. But without adequate and consistent funding, even these services are at risk of ceasing, just like many others that already have.

“We are calling on donors and governments to honor pledges and increase much-needed funding to the Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan,” Ali said. “These children are our collective responsibility. Every day that passes without food, clean water, and much-needed nutritional supplements brings them closer to death. We need immediate and sustained investment in nutrition and food to protect and save these lives today and in the difficult weeks ahead.”

CARE Sudan urges immediate restoration and increased support for the nutrition response. The children displaced by conflict in Sudan did not choose war, hunger, or fear.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

At least eight gray whales have been killed by probable ship strikes in the Bay Area so far in 2025.

“It’s been a terrible year for whales off the West Coast, and we can’t afford to let federal officials waste any more time delaying action on ship strikes,” said David Derrick, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “A decent plan for routing and slowing ships down is long overdue, and this federal foot-dragging has been deadly for whales. The law is clear that the agencies must go back to the drawing board and come back with something that will actually protect whales and sea turtles.”

Ship strikes are a leading cause of death for gray, blue, fin and humpback whales off California’s coast. Scientists also say the actual number of ship strikes could be 20 times higher than what’s observed, since most dead whales sink. One study estimated that about 80 whales are killed by ship strikes off the West Coast each year.

“This is not the first time we have gone toe-to-toe with the federal government for failing to assess the grave risks that shipping poses for marine life,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth. “Now, even with a federal court opinion on our side, agencies have not changed their tune. And neither have we: we will keep fighting inside and outside the courtroom to protect whales and sea turtles from the serious and fatal risks from ship strikes.”

In December 2022 a federal court ruled in favor of the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth in their lawsuit challenging the failure of the Fisheries Service and the Coast Guard. The suit asserted that the agencies did not protect endangered whales from being struck by ships using ports in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco Bay regions.

The existing designated shipping lanes route shipping traffic through several “hot spots” where whales congregate, including the Santa Barbara Channel and the northern approach to the San Francisco Bay. But the Fisheries Service concluded in a 2017 biological opinion that the designations would cause no “take” of any whales or sea turtles. The 2022 court ruling rejected those conclusions, finding that its determination “defies logic,” and that it is “undisputed” that whales are struck and killed by ship strikes within the lanes.

The ruling invalidated the agencies’ consultation, called a biological opinion, which had evaluated the routes’ harm to protected species. Since that ruling, the agencies have not taken steps to complete a new biological opinion, nor have they considered measures proven to reduce ship strikes.

A dead juvenile blue whale washed ashore on a Point Reyes National Seashore beach after being struck by a ship in June 2018. (Photo: Sarah Codde/ NPS)

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“In a bold move that clearly must be unrelated to Donald Trump’s sprawling crypto grifting, the White House is releasing a report that celebrates what is widely understood as the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.

“Trump is well known for scrupulously honoring anti-discrimination laws, his contracts, his debts, his marriages, and the Constitution, so we can rest assured that his most lucrative source of income ever, namely crypto, had no influence whatsoever on this report.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

They will be joining Hibakusha – atomic bomb survivors – dignitaries, parliamentarians and international delegates from across the world, participating in anniversary ceremonies in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as part of a World Conference united in its call for an end to nuclear weapons.

In August 1945, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Out of a population of 350,000, it’s estimated that total deaths in Hiroshima range from 100,000 to 180,000. Casualties from Nagasaki are thought to be between 50,000 and 100,000. By 1950, over 340,000 people had died. Generations to this day have been poisoned by radiation.

CND remembers all those who were killed and injured in these criminal bombings and we pay tribute to the survivors, Hibakusha, who continue to campaign for a world free from nuclear dangers by sharing their powerful testimonies with people around the world.

The commemoration comes amid growing global nuclear dangers and the continued expansion and modernisation by nuclear weapons states of their arsenals. The war in Ukraine continues amid threats of escalation. Nuclear-armed Israel's horrific genocide against the Palestinian people is intensifying admit threats of further military attacks on Iran. And tensions continue to grow in the Asia Pacific. This means the threat of nuclear use has never been higher.

In June, the British government announced that it will add an air-launched nuclear capability by buying 12 F-35A fighter jets. In July, US B61-12 nuclear bombs were deployed to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. These co-called “battlefield” nukes have a potential yield of up to 50 kilotons, more than three times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

CND is redoubling its efforts to ensure the human cost of nuclear war is never forgotten and that the call for 'No more Hiroshimas' is taken up across the country. CND groups will be marking the anniversaries with events taking place in towns and cities across the country.

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:

“CND would like to pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands who had their lives cruelly taken by the US atomic bombing – a most barbaric act. Now is the time to reflect on the human cost of nuclear war. People in Japan still live in pain and anguish because of this war crime committed 80 years ago.

We must expose the lie that nuclear weapons keep us safe. On the contrary, they are a daily threat to us all. And, because of nuclear expansion of nuclear states like our own reckless government, the threat of nuclear weapons being used in war again is growing. So, as we mark 80 years since these horrific crimes were committed, we must come together to challenge this terrifying war drive and end the nuclear threat.”

CND Vice-President Jeremy Corbyn MP said:

“As we reflect on 80 years since the criminal bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must ask where is the leadership in pursuing the urgent need for nuclear disarmament? It certainly isn’t among the nuclear weapons states who are spending ever increasing sums to develop new ways to carry out mass killing.

We can take inspiration from countries across the global South, who are championing nuclear weapons-free zones and promoting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This offers the legal framework to ban these weapons and provide reparations for victims of nuclear weapons testing and use. Britain should rethink its disastrous nuclear expansion and start engaging with the TPNW immediately.”

CND Vice-President Caroline Lucas said:

“It’s a great honour to be representing CND in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on such an important anniversary. It could not be more urgent to support all those working for nuclear disarmament, and I pay tribute to the very last survivors who continue to use their voice to raise awareness about the dangers of nuclear weapons. The threat of nuclear war is growing, as the international disarmament frameworks come under increasing pressure.

Far from abiding by their legal duties to take steps to disarm under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, countries like the UK are moving in the opposite direction, increasing and modernising their arsenals. Yet at the same time, over 90 countries have signed the UN’s Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It’s vital that we use this anniversary to reshape the debate about real security. This means investing in a sustainable, green economy, and pursuing a foreign policy based on international law.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“’That Suffering Haunts Me Even Here’ - The Struggle for Human Rights of the Antandroy People Displaced by Climate Change from Southern Madagascar”, documents how Antandroy people have been forced to travel to other parts of the country in search of better conditions, with many internally displaced people (IDPs) making the arduous 1,500km journey to the northern Boeny region. The report exposes the government’s violation of their rights to freedom of movement and choice of residence within state borders, adequate housing, and an adequate standard of living.

“From insufficiently addressing the impacts of droughts in the south, to its lack of protection and support for internally displaced persons, the government has repeatedly failed the Antandroy,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.

“To mitigate against these failures and their effects on IDPs, Madagascar must do more to improve its response to a changing climate by urgently adopting comprehensive national and local strategies to address drought-induced displacements, and by prioritizing the human rights needs of displaced Antandroy.”

Drought-induced displacements in southern Madagascar are deeply rooted in the French colonial era which introduced cochineal parasites to eradicate the opuntia monacantha, a drought-resilient cactus growing in the region. This policy contributed to the vulnerability of the Antandroy people to droughts, which the government of Madagascar and scientists have in recent years linked to global climate change.

More recently, the effects of climate change have made droughts more severe, leading to displacements towards the Boeny region in north Madagascar and other parts of the country.

“Madagascar’s contribution to global carbon emissions is negligible. Yet, the Antandroy people find themselves bearing the brunt of a crisis created, in part, by the actions of high-income historical emitting countries and French colonial rule. France must own up to its historical role in the ongoing crisis and provide reparatory justice for the colonial wrongs against the Antandroy,” said Tigere Chagutah. “High-income, historical emitting states must financially support Madagascar with grants and the transfer of environmentally sound technologies.”

To understand the plight of those displaced, Amnesty International visited six villages of Antandroy IDPs and the main arrival bus station. In total, Amnesty International interviewed 122 IDPs, and also consulted government officials, local and international organizations, academics, climate scientists, and analysed satellite imagery.

The government responded to Amnesty International, underscoring efforts to improve drought resilience in southern Madagascar. It also explained that plans for a local displacement management strategy had been delayed partly due to limited logistical and financial resources. The response, however, failed to address France’s responsibility dating back to the French colonial period, the 2021 forced evictions, or the inadequacy of the 2023 pilot resettlement site.

An arduous journey

Between 2018 and 2024, about 90,000 people from southern Madagascar, mostly the Antandroy, were forced to leave their ancestral lands due to drought-induced famines.

Those interviewed by Amnesty International described the journey from Androy to Boeny as long and difficult. In most cases, they travelled by bus, with two main routes connecting southern Androy to northwestern Boeny, which are about 1,500 km apart. Many could not afford the trip and had to borrow money, sell their belongings, take stops on the journey to do casual jobs, or call on family members to send them money. In some cases, families made stops along the way to work and feed themselves, sleeping in markets and forests before continuing their journey.

The journey put families at risk of exploitation. One woman, Lia, told Amnesty she was coerced into exchanging sex with bus drivers for a seat.

One man, Masoandro, 48, said: “I negotiated with the driver. To repay him, he employed my son as a herder for one year, and the debt to the driver amounted to 220,000 Malagasy Ariary (about US$50). My son did this because he had no choice, as the driver had threatened to imprison us if the debt was not repaid.”

Upon arrival

Once in Boeny, they received no support from the government, including access to productive land.

Boeny Governor Mokthar Andriatomanga told Amnesty International: “All available land has already been allocated to the local community.”

Rather than providing support or alternatives, from April to July 2021, the government forcibly evicted Antandroy people who had built homes or cultivated land within a designated reforestation area bordering the Ankarafantsika National Park, violating their right to adequate housing.

Betro, a 28-year-old woman, recalls how she was taken by surprise during an eviction in July 2021 as the gendarmes stormed a church where she was praying: “At that time, upon the shock of seeing them, I gave birth and then I fled [she was nine months pregnant]. The umbilical cord had not even been cut yet...The state did not do anything... They just arrested people.”

The authorities’ failure to address the Antandroy’s plight and its root causes, including historic neglect by central government, has resulted in families being separated, with no support from the government or aid organizations for reunification.

Reny, 46, said: “Those strong enough to work and earn money are the ones who leave [for Boeny]. Those with children, and those who are weak, stay behind.”

Amnesty International calls on the Madagascar government to ensure all evictions comply with international human rights law.

Placed in an open-air prison

A resettlement site constructed by the Boeny regional government lacks essential services. It consists of 33 tiny huts with leaky walls, which let in rain, wind, and sweltering heat. During the rainy season

the nearby Kamoro River swells dangerously, encircling the site with fast-flowing and crocodile-infested waters cutting access to essential services such as markets, chemists, hospitals and schools. In 2023, one man was killed by a crocodile and another drowned while trying to cross.

Mandry, a mother of eight, expressed her frustration: "What can we say? There’s not much we can do. If we fall ill, it’s death because we can’t cross this body of water – we don’t have money for a pirogue (small boat).”

In January 2025, a newborn, Anakaondry, died after her mother, weakened by hunger and thirst, could no longer breastfeed.

Despite these conditions, the regional government estimates that around 100 Antandroy IDPs enter the region each week.

“Responsibility for the support and protection of the Antandroy IDPs goes beyond Madagascar - regional and international partners including the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), the United Nations, as well as humanitarian organizations, must mobilize resources to speed up adaptation efforts,” said Tigere Chagutah.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Six years ago, when we first called for an end to de minimis and insisted that no commercial trade should enter without inspection, tariffs, and taxes, the big online retailers and delivery corporations profiting from this dangerous loophole laughed at us and hired more lobbyists, so this is great—if overdue—news.

For the end of duty-free access to also translate into fewer unsafe and deadly imports and end the mass trade cheating hurting domestic producers that de minimis fueled, the administration must also strengthen customs enforcement by requiring more information about imports, boosting inspection, and raising penalties for violations.

If the courts invalidate the Executive Orders based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that implement this executive action to terminate de minimis, we urge the administration to use its ample authority under Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to issue a new Executive Order to effectuate the same global de minimis termination.”

Learn about the president’s authority to end de minimis by executive action here.

Learn more about Rethink Trade here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“We have spent the last decade fighting the unraveling of one of our nation’s most transformative civil rights achievements,” said Molly McGrath, director of the ACLU’s National Director of Democracy Campaigns. “The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is essential — not just to reverse the damage, but to proactively protect every voter from race-based discrimination and modern-day voter suppression. As we face threats to so many freedoms we hold dear, we must preserve the essential right to vote and therefore the ability to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Named in honor of the late civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis, the bill seeks to re-establish preclearance, the federal government’s authority to review and block discriminatory changes to voting laws in jurisdictions with a record of voting rights violations. It also expands that review to cover nationwide threats to voting access, such as discriminatory voter roll purges, restrictive voter ID laws, and polling place closures that disproportionately impact communities of color and people with disabilities.

Since Shelby, which nullified the VRA’s preclearance provision, states across the country have enacted a vastly growing number of anti-voter laws targeting historically disenfranchised and underserved communities. The reintroduction of the JLVRAA comes at a pivotal time, as American democracy continues to face coordinated assaults on access to the ballot box. The bill outlines a modern preclearance coverage formula based on recent voting rights violations and creates greater transparency for potentially discriminatory voting changes.

It has been 60 years since Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, when John Lewis and hundreds of peaceful protestors were brutally attacked for demanding voting rights, and the enactment of the VRA that followed because of those protests. Those gains are under threat now more than ever. The JLVRAA honors that legacy and recommits us to the promise that all eligible voters — regardless of race, zip code, or background — deserve an equal voice in our democracy.

A copy of this press release can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-stresses-need-for-federal-voting-rights-protections-amid-senate-reintroduction-of-john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The obliteration of the clean vehicle standards is part of Trump’s frontal attack on the U.S. government’s ability to act on climate—the administration is also attempting to eliminate the 2009 “endangerment finding,” (EF) a bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives. See the Sierra Club’s statement on the EF here.

The endangerment finding requires the federal government to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. Eliminating it would gut key tools Congress gave EPA to address the immense harm wrought by the climate crisis and would undo regulations of industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions like vehicles or power plants.

The transportation sector accounts for 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions—more than any other sector in the US. The clean vehicle standards continue EPA’s decades-long effort under the Clean Air Act to set standards that successfully reduce vehicle pollution, improve public health and prevent the worst of the climate crisis. For this latest round of final standards, the EPA engaged in a years-long, multi-stakeholder, comprehensive rulemaking process that engaged industry and civil society alike and would collectively avoid over 8 billion tons of carbon emissions.

In response to the announcement, Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“Vehicle pollution kills, and Donald Trump’s catastrophic rollback of the vehicle standards will eviscerate one of our most effective tools to tackle the nation’s top polluting industry. Trump’s short-sighted, anti-regulatory agenda will deny Americans the option to choose cleaner vehicles over inefficient gas guzzlers. In one fell swoop just months into office, Trump’s pro-polluter administration is trying to destroy the United States’s ability to fight climate change and protect our health and well-being while making us less globally competitive.

“Our federal clean vehicle standards protect American families by cutting down on toxic air pollutants and climate-disrupting emissions. Strong standards also protect our wallets by ensuring manufacturers produce cleaner, more fuel efficient cars that are cheaper to fuel and own long-term.

"These standards are the product of years of public engagement, in which a broad coalition—including thousands of Sierra Club members and supporters—advocated for the strongest possible protections. Time and time again, Trump has proposed irrational policies that fundamentally hurt Americans and the planet. And, once again, the Sierra Club will fight this senseless attack tooth and nail.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“We know from over 30 years of challenging unlawful detentions in Guantánamo, that the government has always attempted to shield its operations there from the law and public scrutiny, which has produced a legacy of torture, suffering, and systemic human rights violations,” said Ayla Kadah, Staff Attorney and Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “That the Trump administration is openly embracing this very symbol of lawlessness and brutality – while refusing to provide any information about conditions or their legal authority – leads us to fear the worst of Guantánamo is happening again. We will continue our decades-long fight for accountability and to finally shutter this dark island prison.”

On January 29th, Trump issued an executive order to expand to “full capacity” the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center (GMOC), a detention facility located on the naval base along with the infamous island prison where, in the name of fighting terrorism, the Bush administration detained and tortured hundreds of Muslim men and boys after 9/11. The Trump administration has denied immigrants at Guantánamo meaningful access to attorneys and the ability to challenge their detention. Those who have been detained there report brutal conditions: solitary confinement in windowless cells for at least 23 hours a day, invasive strip searches, extreme temperatures, a lack of food and medical care, and long hours in a “punishment chair,” all of which have led to several suicide attempts.

Brought by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Detention Watch Network, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the suit follows the administration’s failure to comply with the groups’ February FOIA request. The suit seeks information on, among other subjects, the claimed legal basis for detaining immigrants at Guantánamo, the criteria for sending them there, their identities, whether they face interrogation and, if so, by whom and for what purpose, which agency or agencies have custody over them, and the roles of each agency – whether, for example, the Defense Department is involved in civilian law enforcement.

Said Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, “Guantánamo Bay’s abusive history speaks for itself. The Trump administration’s plans to massively expand ICE detention at Guantánamo jeopardizes the mental and physical health of immigrants, separates families, and upends communities across the United States.The intentional withholding of information about these plans, paired with ICE’s culture of secrecy, is yet another hallmark of an authoritarian regime. The result of Trump's cruel mass detention and deportation agenda so far is an exacerbation of inhumane conditions in ICE detention, with increasing reports of death, medical neglect, overcrowding, lack of food, and rampant transfers that cut people off from their loved ones and support networks. Detention in remote locations, like Guantánamo, amplifies these harms. Communities across the country are watching daily as their family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors are being violently targeted and disappeared by ICE. Transparency into Trump's plans at Guantánamo is critical for oversight and accountability.”

Historically, the U.S. government has detained people at Guantánamo to try to evade the law, and, after 9/11, it became a site and symbol of torture and other human rights abuses. But litigation by the Center of Constitutional Rights yielded a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that people held at Guantanamo have the constitutional right to challenge their detention. At the same time, sporadic efforts by the Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations, spurred by years of political and legal advocacy, had reduced the population of the “war on terror” prison to only 15. The Trump administration is breaking with these trends, detaining a large number of people at Guantánamo while denying them basic legal and human rights. This also marks the first time that the government has transferred people there from the territorial United States.

“The U.S. government has used Guantánamo as a key piece in its prevention through deterrence migration strategy for decades,” said Erik Crew, Staff Attorney with Haitian Bridge Alliance, “where the goal is to punish certain migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who attempt to seek internationally-mandated humanitarian protection in the United States. Detention at Guantánamo is valuable to the U.S. government because it continues to use it as a legal black hole where rights don’t apply. Civil society organizations like HBA and our partners will continue to fight against this lawlessness in U.S. and international human rights fora. We, the people of the U.S. and the people of the world, need transparency here, and we will fight for it.”

The suit seeks all relevant records from the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Department of State, and Citizenship and Immigration Services.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Both the Biden EPA standards to reduce pollution from cars and trucks and the Obama EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding were based on overwhelming scientific evidence that has only become more robust. The proposals, if adopted, will create more pollution and lock in more damage to our air and climate in the future.

“This cynical one-two punch allows Trump’s Flat Earth EPA to slam the brakes on reducing auto pollution and ignore urgent warnings from the world’s leading scientists about the need for climate action,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “By revoking this key scientific finding Trump is putting fealty to Big Oil over sound science and people’s health. These proposals are a giant gift to oil companies that will do real damage to people, wildlife and future generations. The administration can’t even pretend the science facts have changed. It’s purely a political bow to the oil industry.”

Revoking life-saving clean air standards that slash auto pollution will allow automakers to make cars that guzzle more gas and pollute more. Rescinding the endangerment finding will make it harder for federal agencies to take steps that cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution from cars, trucks, power plants, factories and agriculture.

The administration falsely claims that U.S. pollution doesn’t matter. The United States is the second-largest carbon polluter in the world after China, and the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gasses. The U.S. emitted 11% of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2021, and during Trump’s first term his administration admitted that emissions in excess of 3% were “significant.”

“This is the most pro-combustion administration since Nero. Trump is delivering higher gas pump sales to Big Oil and higher gas pump costs and unhealthy air to us and our kids,” said Becker. “To famous lies like ‘cigarettes don’t cause cancer,’ we can now add Trump’s claim that pollution from millions of cars is healthier than rules cleaning them up. Trump’s lies have serious consequences, and this one is far worse than taking a Sharpie to a hurricane map. Generations of Americans will suffer because of it.”

The vehicle rules Trump plans to scrap would cut 7 billion metric tons of emissions and saved the average American driver $6,000 in fuel and maintenance costs over the lifetimes of the vehicles made under the standards.

“The EPA is revoking the biggest single step any nation has taken to save oil, save consumers money at the pump and combat global warming. The Trump administration’s actions will worsen heart and lung disease, sicken kids with asthma, and stoke deadly wildfires, storms and floods,” Becker said. “It’s outrageous to justify this recklessness with the ridiculous claim that cutting planet-warming pollution is more expensive than the billions it will cost consumers at the pump and the hospital because of climate devastation. We’ll fight them every step of the way.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A new report authored by Public Citizen Health Care Policy Advocate Eagan Kemp highlights the dangers posed by the men and women whom Trump has put in charge of our health care agencies and the threat they pose to patients, providers and the programs on which they rely.

The report includes details on:

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promotion of conspiracy theory and dangerous anti-science views before his confirmation and during his early months as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
• Mehmet Oz’s dangerous views on privatization of Medicare and conflicts of interest, and his early efforts to undermine the programs he is supposed to protect as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
• Jim O’Neill’s fringe views and significant ties to for-profit biomedical companies and the dangers they could pose as he serves as Deputy Secretary of HHS.
• Casey Means’s lack of qualifications for Surgeon General and misinformed and conspiratorial thinking on public health issues.

“Trump has nominated unqualified and dangerous people to serve in the most important health positions in the country,” said Kemp “From massive cuts to Medicaid and the ACA, layoffs of key staff, and failures to adequately engage with real emergencies, like the ongoing measles outbreak, America is reaping the bitter fruit of Trump’s terrible cabal. It is clear the Trump Administration will continue to exacerbate existing gaps in our health care system and risk millions more lives. People across the country are already pushing back against their terrible actions, and this must continue if we are to correct course and take back our health care system.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As King Cheeto still lies, scams, babbles and scurries to escape the furor over his pedophile bestie, some fierce unlikely heroes have emerged to call bullshit. They range from Jon Stewart's "Go Fuck Yourself" choir to South Park's grifter with a "teeny tiny" talking penis to Scotland's blistering response to his unwelcome $10 million golf trip, complete with bagpipes, fish guts, a glowering "CONVICTED U.S. FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND" headline and ever-splendid signs declaring, "Trump Is Still A Cunt."

With even his red-meat, poorly educated base clamoring for an imaginary transparency, Trump continues struggling and mostly failing to regain control of the narrative on partner-in-crime Jeffrey Epstein in the shadow of a steady trickle of damning new revelations - more smirking creepy photos, reports he flew on Epstein's jets at least seven times in the 1990s, news he was told in May his name is (probably frequently) in the infamous files. For once, his "nothing-to-see-here-but-look-over-there!" tactics fall short: As the turmoil morphs into a cultural as well as political firestorm, it lays bare the longtime fiction of Trump's whole braying, bullying shtick about taking down the deep state, exposing him as just another lying, hiding, duplicitous stiff out for himself. (Duh.) It's so bad even MAGA-ites are saying his claims of innocence are "insulting our intelligence." (Sic.)

Still, he strives to deflect. His release of 6,000 FBI files on MLK Jr. backfired big-time by confirming he can release any files any time he likes. Sample comments: "Now do the Epstein files" and, "His back is against the wall so hard he’s releasing more Black history." Mostly, he's reverted to calling the uproar "a witch hunt" about "a creep," feigning indifference - "I don’t really follow that too much" - and spinning his bonkers greatest hits, most featuring "Barack Hussein Obama." One rant: "We caught Hillary Clinton. We caught Barack Hussein Obama, absolutely cold." Also, "Many, many people under them...big stuff...2020 rigged...And it's the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever read....This was treason. This was every word you can think of." Including the claim, in one veering pivot, "This is like, proof, irrefutable proof that Obama was sedacious," which is not a word.

That was duly, gleefully noted by Stephen Colbert, once-and-no-longer-future king of The Late Show, just fired for exposing too much of what he once called "truthiness. In his recent, fatal transgression, he blasted CBS/Paramount's $16m settlement in a bogus Trump lawsuit to advance an $8 billion sale to Skydance Media, which requires federal approval: "I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s 'big fat bribe.'" As always, he was both sharp and genial on the ignoble end of a 30-year franchise he'd excelled at. Declaring "the gloves are officially off" and he "can finally speak unvarnished truth to power" on Trump, he turned to the camera to mildly proclaim, "I don't care for him...He doesn't seem to have, like, the skillset." Later, in response to Trump gloating, Colbert stepped it up, again straight to the camera: "Go fuck yourself."

The Colbert kerfuffle seemed to kick off a new, fiery, vastly entertaining stage in the to-date often somnambulant fight against our creeping authoritarianism. With many American institutions - the press, courts, Congress, colleges, corporate powers - failing to heed fascism experts' pivotal rule of, "Do not obey in advance," the task of standing up rudely and loudly is incongruously, though not really for the first time (see Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin etc etc) falling to middle-finger-wielding comedians with no interest in going gentle into that good night, thanks. On that Colbert show, a parade of high-profile, wise-acre colleagues and buddies - Oliver, Fallon, Meyers, Stewart, Lin-Manuel Miranda - showed up for a Coldplay kiss-cam parody to show their support. Letterman posted a lengthy video compilation whose message was, "You can’t spell CBS without BS.”

And Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, not for the first time, eviscerated "corporate capitulation to the whims of a pussy-grabbing enigma" - here, starting 16:30 - though it too runs on a Paramount-owned station, Comedy Central. Mulling our ongoing horrors, he offered, "I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions - institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic-hair-doodling commander-in-chief. This is not the moment to give in. This is the time to fight. This is the time to rise up." Adding a florid, "We affirm our shared humanity. We must continue to have humans make things that inspire and provoke other humans" - and joking, "#ChatGPT wrote that" - he and a gospel choir behind him then led the audience in a long, rousing, raunchy chorus of "Go Fuck Yourself" to his paymasters.

Still, leave it to South Park with its foul-mouthed kids and universally offensive, scorched-earth "shock comedy" to up the ante, with "their most furious episode" - "Hey Satan!" - arriving back on air just after signing a new, $1.5 billion, five-year deal with...Paramount, now richly paying creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone "to put out the same message as Colbert, a lot less politely." Many argue South Park, with its crude, crass, juvenile humor, is uniquely suited for the nearly impossible task of skewering a cartoon villain who routinely says and does things more outrageous than satire could ever be: South Park "is what happens when satirists are willing to play on the President’s terms." 20 years ago, it would be extreme; today, you need that level "to keep up with the absurdity of reality." The consensus on its inaugural show: From penises to pedophiles, "They went there." One fan: "Such a fun fuck-you."

Following its tradition since 1997 of pissing off almost everyone, the new show portrays Trump as a deeply insecure grotesquerie in the Epstein files who sounds like Saddam Hussein, sleeps with Satan, sues everyone, often gets naked to show us his tiny penis with googly eyes, and lines the White House walls with naked photos of himself. The "plot" has South Park residents angry the guy they voted for turns out to be a grifting fascist douchebag; when religion is foisted on schools in the form of Jesus, last seen in 2019 doing cocaine with Satan, they complain to the President, who sues them, then settles if they'll run pro-Trump messaging. Cue protests, showdowns, media too scared of lawsuits to say anything but “oh boy, oh shit, oh God,” and a deepfake, live-action, small-dicked Trump trudging through the desert: "When things heat up, who will deliver us from temptation?"

Enraged, the White House shrieked no "fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak." Deadpan, Parker responded, "We’re terribly sorry." Then Trump fled the firestorm for a $10 million "work trip" to Scotland. "Many meetings planned!!" he boasted. In truth, exhibiting "a staggering level of grift," he went to golf on our dime at his failing courses at Turnberry and Balmedie in Aberdeenshire, and to open a new course there dedicated to his mother, though the first one's never turned a profit and is usually half-empty because he's so despised. His first term, he racked up 260 rounds of golf, most at his own resorts, at a cost of $151.5 million; this weekend's was his 44th, and most pricey, golf trip in six months; as of March 30, he's spent $26 million to golf, but we really can't afford food stamps. His spox dismissed concerns as "pathetic"; also, Biden went to the beach, and the autopen.

Despite an almost empty schedule, between rounds he did meet (very briefly) with British P.M. Keir Starmer and Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney. Meanwhile Scotland, where 75% of residents abhor him, gave Trump the welcome he deserved. In an editorial, the largest paper called him "a menace"; the "CONVICTED U.S. FELON" headline continued, "Republican Leader, Who Was Found Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation, Will Visit Golf Courses." Aberdeen South M.P. Stephen Flynn was asked if he'd meet with the felon; totally bald, Flynn responded, "I'll be busy getting a haircut, or washing my hair, or finding any excuse possible to make sure I'm looking after my own toddler at the time." Before his arrival, an anti-Trump group put up multiple smiling photos of him and Epstein; in a video, they warned it would "be a shame if (they) appeared absolutely everywhere on his tour of the U.K."

Elsewhere, a "festival of resistance" gathered: Despite his Scottish roots, "The vast majority of Scots have a deep disdain for Trump and everything he stands for." "So many people here loathe him," said a woman with a “We Don’t Negotiate With Fascists” sign. "We’re not divided (by) religion or race or political allegiance. We’re here together because we hate him.” Some singular signs: "Get Oot Nasty Little Manbaby, Scotland Hates Trump, Fuck Off You Tiny-Handed Orange-Faced Cunt, Scotland Totally Hates Trump, May Your Arse Break Out In Boils Ya Scunner, Not Even Your Wife Likes You, Beat It You Big Orange Jobbie, You Were Shite In Home Alone 2." A restaurant gave out fish guts to throw, Mexican and Palestinian flags flew, heart-filled signs declared him and Epstein "Best Friends Forever," bagpipers bragged, "At least this bag of hot air serves a purpose," many signs proclaimed, "Trump Is Still A Cunt."

Most of Scotland deems almost anything he's ever done "not the proper behavior of a decent person" because for nearly 20 years he bullied, threatened, coerced and conned residents to buy their land, trash their pristine coastline and build more crappy hotels while breaking every promise he made. In Aberdeenshire, he said he'd inject $1.5 billion into the economy; it was barely $120 million. He promised over 1,000 jobs; it was 84, fewer than the existing 100 on a shooting range. Instead of a 450-room luxury hotel and hundreds of homes, he built a 19-room hotel, a small clubhouse selling Trump merch, and a 36-hole course that cost $500 to play. In 2023, he lost $1.9 million, his 11th consecutive loss since 2006. Local officials who rejected the project then for its impact on precious sand dunes - the Scottish goverhment overrode them - now say they feel ashamed and "hoodwinked...We all fell for it."

Three neighboring families are still seething. Their horror stories: The farmer who wouldn't sell, so Trump sabotaged the water supply for him and his elderly mother. The 73-year-old retired quarry worker and salmon fisherman whose barn reads, "No More Trump Lies" who wouldn't sell where he'd lived since he was 14, so Trump blocked access to the beach where he did his fishing, which "he knew I loved"; he avows, "This place will never, ever belong to Trump." The energy consultant who lives in an old Coast Guard station overlooking the golf, dunes, North Sea; when he wouldn't sell, even after Trump "threw in some jewelry," Trump had landscapers put in trees to block the view and charged him for a fence he built. He wouldn't pay, but he did put up and fly a Mexican flag. This year, "I don't have a big enough flagpole - I'd need one for Mexico, Canada, Palestine, Greenland, you name it."

For years, the vile, vindictive lout also fought to block a wind farm that would "ruin my view"; today, 11 turbines spin, he still raves "windmills are killing us," and America cringes. One headline: "Old Man Goes to Scotland, Yells At Wind, Cheats At Golf," after he got busted in a now-viral video. America also thanked the Scottish people for "your always hilariously caustic insults that, however imaginative, can never truly plumb the depths of this most revolting excuse for a wannabe human...this walking pile of pestilential feculence." For proof, at a "bat-poop-crazy" presser, he kept spewing - his ballroom, Gazans "don't thank us enough," the six wars he's stopped, "about a war a month." He went off-script from the official story he split from Epstein because he was "a creep." Nope: It wasn't the pedophilia; it was that Epstein tried to recruit some of his staff: "He stole people that work for me."

He also invented fictional crimes, laws and payments by claiming Kamala paid $11 million to Beyoncé for "an ENDORSEMENT" - also some to Oprah and "low-rated" Al Sharpton - which is "TOTALLY ILLEGAL" (not) and "they should all be prosecuted." Sigh. Madness. One final reverie: A new AI fever dream from the official White House account shows Trump, a battle-weary, red-tied, gladiator messiah valiantly striding, despite bone spurs, from a smoke-and-rubble-strewn Roman coliseum, its flag in tatters. Cue Teddy Roosevelt's iconic Man in the Arena speech: "Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, (who) spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows (the) triumph of high achievement, who at the worst at least fails while daring greatly." One response: "It's like when I was a kid and got sick, my fever got really high and I would hallucinate." Another: "What in the actual imperial cosplay is this? The Roman Empire fell too. Just saying.".

Protest sign in ScotlandScreenshot from Bluesky

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International Global Public Finance Manager, said:

“The EU has just fallen into another dangerous fossil fuel dependency trap. Spending $250 billion a year on U.S. energy purchases, mostly oil and gas, is not just a bad deal for energy security, affordability, the climate and communities, it is also completely unnecessary. Even as it moves away from Russian LNG, the EU’s current gas supply contracts are sufficient to meet declining demand under the EU’s own Fitfor55 climate policies package.

“Increasing Europe’s imports of U.S. LNG is a disaster for our climate. Our recent analysis of five planned U.S. LNG projects finds that every one would worsen the climate crisis, and that further investment in U.S. LNG is incompatible with a liveable climate.

“Over 70,000 people signed a petition asking the EU to not just end reliance on Russian gas, but also break free from U.S. gas and double down on a fair and green future instead. Instead of pouring billions into an untrustworthy regime and investing in energy products that poison communities’ air and water and risks the habitability of our climate, the EU should use that money on renewables, energy efficiency programs, and paying the climate finance it owes to the Global South.”

Enrico Donda, Campaigner at Food and Water Action Europe, said:

"As part of yesterday’s EU-U.S. trade deal, the EU has pledged $750 billion, over three years, to, among other things, increase energy imports—even though gas demand is actually falling across Europe and this move contradicts its own climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

“While the deal is presented as a way to enhance energy security and reduce reliance on Russian fossil fuels, it effectively locks Europe into decades of continued gas dependency. At a time when we should be ramping up renewables, improving energy efficiency, and cutting gas use, the EU is instead pouring billions into fossil fuel infrastructure that risks becoming stranded assets. This feels like a concession to fossil fuel interests and short-term politics. What we truly need is to phase out fossil gas now.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

While previous efforts to finalize a global treaty on plastic pollution have stalled, a majority of ambitious countries continue to push for progress, with only a small minority hindering momentum. As a result, the question of whether a strong and effective treaty can be achieved through formal consensus alone is up for debate, and it is expected that alternative pathways to deliver a meaningful outcome will be part of the upcoming negotiations.

“The speed at which the treaty went from conception to near completion is exactly what the planet needed, but it was never going to be without challenges,” said Erin Simon, Vice President and Head of Plastic Waste & Business, World Wildlife Fund. “As we approach the final stretch, negotiators must remember why we’re here. Our planet is overwhelmed by plastic waste, and it’s impacting everyone and everything that calls this planet home. At the start of these negotiations, the global community collectively agreed enough was enough, now is the moment to come together to deliver a path forward.”

At this point, the negotiations are well into overtime and every day that goes by, another 30,000 tonnes of plastic pours into our oceans. Failure to conclude a strong treaty at INC- 5.2 will only make the job of addressing this crisis more difficult, costly and dangerous for people all around the world. While the cost of not acting is grave, the potential benefits of meaningful action are plentiful. In the US and around the world a strong global plastic treaty could help create jobs, boost economic competitiveness, lower taxpayer costs, curb pollution and improve human and environmental health outcomes.

The global community must leave Geneva with a treaty built on specific binding rules supported by the majority of countries to be able to effectively tackle global plastic pollution. This means a treaty which includes global bans on the most harmful plastic products and chemicals; global product design requirements to enable a non-toxic circular economy; financial and technical support for developing countries to ensure effective implementation and mechanisms to strengthen and adapt the treaty over time.

“The path forward won’t be easy but it’s time to prioritize the key points where we can align globally and deliver a treaty that will protect the health of people and our planet well into the future,” added Simon.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Tapajós River: Legal Analysis of the Brazilian Environmental Legislation (Rio Tapajós Análise Jurídico da Legislação Ambiental Brasileira) and its accompanying executive summary, Tapajós River: Prospects for Permanent Protection, shows how the combined effects of climate change, dams, unregulated mining, and other large-scale infrastructure harm Indigenous and frontline communities, and undermine the environment and biodiversity. It highlights measures that affected peoples can take to protect the Tapajós River Basin, including securing permanent legal protections.

Encompassing over 493,000 square kilometers across the Pará, Mato Grosso, and Amazonas states, the Tapajós is one of the Amazon’s most biodiverse river systems, home to over 300 fish species, including giant piraíba catfish and colorful tucunaré, and endangered river turtles like the tracajá and the giant Amazon turtle. Seasonal flood cycles shape a dynamic landscape of várzea, igarapés, igapó forests, and wetlands — vital nurseries for fish, nesting sites for turtles, and feeding grounds for migratory birds. This vast watershed regulates the hydrological cycle across a significant portion of the Amazon, supports food and water security for riverine and Indigenous populations, and contributes to climate regulation at regional and global scales. For local Indigenous communities, its waters are sacred—tied to origin stories, traditional knowledge, and survival.

Hydroelectric development threatens the Tapajós River system. As of January 2024, 180 hydroelectric projects have been planned on the Juruena River alone. Four major dams—the Teles Pires, Colíder, São Manoel, and Sinop—have fundamentally altered the river basin's hydrology and ecology. Brazil’s piecemeal regulatory system means that each new project is not considered in conjunction with existing ones, so their long-term cumulative effects are often underestimated.

Furthermore, 2,000 illegal mines operate with virtual impunity throughout the river system, representing an estimated 75% of all mining activity in the region. This has left a scar on Indigenous communities. Studies by the Fiocruz Foundation reveal that more than 60% of Munduruku Indigenous community members tested in certain areas exhibit elevated mercury levels, with more than half of the Munduruku people—including children—showing unsafe mercury concentrations in their bodies.

“Although Brazil’s current regulatory framework fails to account for the ecological and human rights violations imposed by large-scale infrastructure, our new research identifies innovative new pathways for frontline communities to reclaim their rivers and their rights,” said Flávio Montiel of International Rivers. “With the upcoming COP30 in Belem, all eyes will be on Brazil. Now is the time for Brazil to be a world leader in the management and protection of nature and human rights by legally recognizing the rights of rivers in the Tapajós Basin.”

Brazil currently has the legal tools to protect communities and their resources from the climate crisis. The country’s Constitutional Article 225 establishes environmental protection as both a governmental obligation and a fundamental human right. Working in tandem with this provision, Article 231 recognizes Indigenous Peoples' original rights to their lands, including their customs, languages, beliefs, and traditions, mandating that public authorities demarcate, protect, and respect all their assets. Further protections also include a review of the State System of Nature Conservation Units (SEUC). This legislation introduced an innovative conservation category called “Rivers of Special Protection” – specifically designed to protect waterways of exceptional value. The Law also provides provisions for the restoration of freshwater ecosystems, making the Rivers of Special Protection designation a promising model for river conservation that could be replicated across Brazil’s river systems.

Ultimately, protecting the Tapajós River system demands a multi-level strategy that leverages Brazil’s existing legal frameworks while addressing structural weaknesses in implementation and enforcement. Moving beyond traditional environmental regulation, the report offers a framework that aligns with Indigenous worldviews and suggests enforceable protections grounded in legal innovations.

It calls on policymakers in Brazil to:

-Adopt a Rights of Rivers legal framework to support communities that rely on the Tapajós River Basin for cultural, physical, and economic sustenance;

-Coordinate action among Federal and State Public Agencies to ensure jurisdictional alignment and robust legal enforcement across federal, state, and municipal levels;

-Implement real-time channels for communities to report violations;

-Establish Popular Committees in the Tapajos River Basin and build capacity for representatives of local social organizations, to ensure effective participation of civil society, for the future creation of the Tapajos River Basin Committee;

-Close legal and institutional loopholes by implementing a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the entire Tapajós basin that includes cumulative and synergic impacts, to ensure that the long-term consequences of development are considered.

The report calls on frontline and Indigenous communities to exercise their rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent by:

-Pursuing strategic litigation to challenge harmful projects and regulatory failures;

Serving as co-litigants in precedent-setting cases defending rivers’ rights and ecological limits.

“Ultimately, a nation's environmental conscience can be measured not by the depth of its laws, but by the quality of its waters—and both can run muddy despite the best of intentions written on paper,” said Monti Aguirre of International Rivers.

Read the report.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Soon after their detention, members of the Santa Marta community accompanied by environmental organizations denounced that these detentions were not intended to bring justice to victims of the war. Instead, the attorney general was pursuing spurious charges against ex-guerrilla combatants who had become prominent water defenders that led the fight which prohibited metals mining in El Salvador in 2017.

In October 2024, after a long legal defense campaign that denounced a series of irregularities with the proceedings, a tribunal in the district of Sensuntepeque declared the five water defenders innocent. The ruling confirmed that the Attorney General had not provided evidence of the existence of a crime. However, the ruling was overturned a month later by a Criminal Appeals Chamber who ordered retrial.

International Allies Against Mining is a coalition of organizations from the US, Canada and Australia that have carried out research and advocacy with civil society organizations in El Salvador in their fight to protect their scarce water resources. Since January 2023, International Allies has provided accompaniment to the community of Santa Marta in their pursuit of justice for their water defenders.

For further information please contact:

John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, johnc@ips-dc.org, (202) 297-4823
Olivia Alperstein, Institute for Policy Studies, olivia@ips-dc.org
Manuel Perez Rocha, Institute for Policy Studies, manuel@ips-dc.org

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In an announcement, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would move around 2,600 employees out of the department’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and into five regional hubs located in Fort Collins, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Salt Lake City; and Raleigh, North Carolina. The administration is also planning on shuttering research facilities and eliminating the U.S. Forest Service’s nine regional offices.

The move has received pushback from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who objected to the administration’s decision not to inform Congress of its plans before the announcement. The announcement is another blow to the Department of Agriculture, which has been significantly affected by budget and staffing cuts stretching back to the “fork in the road” memo issued by DOGE. Some estimates calculate the department could lose nearly one-third of its staff under Trump’s proposed FY26 budget, including nearly 90 percent of wildland fire management staff and 70 percent of national forest system staff.

In response, Alex Craven, Sierra Club’s forest campaign manager, released the following statement:

“This isn’t a reorganization – it’s the continued dismantling of an essential department. This administration’s approach since January has been ‘fire first, ask questions later,’ and the U.S. Forest Service has suffered some of the worst consequences. The more the agency is cut, the harder it is for them to fulfill their critical responsibilities, and the easier it is for Donald Trump to claim it’s broken and pursue his ultimate agenda – privatization.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

At issue is the administration’s sudden termination of two contracts guaranteeing legal and social services to clients covered in the 2023 agreement.

The ACLU filed a motion in April after the Trump administration abruptly notified the Acacia Center for Justice, the main contractor that oversees the legal services program serving those clients, that it did not intend to renew its contract.

On June 10, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California, ordered the government to reinstate its contract with Acacia so the organization can provide the required legal services under the settlement. He stressed that the Trump administration cannot “just simply disregard” a settlement the U.S. government agreed to.

Late yesterday, the judge rejected the administration’s request to evade that ruling, and also found a second major breach by the government when it abruptly terminated its contract with Seneca Family of Agencies, which provides social services to the separated families, without securing any replacement contract.

In this latest ruling, the judge wrote that the Trump administration “forced the separation of thousands of immigrant parents from their children, many of whom have yet to be reunified, and it caused profound, devastating, and lasting damage to those families.” The settlement agreement, he wrote, was the result of “painstaking negotiations” aimed to “address that damage” done to these families under the policy.

The judge reiterated the policy was “one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country,” and again ordered the government to stop breaching the agreement and adhere to the settlement terms.

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the family separation lawsuit, had the following reaction:

“Rather than acknowledge the horrible abuses inflicted by the family separation policy, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to avoid its responsibilities under the settlement. Fortunately, the court has squarely told the administration, for the second time in six weeks, it cannot simply walk away from its obligations.”

The ruling is here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Making matters worse, ADF is actively involved in at least one case, Heaps v. Delaware Valley Regional High School Board of Education, that is set to come before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That means, if confirmed, Bove could preside over cases involving an organization he consulted with during his nomination process – a fundamental breach of judicial ethics.

“The red flags on Emil Bove’s judicial nomination are piling up. Bove has shown unflinching loyalty to his former client and current boss, Donald Trump; has refused to commit to recusing himself on cases involving the President; and is the subject of a whistleblower complaint casting doubt on his integrity and highlighting his lack of respect for the law. Now it’s clear that he has also conferred with a far-right legal organization that has matters before the court on which he would serve,” said Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone. “Bove has repeatedly disregarded the ethical standards of the federal judiciary and the rule of law – his lifetime appointment opens the door for the President and his allies to seek out favorable rulings, no matter how unconstitutional their actions may be. Trust in the judiciary is at an all-time low because of repeated ethical lapses. If the Senate confirms Bove, it will undermine the credibility of the court even further.”

It’s just the latest disqualification for Bove, who is under a whistleblower investigation for misconduct while at the Department of Justice, and has come to be known as the Administration's “hatchet man.” Earlier this month, an Accountable.US research report revealed that Bove has not committed to key recusals ahead of his nomination hearing. In a nomination form, Bove pledged to recuse himself from “situations that present actual conflicts of interest based on my current or prior positions at the Department of Justice” – but he’s refrained from preemptively recusing himself from any future case involving his former client and current boss, Donald Trump.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

With support from over 175 groups, this comprehensive legislative proposal would close tax loopholes and eliminate corporate handouts to the oil, gas, and coal industry by:
Eliminating all of the fossil fuel giveaways in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill’ including a $1.5 billion last-minute giveaway for coal used to produce steel and restoring a fee for methane pollution.

• Abolishing dozens of tax loopholes and subsidies throughout the federal tax code that benefit oil, gas, and coal special interests.
• Updating below-market royalty rates for oil and gas production on federal lands, recouping royalties from offshore drilling in public waters, and ensuring competitive bidding and leasing practices for coal development on federal lands.
• Prohibiting taxpayer-funded fossil fuel research and development.
• Ending federal support for international oil, gas, and coal projects and supporting the global community’s fight to move away from dirty fossil fuels.

You can read the bill text and section by section here.

Quotes:

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said: “Donald Trump has sold out the young people of America and future generations. Big Oil spent $450 million to elected Donald Trump and Republicans during the last election cycle. In return, the president has directed the full regulatory, legal and financial weight of the federal government toward helping his fossil fuel executive friends get rich at the expense of a healthy and habitable planet for our kids and grandkids. The fossil fuel industry, with the support of Trump, is more concerned about their short-term profits than the wellbeing of the planet. No more polluter welfare for an industry that is making billions every year destroying the planet.”

U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar said: “We are done letting fossil fuel executives write the rules while our communities pay the price. For decades, Big Oil has raked in billions in taxpayer handouts while destabilizing our climate. The End Polluter Welfare Act will finally hold polluters accountable and eliminate these harmful subsidies once and for all. I'm proud to reintroduce this legislation with Senator Sanders because our planet can’t wait, and neither can we.”

Meghan Pazik, senior policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program said: “For too long, billions of American tax dollars have propped up the corrupt and polluting fossil fuel industry while ordinary people struggle with rising energy bills and climate disasters. The End Polluter Welfare Act would rein in the corporate power of fossil fuel interests. Ending these subsidies isn’t just good policy and responsible government tax reform—it’s climate justice. There is no place for the government to enrich an unchecked industry causing unfathomable environmental and health damage in our backyards and around the world.”

Lukas Shankar-Ross, deputy director for climate and energy justice at Friends of the Earth said: “Trump and the GOP just sent polluters another $20 billion in corporate welfare. Ending fossil fuel subsidies once and for all has never been more urgent.”

Mahyar Sorour, director of Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy at Sierra Club: “Fossil fuel companies have known for decades that their product harms the climate, but have made obscene profits while communities are left to clean up the mess. Taxpayers can not afford to write a blank check to Big Oil and Gas companies through subsidies, corporate giveaways, and sweetheart deals. We must end the billions of dollars in giveaways to the oil and gas industry.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Skydance and Paramount’s self-censorship and pay-off of the Trump Administration, in pursuit of government approval of an unwise merger, is worthy of condemnation. But it’s important to view Paramount’s action within two broader contexts.

First, it marks but the latest in a long series of attacks by this administration on free speech and the free press in America, including unprecedented attacks on universities, newspapers, and even the oligarchs who control America’s communications platforms. The purpose of antimonopoly regulation is to establish a rule of law to protect individual liberty and the distributions of power on which democracy depends, not extort favors from desperate corporations.

Second, it’s important to remember how CBS and so many other news and entertainment companies came to this point. Today’s assaults on free speech and the free press are the direct result of the fantastically naïve pro-monopoly policies put in place under presidents Reagan and Clinton. It was Google and Facebook, after all, that for 15 years starved American newspapers and broadcasters of the ad dollars on which they always depended, and directly suppressed the ability of readers and viewers to connect with the reporters and publishers of their choice.

CBS and Paramount have been in deep trouble for years now. Many leading liberals helped create that crisis.

One immediate lesson stands out. Democracies around the world must beware. As the Trump administration tries to use tariffs and trade policy to loosen regulation of tech monopolists, theoretically in the name of free speech, remember always that their goal is the exact opposite.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Upcoming ISA meetings must secure a moratorium and leave no room for rushed attempts to adopt a Mining Code. Recent developments have made it clear that outstanding political and scientific concerns cannot be hastily resolved under external or industry-driven pressure.

Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson, who attended the meeting, said: “Governments have yet to rise to the moment. They remain disconnected from global concerns and the pressing need for courageous leadership to protect the deep ocean. We call on the international community to rise up and defend multilateralism against rogue actors like The Metals Company. Governments must respond by establishing a moratorium and reaffirming that authority over the international seabed lies collectively with all States—for the benefit of humanity as a whole."

While calls for a moratorium on deep sea mining have not yet gained global consensus, they continue to gain momentum, supported by compelling arguments from a diverse group of countries. Croatia became the 38th government calling for a precautionary pause, moratorium or ban on deep sea mining.

On Tuesday, His Excellency Surangel S. Whipps Jr., President of the Republic of Palau, addressed the Assembly, drawing attention to persistent efforts and intense pressure from the industry to rush the negotiations and finalise a Mining Code. He stated: “Exploiting the seabed is not a necessity – it is a choice. And it is reckless. It is gambling with the future of Pacific Island children, who will inherit the dire consequences of decisions made far from their shores”

In the first meeting of the ISA since The Metals Company (TMC) submitted the world’s first-ever application to commercially mine the international seabed, governments at the ISA Council responded by launching an investigation into whether mining contractors, including TMC’s subsidiaries Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI) and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), are complying with contractual obligations to act following the international legal framework.

Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, speaking on behalf of the French government, defended multilateralism and reaffirmed France’s call for a moratorium: “Our message is clear: no deep-sea mining without science, without collective legitimacy, without equity [...] France is calling for a moratorium or a precautionary pause. What for? Because we refuse to mortgage the future for a few nodules extracted in a hurry, in favour of a few”.

Pacific Leader representing Solomon Island, addressed the ISA Assembly, she said: “As Pacific people, we continue to carry the trauma of what extractive industries have already done to our homes. Mining companies that came with promises, stripped our lands and waters, and left behind ecological, cultural, and spiritual scars. We cannot let that cycle repeat itself, in the ocean that connects us. That sustains us. And that defines us”.

Greenpeace warns that unilateral action to start deep sea mining risks triggering conflict and undermining decades-old agreements and norms that have guided state behaviour in the global ocean. In response, governments must act by establishing a moratorium and reaffirming that authority over the international seabed lies collectively with all nations—for the benefit of humankind as a whole.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The announcement followed a high-level visit to Beijing by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials on Thursday. As the United States steps back from international climate diplomacy, the EU–China statement signals a clear intent to reinforce global ambition and multilateral cooperation.

Notably, the statement comes just one day after the International Court of Justice handed down a landmark ruling reinforcing states’ legal obligations to protect people from the impacts of climate change.

Key elements of the EU-China joint statement include:

• The EU and China call for “policy continuity and stability” among major economies and a clear “step up” in efforts to address climate change, signaling the need for more ambitious 2035 NDCs. Both parties confirm their intent to submit updated 2035 NDCs (national climate plans) before COP30, covering all sectors and greenhouse gases, aligned with the 1.5°C goal.
• Reaffirming the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement as the cornerstone of international climate cooperation.
• Emphasizing that climate collaboration holds “great and special significance” for upholding multilateralism and global climate governance.
• Noting a “solid foundation and broad space” for deepening green cooperation, even amid rising trade tensions. The EU and China commit to enhanced bilateral cooperation in areas such as the energy transition and green economy.

Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns at 350.org says:

"This joint statement offers a timely stabilizing signal in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape and the United States’ withdrawal from climate diplomacy. While this statement reflects a welcome willingness for cooperation, real and ambitious action must follow. Current ambition remains far too low. With COP30 fast approaching, the EU and China must go beyond committing to update their climate targets. Drawing the line for global heating at 1.5°C will require urgent, credible action, not just diplomatic symbolism."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Between 2023 and 2024, all nine companies boosted pay to top executives, by an average of 30%, the analysis found.*

Across the U.S. property & casualty insurance industry, which includes home and auto insurance, 2024 was a year of windfall profits, hitting an all-time high of nearly $167 billion, up 91% from 2023 and whopping 330% from 2022. Yet, 2024 was also a year of record-setting damage from climate-driven storms. In response, insurers jacked up premiums and withdrew coverage from some customers, and even entire states, where risks to insured properties threaten to trim their profits.

In 2024, there were 27 confirmed climate change-driven weather disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to impact the United States.

“Executive compensation is climbing at the same time policyholders are struggling with premium hikes, claim denials, and coverage withdrawals” said Kenny Stancil, senior researcher with Revolving Door Project. “In other words, millions of households’ economic pain shows up as better paydays for a handful of insurance bigwigs. This injustice underscores the need for major reforms aimed at expediting the clean energy transition and delivering safe and affordable housing for all. Insurer profits can no longer be prioritized over everything else.”

At most big insurance companies, executives can collect lavish pay packages without scrutiny or oversight because the companies are structured as mutuals or exchanges, meaning that their shares don’t trade publicly and they have no duty to report this information publicly. But at the publicly traded companies that do report the data, executive pay is growing at a headspinning rate:

• At Allstate, CEO Thomas Wilson took home compensation worth $26.1 million in 2024, up from $16.5 million in 2023.
• Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg’s compensation rose 9% in 2024 to $30.1 million.

“Executive compensation is increasing as pay packages have become more heavily linked to so-called ‘performance metrics’ that align CEOs’ interests with shareholders—while putting them at odds with consumers. Improving a company’s combined ratio or return on equity means more money for executives—often on the back of improper claims denials and delays,” said Dan Wagner, research director with Public Citizen. “The industry’s record profits come at the expense of homeowners, who are facing unjustified premium hikes and coverage withdrawals. And in some cases, these companies are coming to state regulators and claiming climate change justifies massive rate hikes, without letting these regulators weigh the profits these companies are raking in. It is a massive cash grab by the insurance industry as climate change is accelerating and creating havoc in markets across the country.”

And as the insurance industry urges state regulators to sign off on massive premium increases, insurance companies continue to invest in and underwrite coal, oil, and gas—even though fossil fuel pollution is exacerbating the extreme weather that insurers point to as justification for policy cancellations and rate hikes. U.S.-based insurance firms were estimated to hold between $536 billion and $582 billion in fossil fuel-related assets in 2019, and they also make billions every year from underwriting dirty energy projects.

"The home insurance industry is making record profits despite mounting climate-related damages—damages driven, in part, by the industry's continued investments in and underwriting of fossil fuels,” concluded Stancil.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This decision keeps the current fair map in place and safeguards hard-won representation for Native American voters in North Dakota while the Court considers the full case. Importantly, it also protects the voices of all voters in seven states to challenge discriminatory voting laws through Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

Since February 2022, Campaign Legal Center, Native American Rights Fund (NARF), the Law Offices of Bryan L. Sells, LLC, and Robins Kaplan LLP have been challenging the state’s 2021 legislative redistricting plan that weakened the voting power of Native American voters in North Dakota.

After a shockingly antidemocratic decision by the Eighth Circuit in May 2025, millions of voters across seven states were at risk of losing core democratic rights. All voters should be protected under the VRA, regardless of the state they live in. To ensure today’s protection is made permanent, CLC, NARF and co-counsel plan to file a cert petition to formally ask the Supreme Court to hear our case during their next term.

“The Supreme Court has rightfully halted the 8th Circuit’s decision. It is important to remember that this is not just about maps and lines. It is about whether people in my community have an equal opportunity to elect our candidates of choice. Today’s ruling helps protect our voice while we continue the fight for Native voting rights and fair representation,” said Representative Collette Brown, District 9, North Dakota House of Representatives.

“We are relieved that Native voters in North Dakota retain the ability to protect ourselves from discrimination at the polls. Our fight for the rights of our citizens continues. The map enacted by the North Dakota legislature unlawfully dilutes the votes of Native voters, and it cannot be allowed to stand,” said Jamie Azure, Chairman, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

“We are pleased to see the Supreme Court uphold decades of precedent and affirm voters’ power to enforce their voting rights in court by staying the Eighth Circuit’s decision against citizen access to challenge discrimination. At the forefront of this fight are Native American voters in North Dakota who continue to fight to safeguard their right to fair representation,” said Trevor Potter, founder and president of Campaign Legal Center. “Today’s decision reverberates beyond North Dakota — it maintains the rights of voters in seven states under the jurisdiction of the Eighth Circuit to challenge unfair voting laws via Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. When we file our cert petition, we plan to defend this critical legal tool to ensure all voters across the country can make their voices heard.”

"For decades, Tribes and Native Americans in North Dakota have fought for the rights of reservation voters," said Native American Rights Fund Staff Attorney Lenny Powell. "Today is another victory in that fight. The U.S. Supreme Court paused a decision that would strip Native voters — and all voters — of their ability to enforce their rights under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Jeanine Pirro is yet another nominee being put in a position of enormous power to serve the interests of Donald Trump. The Fox News host has repeatedly denied the results of the 2020 election, justified pardons of January 6 insurrectionists, and called for January 6 prosecutors to be investigated. This is not indicative of a qualified US Attorney, but rather a Trump collaborator who will serve Trump, not the American people.

This president must not be allowed to install corrupt prosecutors who will advance his interests at the expense of the American public and our freedom.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Over the past six months, JVP has repeatedly warned that the Trump administration is manufacturing false charges of antisemitism as a cynical ploy to fundamentally reshape higher education and, through it, American society. The Trump regime, which platforms white supremacists and neo-Nazi sympathizers, does not truly care for Jewish safety. Columbia’s agreement confirms our worst fears. The deal mandates measures to silence research, teaching and criticism of the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and system of apartheid. In addition, it includes broad limitations on the right to protest, reduces protections for trans students, places severe restrictions on international students and their rights, and establishes an effective ban on any considerations of diversity in hiring, promotions or admissions.

This is the latest in a series of recent moves by Columbia University that flagrantly — and falsely — invoke Jewish safety in an effort to appease authoritarian forces, including: the mass suspension of student protesters, the adoption of the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism, draconian antidemocratic reforms to its disciplinary procedures, attacks on shared governance, new ideological tests for academic departments, silence in the face of ICE kidnapping one of its students, and shuttering its campus to the public. We refuse to allow Jewish identities and histories to be used as fuel for such heinous attacks on our fundamental rights.

These policies do nothing to advance Jewish safety. To the contrary, as the vast majority of Jews recognize, they endanger our community by making us the face of a broad right-wing attack on higher education, movements for social justice, and communities of color. This is especially the case on college campuses, where a great and growing number of young Jews, called by the social justice traditions of our faith, are mobilizing in an effort to end our universities and our government’s support for the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Jewish Voice for Peace urges other colleges and universities not to follow Columbia University’s dangerous example and to instead recommit themselves to academic inquiry free of outside political interference and to the pursuit of a more just and equal world. As the Trump administration pursues an authoritarian project at home and finances an ongoing genocide in Gaza, it is incumbent upon universities to recognize and respond to this historical moment with concrete actions.

Anonymous undergraduate Columbia University student, JVP-Columbia member:

“It is frankly terrifying to see how easily and shamelessly Columbia has thrown its international students, its students of color and its transgender students under the bus. The implementation of these fascist policies is not capitulation — it is exactly what Columbia has wanted to do all along. Even with all the dangers this agreement poses to us, we know that it pales in comparison to the suffering the Israeli government is inflicting upon Gaza. Columbia is trying to stop us from speaking out against forced starvation, but we know nothing is more important than fighting for the people of Palestine, and we will not be silenced when Gaza needs us to speak up.”

Joseph Howley, Associate Professor of Classics, Columbia University, JVP Academic Council:

“In a crisis of authoritarian attacks on democracy, universities have one job: standing up to tyrants. Columbia not only neglected that basic duty to the rest of society, but also sold out its own proud heritage of protest and social justice by making a deal that leaves every student, staff and faculty member studying and teaching under the threat that Trump will be back to shake us down again if someone with the right connections doesn’t like what gets said on campus or in a classroom. At a moment when Israel’s policies have hundreds of thousands of Gazans on the brink of starvation, the White House and Columbia’s Board are more focused on ending DEI and making it illegal to criticize the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

Jonah Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing, Jewish Voice for Peace:

“Columbia has betrayed its core mission and set a dangerous precedent for the entire higher education sector. The once-great university is quickly transforming itself into an appendage of the MAGA movement, agreeing to anti-Palestinian, xenophobic, transphobic, racist, pro-genocide ideology. History will not forget their role in facilitating the rise of authoritarianism at home and genocide in Gaza.”

JVP staff, members and students are available to speak with media

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Rep. Al Green stated, “I would like to thank Free Speech for People, Women’s March, and the nearly one million Americans whose petition signatures continue to show how the call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump is of paramount importance and must be addressed by Congress. We are laying the foundation for impeachment by raising our voices across America with a protest movement that is nearly one million strong, and in Congress, by continuing to introduce articles of impeachment because no president is above the law. His abuse of power, disregard for the Constitution, authoritarian dictatorship activity, and violations of the War Powers Clause demand a response. Impeachment and removal from office is the remedy provided in our Constitution to protect democracy from an authoritarian president whose threat to democracy has become an assault on democracy. This is why the article of impeachment filed in June is the first in the foundation to remove an authoritarian president, but not the last.”

Following a press conference outside the US Capitol, organizers hand-delivered the signatures to Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

“What this campaign shows is that nearly 1,000,000 Americans across the country refuse to let Trump and his allies destroy our democracy,” says Alexandra Flores-Quilty, Free Speech For People’s Campaign Director. “It’s up to Congress to do their job, defend the Constitution, and impeach and remove Donald Trump from office for his grave abuses of power.”

“Donald Trump has repeatedly trampled on our Constitution and attacked our communities with cruelty and impunity. Nearly one million people demanding impeachment is proof that we will not back down. Congress must act now to protect our freedoms and our futures,” says Tamika Middleton, Managing Director of Women's March.

The signatures were gathered as part of the Impeach Trump Again campaign, led by constitutional lawyers at Free Speech For People, who have documented multiple abuses of power and violations of the Constitution Trump has committed since his inauguration. These include:

• Unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power to declare war;
• Unlawfully mobilizing military forces against civilian protesters in the United States;
• Illegally kidnapping, detaining, and removing U.S. residents;
• Illegally and unconstitutionally removing U.S. residents, migrants, and asylum-seekers to foreign prisons;
• Unlawfully attempting to deport immigrants for peacefully protesting;
• Unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s powers;
• Defying court orders and unconstitutionally usurping judicial authority;
• Abusing his power to seek retribution against perceived adversaries;
• Co-opting and dismantling independent government oversight;
• Imposing unlawful tariffs;
• Receiving foreign and domestic emoluments;
• Unconstitutionally usurping local and state authority;
• Abusing the emergency power;
• Abusing the pardon power;
• Corruptly dismissing criminal charges against Eric Adams;
• Depriving citizens of their birthright;
• Blocking efforts to secure U.S. elections;
• Planning the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza;
• Engaging in unlawful, corrupt practices during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Last month, Rep. Al Green introduced articles of impeachment against Trump for violating the War Powers Clause of the Constitution following the military attack on Iran without congressional authorization, and the Congressman forced a floor vote on the articles in the US House. Seventy-eight Members of Congress joined Rep. Green in voting to advance those articles of impeachment, nearly four times as many Representatives who were on record supporting the impeachment of Trump prior to the vote. Now, with nearly a million Americans joining the call for impeachment, Congress must do its constitutional duty and launch impeachment proceedings.

“The Framers designed the constitutional remedy of impeachment to deal with a president who would attack the Constitution, trample on the rule of law, and engage in High Crimes,” says John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. “The American people are demanding that Members of Congress abide by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution and impeach and remove Trump.”

For more information on the campaign and to read the case for impeachment, please visit impeachtrumpagain.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photos from the action available here.

On Wednesday morning, representatives of Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and social movements from across the Amazon held a powerful demonstration in front of the construction site of COP30 in Belém, sending a clear message to global leaders: the solutions to the climate crisis already exist and are practiced daily by Indigenous and traditional peoples in Brazil and around the world.

The action, staged in front of the future Blue Zone – the official venue for the UN climate negotiations – marked the launch of the “Declaration of the Amazon Peoples’ Gathering for COP30: The Answer is Us,” a collectively written political statement. In the center of the protest stood a globe melting and stained with oil, symbolizing the urgency of the climate crisis. Around it, leaders held messages such as “The Climate Won’t Wait – It’s Time to Act,” “The Answer is Us,” “Demarcate,” and “Keep the Forest Standing, Leave Oil and Gas Underground.”

The protest comes at a critical moment in Brazil, as movements call on President Lula to veto Bill 2159/21 – known as the “Devastation Bill” – which would represent one of the most significant rollbacks to environmental protection in Brazil since the military dictatorship.

“For us Indigenous peoples, for Brazil’s Indigenous movement, for social movements, and for everyone committed to defending the environment and biodiversity – especially in this moment of climate emergency – the approval of this bill goes against everything humanity is fighting for in terms of sustainable solutions,” said Kleber Karipuna, Executive Coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB).

Toya Manchineri, General Coordinator of COIAB, highlighted one of the bill’s most dangerous aspects: removing the role of institutions like Funai from the environmental licensing process. “This leaves thousands of Indigenous communities vulnerable, with no mechanisms to defend themselves or participate in decisions that directly affect their territories, ways of life, and well-being,” he said.

Sila Mesquita Apurinã, General Coordinator of the GTA Network, emphasized the need for unity: “We already have many climate authorities living in our territories – people who know how to face the climate crisis. If world leaders don’t know what to do, we do. We, Indigenous leaders, traditional communities, and social movements, are the answer. Our territories and ways of life are the solution. That’s why we’re joining forces in this permanent mobilization and reaffirming our fight for life.”

Amazonian peoples demand protection and a seat at the decisions table

In the “Declaration of the Amazon Peoples’ Gathering for COP30: The Answer is Us,” social and Indigenous movements demand recognition and protection of their territories; an immediate end to destructive exploitation; meaningful participation in decision-making forums; recognition of the Amazon as a common good of humanity; direct climate finance for forest and riverine peoples; and an end to violence against those who defend the forest. The declaration – signed by 19 organizations – will be delivered to the COP30 Presidency.

The document states:

“There is no Amazon without its peoples. The territories protected by our communities are the last strongholds against destruction. Science confirms what our ancestors have always known: climate justice is only possible through territorial, social, and popular justice.”

It also stresses that hosting COP30 in the Amazon brings both a historic responsibility and a political opportunity to elevate social movements:

“The current global rise of fascism makes it all the more urgent for this COP to move beyond formalities and become a platform for true leadership by the peoples and movements of the Amazon.”

Dione Torquato, Secretary General of the National Council of Extractivist Populations (CNS), reinforced this point: “A COP taking place in the Amazon must reflect the voices and faces of the Amazon. There are no real climate solutions without recognizing the peoples and their territories as key actors in this transformation.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A new analysis from government watchdog Accountable.US finds that Lutnick’s family business empire, Cantor Fitzgerald, reported over $886 million in Nvidia positions in Q1 2025, while Lutnick played a prominent role in lifting the administration’s trade restrictions -- even arranging a meeting between Trump and Nvidia’s CEO. Additionally, Lutnick’s family business reported positions of over $230 million in AMD, which said Lutnick’s Commerce Dept. would likely lift China trade restrictions on one of its own advanced chips.

Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk: “Trump’s billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick once again played a central role in administration trade policy that just so happened to set up his family business for a massive pay day. Alarmingly, it has become the norm for the President and his cabinet to use their positions of power to drive more money into their own pockets while defending Trump’s brutal budget cuts, robbing millions of working Americans and seniors of basic health care and food security.”

The Trump Commerce Department’s 180 on Chinese export controls for AI is just the latest case of the heavily conflicted Secretary Lutnick playing a central role in Trump administration policy that coincidentally benefits his family business empire. In March, Lutnick told a national TV audience to buy Tesla stock, as his family business reportedly held approximately $840 million in the company. In May, Lutnick’s family increased its stake in the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, to a total of $1.3 billion, as Lutnick helped establish President Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

By temporarily divesting from Cantor Fitzgerald while he serves the Trump White House, Secretary Lutnick would have the public believe that the arrangement grants him plausible deniability regarding how administration policy could benefit his family's business empire. Beyond the implausibility of Lutnick never comparing notes with his 20-something-year-old sons in ‘control’ of the company, “nearly two dozen current and former employees and associates” of Lutnick’s have stated that the billionaire’s “grip on his various businesses is bolted tight.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

According to a New York Times article published July 22nd, the EPA is drafting a ruling that is set to eliminate the 2009 bedrock scientific finding, known as the "endangerment finding." The finding established that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane pose a direct threat to public health and the environment, and underpins much of the federal government’s authority to regulate emissions and address the climate crisis.

On Friday, July 18, the EPA had already announced plans to dismantle its scientific research arm and lay off hundreds of staff. Now, as climate advocates are pointing out, the agency is targeting the science itself.

Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, says:

“This administration is making a mockery of the institutions set up to protect us all. It’s one thing to wilfully ignore the science in favour of profit, but to attempt to cancel it altogether beggars belief. Canceling the endangerment finding would declare open season on all of humanity, and cause irreversible harm to the entire planet, not just within the boundaries of the United States.”

For decades now, scientists have agreed, with a greater than 99% consensus, on climate change being caused by human beings. Yesterday, in an address titled ‘The Moment of Opportunity’, the United Nations Secretary General emphasized that “the climate crisis is laying waste to lives and livelihoods, and the 1.5 degree limit is in unprecedented peril. To keep it within reach, we must drastically speed up the reduction of emissions – and the reach of the clean energy transition.”

In Washington this week, a protest was brought to the steps of the White House with 27 colourful trunks representing the children whose lives were tragically lost to the floods in Texas that claimed at least 135. Their families brought this protest to the White House to condemn a broader failure to address the climate crisis and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. They demanded immediate policy changes, full funding for weather and disaster response agencies, and a rapid transition away from coal and oil.

“We are already bearing witness to the impacts of the chaotic policy changes being pushed through by this administration. These have cost us lives, and will continue to do so long into the future. We will not sit back and let this administration unravel the protections we have fought so long and hard for. We are standing by - with the full force of the global climate movement behind us - to denounce this proposal as soon as it is published for public notice and comment,” concluded Anne Jellema.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Yet recent research from Food & Water Watch details the immense and potentially catastrophic impact on water and energy resources an unfettered AI industry could have on communities across the country – especially those in the West that are already suffering through a decade or more of extreme drought. Energy demand from AI servers and data centers in the U.S. is expected to increase up to threefold between 2023 and 2028. Among the report’s findings, by 2028 AI in the United States could consume:

• 720 billion gallons of water annually just to cool AI servers — equal to more than 1 million Olympic-size swimming pools, or enough water to meet the indoor needs of 18.5 million American households.
• 300 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy annually — enough electricity to power over 28 million American households.

Meanwhile:

• As of 2024, ChatGPT used over half a million kilowatts of electricity each day, equivalent to the daily power use of 180,000 U.S. households.
• One Meta-owned data center consumes as much power as 7 million laptops running for eight hours each day.
• In Santa Clara Ca., 50 data centers account for 60 percent of the city’s electricity use, while receiving discounted rates on electricity compared to residential rates.

In response, Food & Water Watch’s managing director of policy and litigation, Mitch Jones, made the following statement:

“At its core, President Trump’s AI agenda is nothing more than a thinly-veiled invitation for the fossil fuel and corporate water industries to ramp up their exploitation of our environment and natural resources – all at the expense of everyday people. In communities across the country we are already seeing precious water and energy supplies being diverted to massive data centers, while homes and small businesses are paying ballooning costs for their regular utility needs.

“The expanding data center industry is being leveraged as an excuse to prolong the life of filthy, climate-killing fossil fuel power and dangerous nuclear plants, and even build new ones.

“America’s technological advancements must not come at the expense of everyday families’ water, energy and economic security – plain and simple.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The move comes as Roundup manufacturer Bayer pushes to pass the Cancer Gag Act, which would shield pesticide corporations from health related lawsuits. The Cancer Gag Act was introduced in twelve states this year to robust opposition; it failed in nine and passed in two (the bill is still pending in North Carolina). Reintroduction of the federal Cancer Gag Act, introduced last year as the Agricultural Uniformity Labeling Act, is expected this year.

Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“Today’s despicable vote to further defund the government will undermine public health. There is hardly a family in America untouched by cancer, a disease repeatedly linked to industrial agriculture. Today’s vote gives Big Ag their cake and lets them eat it too — enabling pesticide corporations to profit off dangerous chemicals and preventing the public from being any the wiser about the risks to their own health.

“The Senate must reject this bill out of hand; commit to funding the federal government without hamstringing the EPA; and stand firmly against efforts to pass the Cancer Gag Act in any way, shape or form.”

The appropriations bill language is one of several ways Cancer Gag Act supporters are seeking to pass pesticide immunity language through Congress. Bayer’s push to limit liability comes as the corporation has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to their Roundup product, whose active ingredient glyphosate was determined to be "probably carcinogenic to humans" by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. Pesticide residue has been widely detected in Americans, with some studies finding residue in 100% of U.S. urine samples.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign Lead for Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Head of Delegation for the Global Plastics Treaty negotiation said: “What this report shows is that the plastics crisis is a public health emergency. The Global Plastics Treaty must deliver a 75% cut in plastic production by 2040 to reduce escalating threats to human and planetary health. People are being poisoned so fossil fuel and petrochemical companies can churn out more unnecessary plastic. Without a treaty that cuts production, the plastic crisis will only grow worse.”

The report, Every breath you take: air pollution risks from petrochemicals production for the plastics supply chain, shifts the lens to midstream level plastic production—to the petrochemical plants that produce precursors to plastic and expose frontline communities living near to these facilities who are potentially facing exposure to dangerous air pollutants.

During the production of feedstock, petrochemical facilities emit a suite of harmful airborne substances typically including Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), and sulfur oxides (SOₓ) and particulate matter (PM). Studies report higher concentrations of these pollutants near petrochemical facilities, with proximity linked to increased illness—raising a serious cause for concern.

Key findings from the report include:

• Over 51 million people in the 11 countries studied live within 10 km of plastics-linked petrochemical facilities; 16 million live within 5 km. In every country studied, residential areas lie within 10 km of plastic-linked petrochemical plants.
• The United States has the highest number of people living at a distance that is linked to elevated risk—13 million, especially in Texas and Louisiana.
• One in four people in the Netherlands live at a distance that is linked to elevated risk of exposure to air pollution emissions, including toxic emissions, from petrochemical plants. It has the highest proportion of its population at risk with 4.5 million people or 25.6% of the entire population within the exposure zones assessed in the analysis. The country with the second highest proportion is Switzerland at 10.9% of the population.
• The pollution created by some petrochemical plants in the regions reviewed for the report is transboundary. Several plants are located in border zones, affecting communities in Austria, Poland, Singapore, Belgium, France and Germany.[2]
• In documented case studies, communities near petrochemical facilities suffer disproportionately from cancer, respiratory disease, and premature death. The UN has labeled some of these areas "sacrifice zones."

The report also warns of industry plans to expand global plastic production through 2050, which would create more sacrifice zones, more waste exported to low-income countries, and more short-lived products driving the climate, health and waste crisis.

The global Greenpeace network is demanding that the Global Plastics Treaty must reduce plastic production by at least 75% by 2040 to protect people’s health, the climate and the environment. The next round of negotiations will happen on August 5 to 14, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Full report can be found here.

Photos and videos can be accessed in the Greenpeace Media Library.

Interactive maps of petrochemical production zones can be found here.

Notes:

[1] The report, Every breath you take: air pollution risks from petrochemicals production for the plastics supply chain, identified the locations of petrochemical facilities linked to plastics in 11 countries: Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Canada, USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The countries were selected because of their significant petrochemical presence or association with major plastic-related concerns.

[2] The transboundary zones include populations in Austria and Poland (from German facilities), Singapore (from Malaysian facilities) Belgium and Germany (from Dutch facilities) France and Germany (from Swiss facilities).

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Those opposed to this dangerous development are invited to join the monthly vigil at the main gate of RAF Lakenheath, scheduled for this Saturday, from 12 noon to 2pm. More details here.

CND Chair Tom Unterrainer said:

“CND has been calling on the government to come clean about the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain since 2022 - with more evidence proving that RAF Lakenheath is being primed for such a mission gradually uncovered ever since.
It is completely inappropriate for the public to be finding out about such a major escalation in nuclear dangers via reports in British newspapers and the assessments of security experts. Starmer must make a public statement about this major change in Britain's security arrangements and allow for a transparent and democratic debate on this to be held in Parliament. Enough of the gaslighting and hiding behind national security - the public deserve the truth!”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Federal officials have forgotten the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, because they’ve missed obvious threats to some of the Gulf’s most vulnerable critters,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This analysis falls far short of what the law and science demand, which is why we’re challenging it in court. Our government is required to protect manatees and sea turtles and other threatened animals Americans adore. Officials need to redo these assessments with a much larger dose of reality and much less deference to oil and gas interests.”

Monday’s lawsuit challenges two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analyses, issued in 2018 and 2025, because they fail to adequately consider a range of harms from oil extraction to several endangered species living in the Gulf. These include major oil spills, collisions with drilling rigs, light pollution and habitat degradation. The Service is required under the Endangered Species Act to complete a consultation on oil and gas operations that could harm threatened and endangered species.

In April 2024 the Center filed a lawsuit challenging the 2018 consultation, known as a biological opinion. That analysis claims to consider the effects of 50 years of Gulf oil and gas extraction on West Indian manatees, nesting Kemp’s ridley and loggerhead sea turtles, whooping cranes, Mississippi sandhill cranes, several other bird species and beach mice.

Monday’s filing seeks to amend the 2024 lawsuit to also challenge the 2025 consultation the Trump administration prepared. The purpose of the new consultation is to consider whether new information about the harms of Gulf oil drilling invalidates the 2018 biological opinion and to evaluate the potential harm from drilling to the newly listed black-capped petrel.

In the 2018 analysis, the Service ignored the potential harms from a major oil spill. Although the analysis admitted that up to one oil spill greater than 420,000 gallons in size “is likely to occur,” the agency claims no endangered species would be harmed. The 2025 addendum did not correct that claim, or evaluate the effects of a larger spill, despite evidence indicating a larger spill is likely to occur. Instead, the 2025 consultation reaffirms the conclusions in the 2018 analysis, despite a host of new science demonstrating its conclusions are invalid.

The Gulf contains a massive amount of federal oil and gas extraction, including more than 2,070 active oil and gas leases. Those leases enable thousands of platforms and rigs, tens of thousands of miles of pipelines, and tens of thousands of oil and gas wells.

In 2010 the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion killed 11 people and caused more than 200 million gallons of oil to spill into the ocean. Millions of marine mammals, sea turtles, birds, fish and other wildlife were killed, and the damage continues to this day.

The Center is part of a separate May 2025 lawsuit challenging a biological opinion conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the effects of Gulf oil and gas activities on endangered sperm whales, Rice’s whales, corals and other species.

“History is a valuable guide, and it’s negligent to ignore the possibility of another disastrous Gulf oil spill,” Monsell said. “Sea turtles nesting on the shore and birds relying on Gulf coast marshes are depending on us to keep them safe from oil and gas extraction.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

SBTi’s mandatory fossil fuel transition policy requires financial institutions to immediately cease all financing for coal expansion, immediately cease all new project financing for oil and gas expansion, and phase out general purpose financing for companies engaging in oil and gas expansion no later than 2030.

The final standards failed to incorporate some recommendations, including requiring financial institutions to issue transition plans, closing loopholes on what constitutes “in-scope” financial transactions, and expanding the list of emissions-intensive activities and sectors. The final standard also waters down language around deforestation policies, and gives financial institutions years of leeway before requiring an end to general purpose financing for fossil fuel expansion, which will likely lock in decades of dependence on oil and gas due existing expansion plans.

“SBTi’s finalized guidelines clarify what constitutes credible net-zero plans for financial institutions. It is encouraging that this new standard makes clear, in no uncertain terms, that financing fossil fuel expansion is fundamentally incompatible with any serious net-zero commitment. While there are opportunities to further strengthen this standard, it is an important and necessary step forward for the financial sector. It is imperative that global financial institutions adopt this standard and align their strategies accordingly,” said Jessye Waxman, Policy Advisor for the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Finance campaign.

“Today's final standard for financial institutions exemplifies the critical role SBTi plays in the fight against climate change—in a fractured and often dysfunctional policy ecosystem, ensuring a science-based and credible net-zero architecture for financial institutions is more important than ever,” said Ernesto Archila, climate and financial regulation policy director with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “FI’s should adopt and implement this standard because of the vitally important elements it contains, especially the clear recognition that carbon removals and credits cannot be used in calculating portfolio emissions, the inclusion of insurance underwriting of fossil projects as in-scope, and the immediate cessation of project financing for new fossil fuel infrastructure. Unfortunately, it fails on a number of dimensions to live up to the needs of the moment, including by watering down deforestation requirements, postponing until 2030 a requirement to cease general purpose finance for oil and gas, and failing to require transition plans.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Federal judges must be fair-minded and ethical, highly qualified, and committed to civil and human rights. The Senate’s confirmation of Joshua Divine to the federal bench in Missouri betrays these standards and instead installs into a lifetime judgeship an individual who does not possess the requisite experience to be a federal judge and who has time and time again demonstrated significant hostility to our civil and human rights. His limited legal career — which includes a record of intense opposition to reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, student loan borrowers, and more — is disqualifying. Our courts, our communities, and our democracy deserve better. Senators must ensure that judicial nominees are fair-minded, actually qualified for the job, and faithful to the rule of law and Constitution rather than to an anti-civil rights agenda.”

Read The Leadership Conference’s letter in opposition to Joshua Divine’s confirmation here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Flailing to distract once-loyal cultists who've turned unexpectedly unruly on the murky matter of bestie Jeffrey Epstein - "The people are revolting!" - Trump is busy shouting "Look! Over there!" about myriad other shiny objects: The "Redskins," the FBI files on MLK, his "Golden Age," star-turn at soccer, "Dollar-Tree-Versailles" Oval Office, more spray tan, less corn syrup, the deranged need to jail "Barack HUSSEIN Obama." Still, MAGA remains wary: "He’s wearing makeup on his hands, so things are just getting weird."

The people's fledgling revolt - Mel Brooks: "They stink on ice" - is reflected in news polls showing Trump's approval plummeting at least 16 points to hover around 40%. On immigration, only about 35% approve of his crackdowns; just 23% support his deportations of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record, a figure likely to drop with news his flunkies gave ICE access to the Medicaid records of nearly 80 million people in another bogus hunt for "illegals," who can't get Medicaid. More smoke and mirrors: For all their performative cruelty, Trump’s ICE raids have led to fewer deportations than under Obama and barely more than under Biden, and the whole gaudy, ghastly spectacle of disappearing hundreds of Venezuelans to CECOT ended in a swap for 10 Americans jailed, intoned Marco Rubio with no trace of irony, "without proper due process."

Americans also hate the tariffs, big ugly bill, rising prices. They're worried about health insurance, also those ankles. And now Dear Leader is calling them "losers" and "bad people" because they wanna know the story behind Jeffrey Epstein's file, which Pam Bondi just said was sitting on her desk, but then she said oops never mind, and Trump keeps saying it's all a "scam” by Dems except if it doesn't exist how could Dems have written it and they "don't understand why (he) would do this - it doesn't make sense." His former bestie Musk chimed in - "Wow, I can’t believe Epstein killed himself before realizing it was all a hoax” - and he even lost Nazi Nick Fuentes. "Fuck you," Fuentes screeched. "You're fat, you're a joke, you're stupid...This entire thing has been a scam. We're gonna look back at the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history. The liberals were right." Yikes.

Improbably, with all the atrocities he's committed - pussy, racism, Nazis, sedition, grift, seven gazillion lies - the furor over Epstein seems to be sticking, at least for now. About 80% of Americans think the government should release all documents in the case, including 85% of Democrats and three-quarters of Independents and Republicans. Only 4% think it shouldn't. It didn't help when Bondi made a big deal about releasing "raw" video footage outside Epstein's prison cell the night he died to prove nobody offed him, only for Wired to reveal nearly three minutes were missing, sparking MAGA frenzy about a Deep State plot nicely dovetailing with QAnon's insistence Bill Clinton and other Dems lead a child porn cabal Trump will save them from - except maybe for that interview where he said, "I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with."

But Epstein kept re-surfacing. Trump reportedly fought to kill it, but the Wall Street Journal went ahead with publishing their story about a lewd birthday card Trump sent Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003: Several lines of text framed by the outline of a naked woman, signed by a squiggly “Donald” where her pubic hair would be. "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey," he wrote ominously. "May every day be another wonderful secret." Caught, he said it was fake. He said Obama and Biden made it up. He said, "These are not my words...Also, I don't make drawings." Online, 7,000 people helpfully posted images of his often-auctioned drawings, mostly of cityscapes drawn with a heavy marker. Straight-faced, the New York Times noted, "They are not dissimilar to how The Wall Street Journal describes the birthday note he sent Mr. Epstein."

Trump did what he always does: He threatened to sue for defamation: "Thank you for your attention to this matter." Then he did. In a complaint that misstated the WSJ story and "reads like a press release," he sued WSJ publisher Dow Jones & Co., its parent company News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and others for $10 billion in damages. Then, hoping to end "this SCAM," he asked Pam Bondi to release grand jury testimony on Epstein - "a meaningless trick" because courts tend to prohibit such disclosure, and even if it went ahead he asked the court for "appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information." Still, The Good Liars jumped in to help foster transparency by stocking the gift shop display racks at Trump Tower with post cards of the famed image of the two smiling perverts, "up to no good." Next to them, Melania gazes out, robotic.

Sensing a losing fight, Trump's deflection campaign.grew ever more bonkers. Marking the six-month anniversary of "one of the most consequential periods of any President, including ending numerous wars" (say wut?), when "one year ago our country was DEAD" (ditto), he released a cheesy, cringey, AI-generated video declaring, "Day 179 of the “Trump Golden Age." Cue fireworks and fake eagles soaring over the White House while dropping dollar bills to the song Make It Rain Reviews: "Downright embarrassing,” "Really gross," "They need to use AI because we are not seeing tangible evidence of anything good." Musk’s Nazi chatbot Grok: "Where eagles crap cash and fireworks fix everything. Reality check: Golden parachutes for billionaires while the rest dodge inflation hailstones." And, “Why don’t you make it rain Epstein files?”

— (@)

It got wilder Friday after Director of National Intelligence (sic) Tulsi Gabbard announced she's referring Obama officials to the DOJ for prosecution over allegations they “manufactured” intelligence about Russia in the 2016 election. Newly declassified documents show Obama et al "politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump"; they must be punished "for the American people to have any sense of trust in the integrity of our democratic republic." MAGA piled on. It was "a pivotal fracture in American trust," it "makes Watergate look like Amateur Hour." Stephen Goebbels was feverish: Gabbard "has exposed the startling depths of a seditious coup against the republic. The forces behind (it) will do anything to protect their grasp (on) illegitimate power. Do not underestimate their capabilities or depravities." Whew.

On her Sunday show, Maria Bartiromo brought up Gabbard’s news 18 times. Epstein: 0. Trump posted about it 17 times; inspired, he's been tirelessly flinging spaghetti at the wall to see what'll stick. He proclaimed, with carefully curated images, "STACKING UP WINS": "Ice Cream makers pledge to remove artificial colors," "Consumer prices rise less than expected." He railed against "thief" Adam Schiff. He said Coke will replace their corn syrup with sugar. (Coke said, wait what?) He posted videos of wacky stunts. (A woman grabbing a snake was fake). Against the wishes of family and colleagues, he released 200,000 pages of records of FBI surveillance of MLK Jr., under seal since 1977. King's two surviving children called it “an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing” operation “to discredit, dismantle and destroy” King and the movement he led.

Speaking of "invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing,” the fragile, petty, vengeful boy-king, feeling he hadn't gone quite far enough to offend and distract, also posted an AI compilation of fake mugshots, dubbed "The Shady Bunch, featuring Democrats - most notably "Barack Hussein Obama" - in orange prison jumpsuits. A day or so later, evidently feeling especially insecure, he went especially crass. The new AI video starts with multiple Democratic pols declaring, "No one is above the law." Then it goes to a fake scenario of FBI agents arresting Obama in the Oval Office as Trump sits, beams, gloats. It moves to Obama, jump-suited in a jail cell, all while the Village People sing YMCA. In response, at least one sick fan of this cretin urged Pam Bondi, "MAKE THIS A REALITY." Truly, you gotta wonder what malignant, hallucinatory reality these fucking creeps inhabit.

— (@)

Meanwhile, their leader keeps flouting laws and probity; in a recent lawsuit brought by watchdog group CREW for refusing to disclose spending decisions as mandated by law - regime flunkies deemed it "an unconstitutional encroachment" on their tinpot's whims - U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivana blasted the mob-boss' "extravagant and unsupported theory of presidential power" and declared, "Defendants are therefore required to stop violating the law!" Alas, arbitrary and often punitive rules still reign. Press Barbie just announced the Wall Street Journal will be banned from the press pool for an upcoming trip to Scotland for their "fake and defamatory conduct" - is fake conduct a thing? - aka committing journalism and reporting the ugly, pubic-doodling truth about the sexual predator now defiling our pimped-up Oval Office.

Still deflecting - and still racist - he also just demanded the Washington Commanders, along with Cleveland Guardians, return to their old, offensive names, Redskins and Indians, witlessly claiming, "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen." Ever the bully, he even threatened to renege on a plan to build the Washington team a new stadium in D.C. "Indians are being treated very unfairly," he blathered. "MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!!" Of course Native activists called bullshit on returning to names they fought for years to remove as "a slur." "We are language keepers, land protectors, survivors of attempted genocide and part of sovereign nations," said one. "To equate Native people with cartoonish mascots (is) a gross and ongoing tactic of dehumanization...We are being used as tools for a distraction."

In another cringe move, the sports wannabe made it all about himself at the World Cup Final at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium, where Chelsea won a surprise 3-0 victory against Paris Saint-Germain. The crowd booed Trump before he crashed the postgame ceremony, lumbering onstage to hand over the trophy and then staying put as Chelsea's Captain asked, “Are you going to leave?” and FIFA head Gianni Infantino tried to pull him away to allow the team their victory photo. In the end, there he was - fat, rumpled, cluelessly claiming "I've earned a spot in the shot" - as players whooped around him. The team didn't even get the real trophy; at an earlier photo-op at the White House, Trump claimed that too. But in sports as in life, strategy is key. For hours, no official photo of "the team moment” appeared on Chelsea's website; when it finally did, Trump had been scrubbed out.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

The FOIA requests in question specifically seek information concerning Executive Orders 14210, 14154 and 14219. These orders direct all federal agencies to provide OMB with plans for massive restructuring, direct all agencies to provide OMB with lists of critical environmental and health protections they plan to withdraw, and direct EPA to provide OMB with recommendations related to its longstanding finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and must be subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. This “endangerment finding” underpins all of EPA’s authority to take action on climate change.

"The Freedom of Information Act exists because the government must be accountable to the people it serves. Trump must not be allowed to flout the law and dismantle the agencies and regulations meant to protect public health and the environment in a black box – particularly when the health and safety of millions of people are at stake. We demand the transparency afforded to us by federal law, and we're not backing down until we have answers,” said Dani Replogle, staff attorney at Food & Water Watch.

Food & Water Watch is represented in this matter by the public interest law firm Eubanks & Associates, PLLC, as well as Ms. Replogle.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The 9th American Forest Congress concluded in Washington, D.C. on Friday by passing resolutions in support of recruiting and protecting old growth trees, stewarding forests as a natural climate solution, improving federal forest management, and promoting policies to advance the use of beneficial fire in forest restoration.

In response, Anna Medema, Sierra Club’s Associate Director of Legislative and Administrative Advocacy for Forests and Public Lands, released the following statement:

“The threats facing our national forests have never been greater, but support for those forests has never been stronger. At a time when some in power are working to sell our public lands and open up tens of millions of acres of untouched forests to industrial development, we must work harder than ever to protect them. These resolutions show that protecting our national forests is not a niche issue – it unites us across politics and geography. This Forest Congress has made it clear: experts across the forestry sector agree that federal forest lands are essential and we must continue to steward them for generations to come, not sell them off to the highest bidder.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Beth Miller, Political Director, JVP Action:

“In a shocking turn of events, Andrew Cuomo got one thing right: young Jewish voters overwhelmingly supported Zohran Mamdani for mayor. And they did this not in spite of, but because of, his support for Palestinian rights. Jewish New Yorkers want elected officials with consistent values, whose progressive politics do not stop at our city’s borders.

“Mamdani’s unapologetic support for freedom, justice, and equality for all people — including Palestinians — was a political boon to his campaign, and was one of the primary motivators for many Jews in his historic canvassing operation. Meanwhile, Cuomo decided his path back to political power was through Islamophobic fearmongering about antisemitism, and doubling down on support for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, even going so far as to join Netanyahu’s legal team after the International Court charged him with war crimes. The pro-Cuomo Super PAC spent over $25 million, relying on Islamophobic smears to attack Mamdani. It failed spectacularly.

“Corrupt and cynical politicians like Cuomo and Eric Adams will continue to fail because they are offering nothing more than hate and division. New York Jews see that Mamdani is putting forward a vision rooted in humanity and dignity. He’s working for a better life for all. And that’s what we are fighting for.”

JVP Action endorsed Mamdani on October 23, the day he launched his campaign. The organization mobilized over 2,500 volunteers and led canvasses across Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island that knocked an estimated 80,000 doors.

While Cuomo holds closed-door fundraisers in the Hamptons, JVP Action members will continue knocking doors across the city to elect a mayor who supports humanity for everyone, from NYC to Palestine.

Beth Miller is available to speak with the media.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"Of course, Holtec is not only proceeding at its own risk, but is putting the Great Lakes State, and the entire Great Lakes Basin, at existential risk, of a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-level radioactive catastrophe," said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, based in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“It appears that Holtec could well already be rushing ahead with the sleeving of dangerously degraded steam generator tubes, even though our legal challenge against the adequacy of that proposed band-aid fix is still underway at the NRC licensing board,” said Wally Taylor, an attorney based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa representing the coalition.

“If Holtec is indeed already sleeving damaged steam generator tubes, this means the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board proceedings have been turned into a farce by NRC Staff’s complicity in the regulatory violations,” said Terry Lodge, an attorney based in Toledo, Ohio representing the coalition. “Holtec decides what to do, and when, while NRC maintains the mere illusion of regulation, and with a wink and nod, allows Holtec to proceed, in secret, despite our coalition’s official legal intervention opposing these dangerous shortcuts on safety,” Lodge added.

“Did NRC wait to publish the Palisades restart inspection report late on a Friday night, while we were busy meeting an entirely related deadline, hoping we would have less chance of noticing it?” asked Taylor.

Gundersen has previously testified in written declarations that the already degraded steam generators, in need of replacement for two decades, were made significantly worse by Holtec’s “rookie error” of neglecting to implement critical safety maintenance — wet layup — from 2022 to 2024, allowing corrosive chemical attack both inside and outside the exceedingly thin-walled steam generator tubes. Gundersen has also warned that a cascading failure of steam generator tubes could result in a reactor core meltdown, and catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity into the environment.

Ironically, the coalition’s legal counsel were, at that very moment late Friday night, rebutting attacks on the coalition’s petition to intervene and request for hearings, regarding Holtec’s License Amendment Request (LAR) to the NRC, for permission to merely sleeve dangerously degraded steam generator tubes, rather than replace the steam generators in their entirety. The coalition had petitioned to intervene and requested a hearing on June 16, 2025. NRC Staff and Holtec then filed Answers, challenging the coalition’s petition and request. The coalition had until 11:59pm Eastern Time on Friday, July 18 to file its Reply to the Answers. The coalition met the deadline, defending its concerns regarding potentially dangerous operations to commence, potentially in the very near future, from using questionable repairs on its old, degraded steam generators, if NRC approves Holtec’s scheme.

The environmental coalition legally intervening against Holtec’s unprecedented, unneeded, exorbitantly expensive for the public, and extremely high risk for health, safety, and the environment, Palisades restart scheme includes: Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The District’s 2020 lawsuit against Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell argues that the companies violated D.C.’s consumer protection law by engaging in misleading acts and practices around the marketing, promotion, and sale of fossil fuel products. In April, a court rejected the Big Oil companies’ motions to dismiss the case, bringing it one step closer to trial.

In June, 16 Republican attorneys general asked U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to help erect a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies against climate lawsuits. Among its tactics, the attorneys general recommended that the federal government “Restrict federal funding for ‘States that seek to impose liability on, or require payment from, energy companies for climate change[.]’”

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement:

“The fossil fuel industry and its allies are trying to kill any and all lawsuits that would hold Big Oil companies accountable for their climate lies and the damage they’ve caused — and this assault on D.C.’s ability to enforce its own consumer protection laws is part of their playbook. No industry should be above the law, especially one as powerful and harmful as Big Oil. Members of Congress must reject this underhanded attempt to help Big Oil escape accountability and protect access to the courts for every community.”

Background on U.S. Climate Accountability Lawsuits Against Big Oil:

Ten U.S. states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai`i, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont — and the District of Columbia, along with dozens of city, county, and tribal governments in California, Colorado, Hawai`i, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington, and Puerto Rico, have filed lawsuits to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change. These cases collectively represent more than 1 in 4 people living in the United States. Last year, the attorney general of Michigan announced plans to take fossil fuel companies to court.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The petition argues that full transparency is essential to ensure that all individuals connected to Epstein’s criminal activities are held accountable. Without the release of these documents, powerful individuals who were associated with Epstein may evade justice and avoid facing the legal consequences of their actions.

The petition, just launched yesterday, has been signed by over 42,049 people and counting.

See the MoveOn petition here.

Public frustration over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files has sparked backlash from across the political spectrum — including MAGA influencers, conservative podcasters, and even some of Trump’s congressional allies. Despite this, President Trump has dismissed the growing demand for transparency as a "hoax," blaming Democrats and disparaging some of his own supporters as "weaklings."

Just three percent of Americans say they’re satisfied with the amount of information the federal government has released about the Epstein case, according to a new poll.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This is what the march toward authoritarianism looks like:

Stephen Colbert, the most popular late-night talk show host on television, has been taken off the air by CBS just days after he criticized the company for settling a bogus lawsuit with Trump. It’s pretty obvious why Paramount chose to surrender to Trump. The Redstone family, the major owners of the company, is in line to receive $2.4 billion from the sale of Paramount to Skydance, but they can only receive this money if the Trump administration approves this deal.

NPR and PBS, two of the most independent news outlets in the country, had their budgets slashed to the tune of $1 billion by Trump and Republicans in Congress. Why? Because Trump doesn’t like criticism. NPR and PBS, like other objective news outlets, are prepared to tell the truth — including the impact that Trump’s disastrous policies are having on the American people.

Sen. Adam Schiff, who led an impeachment inquiry into Trump during his last term in Congress, is now being targeted by the Justice Department. This is not unlike the criminal investigation launched into New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who won a fraud judgment against Trump's business and has challenged his policies in court. The president says Schiff should be "brought to justice."

Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, is now being threatened with removal from his post because he has refused to lower interest rates and insists that the Fed maintain its independence from the White House. The Supreme Court says Trump needs a reason to fire Powell. So now Trump has come up with a ridiculous claim: that Powell mismanaged federal funds for an over-budget building renovation. Really?

All of this in just one week.

It is no great secret that our country is divided politically.

But I would hope that ALL Americans can come together to defend the rule of law, freedom of speech and our Constitution against a President who is moving this country aggressively toward authoritarianism.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The orders Trump signed Thursday evening are unprecedented and let facilities put off using better technology or even turn off the systems that filter out some of the most potent cancer-causing chemicals the Environmental Protection Agency regulates, including ethylene oxide, benzene, chloroprene and formaldehyde.

“Trump is illegally delaying clean air laws from his desk because polluters make more money when they just dump their toxic chemicals in our air,” said Patrice Simms, vice president of Litigation at Earthjustice’s Healthy Communities Program. "Trump’s action on behalf of big corporate polluters will cause more cancer, more birth defects, and more children to suffer asthma. The country deserves better.”

Now, more than 50 chemical facilities can turn off pollution controls or dodge recently strengthened emission limits, including those under the Hazardous Organic National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (HON) standards. Factories processing taconite iron ore, manufacturing chemical polymers and resins, and facilities using ethylene oxide, are also getting similar free passes to pollute, even though pollution controls are available.

EPA is also exempting over 30 commercial sterilization facilities. These include over half of the facilities that EPA already found to pose an exceptional cancer risk to their surrounding communities. Some facilities have cancer risk rates over 80 times EPA’s acceptable cancer risk rate, and are capable of causing a new cancer diagnosis every month and a half.

Neighborhoods next to chemical plants, power plants, commercial sterilizers, and metal processing sites in Texas, California, Utah, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, and West Virginia, will face the worst of this continuing pollution, as these states are home to major facilities. Some of the protections being delayed, like the HON standards, prevent over 6,000 tons of toxic emissions each year and help protect more than 7 million people, many of them children, from breathing chemicals linked to cancer, asthma, and birth defects.

In April 2025, the Trump administration exempted 68 coal-fired power plants from pollution limits set in the strengthened MATS rule—even though pollution controls are widely available and already in use. These came after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin invited corporations to email the agency to request exemptions from clean air standards. Companies were told they could cite “national security” or “lack of available technology” as justification.

Types of facilities exempt from clean air standards include:

• Ethylene oxide commercial sterilizers: At least 39 facilities in 23 states and territories (Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia).

• Chemical manufacturing facilities: 52 facilities in 13 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia).

• Taconite iron ore processing facilities: Eight facilities in two states (Michigan and Minnesota)

• Coal-fired power plants: Three facilities in three states (Colorado, Ohio, and Illinois)

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The bill, essentially written by the crypto industry itself, will deregulate stablecoins, legalize anonymous crypto donations in U.S. elections, and allow elected officials, including Trump, to personally profit from speculative assets. Its passage comes just days before Trump is set to host a private gala for the top buyers of his $TRUMP meme coin, a cryptocurrency venture already making his family millions.

As one of the most vocal national organizations warning about the risks posed by the GENIUS Act, Our Revolution has mobilized thousands of grassroots members to sign petitions, attend town halls, join national organizing calls with Senators Warren and Merkley, and protest outside Trump’s meme coin gala at his Virginia golf club.

“The passage of the GENIUS Act is a stark escalation of kleptocracy and oligarchy in America,” said Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution “This bill wasn’t just influenced by crypto billionaires, it was written for them, and passed with bipartisan complicity. While politicians normalize self-dealing and financial elites consolidate power, we hear almost nothing from the media about how this corrupt system is steamrolling democracy and deepening inequality. It’s working-class people who pay the price, while anonymous speculators and political insiders get richer and more unaccountable by the day.”

As Our Revolution previously warned, the GENIUS Act amounts to a billionaire-backed power grab—crafted to benefit Trump’s inner circle and the crypto elite. Crypto speculators spent more than $200 million on the 2024 election, making the industry the largest lobbying force in U.S. politics today. Now, they’re cashing in.

Our Revolution mobilized its national network against the bill, with over 10,000 grassroots members signing a petition demanding Democrats vote no. Despite this outcry, 16 Democrats joined Republicans in the House to advance the legislation—just as Trump prepares to reward anonymous investors with access to political power.

The organization warns that this legislation sets a dangerous precedent: one where political influence is auctioned off to unregulated and untraceable financial actors, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle normalize profiteering from public office.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“With this vote, Senate Republicans are telling us everything we need to know about their priorities. After passing a tax law that gives a massive giveaway to billionaires and raises costs on working families, Senate Republicans are now codifying DOGE’s deeply unpopular and reckless cuts to vital programs. Once again, Republicans are failing to deliver on the one thing they promised: lower prices. Instead, they’re waging a campaign that will make life more expensive and difficult for working families while lining the pockets of the wealthy.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for Public Citizen, issued the following statement condemning the passage of the bill:

“Today, House members piled venality onto perversion onto corruption. In approving this crypto-enabling bill, Congress surrendered to the onslaught of crypto political spending and legitimized the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme.

“To add insult to injury, they also forfeited an opportunity to stop Trump’s massive crypto grift, some of the most heinous and flagrant corruption in American presidential history.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Taking a break from the awful to celebrate - remember that? - indefatigable civil rights icon, all-round mensch and former chicken preacher John Lewis, who died five years ago today after a lifetime of good trouble. The peerless "moral compass of Congress," now sorely lacking, Lewis never gave up seeking his "beloved community" even as he acknowledged he might never live in it. "Our struggle is not (of) a day, month or year," he said: "It is the struggle of a lifetime."

Over 60 years, Lewis' lifetime of struggle extended from student lunch-counter sit-ins, beatings on Freedom Rides, founding and leading SNCC, speaking fire as the youngest organizer of the March in Washington and Bloody Sunday's seminal Selma march to, eventually, the halls of Congress, where he served 17 terms while persisting in making good trouble in ongoing fights for peace, immigrants, LGBTQ rights and voting rights that, he resolutely declared, “For generations we have marched, fought and even died for." Above all, "John believed in the power of ordinary people to do extraordinary things."

Born the son of sharecroppers outside Troy, Alabama in 1940, he attended segregated public schools. As a boy, he wanted to be a minister, and famously practiced his oratory on the family chickens. Denied a library card for the color of his skin, he became a voracious reader. He was a teenager when he heard, riveted, Martin Luther King Jr. preaching on the radio. They met when Lewis was trying to become the first Black student at Alabama’s segregated Troy State University; he ultimately attended the American Baptist Theological Seminary and Nashville's Fisk University.

Along with Diane Nash and other members of the Nashville Student Movement, he began organizing sit-ins at whites-only lunch counters after four Black college students in Greensboro, N.C. first did it; there, staff refused to serve them but the students wouldn't leave, and then went back with more recruits. Lewis' first arrest came in February 1960 at age 20, when he sat down at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Nashville. Angry white patrons beat and tried to remove him and his fellow protesters; when police finally arrived, they arrested the protesters.

“I didn't necessarily want to go to jail," he recalled in a 1973 interview. “But we knew (it) would rally the student community." And it did: By the end of the day 98 students were in jail, hundreds followed, and that spring Nashville lunch counters began serving Blacks. "Nashville prepared me," he said. "We grew up sitting down or sitting in. And we grew up very fast." Soon, Lewis was also traveling through a belligerent, still-segregated South as a Freedom Rider, enduring more beatings and arrests. Between 1960 and 1966, he was arrested at least 40 times; as a Congressman, he was arrested five more times.

As the 23-year-old head of SNCC, he gave a fiery speech at 1963's MLK Jr.-led March on Washington. Older fellow-organizers - Philip Randolph, 74, and James Farmer, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins - urged him to tone it down; he scaled back critiques of JFK and dropped a "scorched earth" reference, but it was still potent. "To those who have said, 'Be patient'...We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen, (of) seeing our people locked up in jail... How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now...We shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in an image of God and democracy.”

Two years later, hands tucked in his genteel tan overcoat, he led over 600 voting rights protesters over Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Ku Klux Klan leader, in what became known as Bloody Sunday. State troopers and "deputized" white thugs beat him so badly - still-chilling video here - they fractured his skull. Images of the brutality shocked a complacent nation, and eventually helped led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When he joined Pres. Obama at the site 55 years later, Lewis was still urging anyone who'd listen to "get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America."

In 1981, Lewis turned to politics, getting elected to the Atlanta City Council; in 1986, he won what became his longtime seat in Congress. He spent much of his career in the minority, but when Dems won the House in 2006, he became his party’s senior deputy whip. Humble, friendly, eloquent, he was revered as the "moral compass" of the House. Hs last arrest was in 2013, when he was one of 8 Dem lawmakers, including Keith Ellison and Al Green, arrested at a sit-in for immigration reform; police arrested almost 200 people for "disrupting" the street. Lewis blithely posted a photo: "Arrest number 45."

The last survivor of the civil rights icons, he worked for 15 years toward the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History. When Trump ran in 2016, he sensed the urgency, posting, "I’ve marched, protested, been beaten and arrested - all for the right to vote. Friends (gave) their lives. Honor their sacrifice. Vote." He refused to attend the inauguration because Trump wasn't a "legitimate president." He called him "a racist" after the "shithole countries" slur, and voted for impeachment: “When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Our children and their children will ask us, 'What did you do? What did you say?'"

He died of pancreatic cancer on July 17, 2020, at 80. Nancy Pelosi called him "one of the greatest heroes of American history...May his memory be an inspiration that moves us all to, in the face of injustice, make ‘good trouble, necessary trouble.'” This week, Congressional Black Caucus members honored his legacy by vowing to do the same and reading his works. "His words are more necessary today than ever," said Rep. Jennifer McClellan. "John Lewis understood just as Dr. King did he wasn’t going to reach the promised land of that more perfect union. But he fought for it."

Since his death, Dems have continued to reintroduce the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore key, GOP-trashed provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It has repeatedly stalled in Congress, and for now will likely continue to. But Lewis' colleagues vow to keep pushing for it, said Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath, "to honor his legacy with unshakeable determination to fight for what is right and what is just." "Freedom is not a state; it is an act," said Lewis. "It is not some enchanted garden perched high (where) we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take." While, he attested at a Stacey Abrams event the year before he died, finding joy. May he rest in peace and power.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

• Visit Releasethefiles.org

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian:

“It is so obviously in the public interest to release all government materials about a convicted sex trafficker with ties to some of the most powerful and wealthy individuals in the world, including the sitting president. But instead of living up to his campaign promises, President Trump is telling his supporters to just stop talking about it. With all this muddied water, the only reasonable solution is to release the Epstein files and let the American people decide for themselves. This transcends partisan politics, which is why we’re calling on all Americans—Republicans, Democrats and independents—to call their representative and demand to see what the government is hiding.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Formerly Trump’s personal attorney, Emil Bove has created scandal after scandal at Trump’s Justice Department, including a whistleblower’s report that he told subordinates that he was “willing to ignore court orders” in order to further Trump’s agenda, dropping corruption charges against a Trump ally from whom the administration was seeking political cooperation, and firing dozens of career prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases.

In response, Demand Justice Interim Executive Director Maggie Jo Buchanan issued the following statement:

“Today’s Senate Judiciary Committee meeting was a clear indication of MAGA Republicans’ willingness to put blind loyalty to Trump before their oaths of office and duties to their constituents.

“Chair Grassley and other Republican members of the committee refused to even hear out their Democratic colleagues, let alone vote on a motion to hear from the whistleblower. Senator Booker correctly accused his colleagues across the aisle of abusing their power. We applaud his efforts to ensure the public could learn more about the serious allegations Bove faces, as well as the committee Democrats who walked out of the meeting in light of their Republican colleagues’ actions.

“Senators on both sides of the aisle must show their commitment to judicial independence and keep this extreme, Trump loyalist off the federal bench. Voting “no” should not be a difficult choice for any Senator with an ounce of self-respect or respect for the courts.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Chairman Grassley and Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans just shamefully disregarded our democratic process in an attempt to ram through Trump’s judicial nominees. They tried to silence a government whistleblower who raised serious concerns about Emil Bove and his ability to rule impartially. Bove is an extreme ideologue, and his lifetime appointment sets the stage for the President and his allies to seek out favorable rulings no matter how unconstitutional their actions. It’s reprehensible that Senate Republicans silenced a basic acknowledgement of the facts, in order to jam through judicial appointments who will be a rubber stamp for Trump’s out-of-touch agenda.”

Last week, an Accountable.US research report revealed that Bove has not committed to key recusals ahead of his nomination hearing. In a nomination form, Bove pledged to recuse himself from “situations that present actual conflicts of interest based on my current or prior positions at the Department of Justice” – but Bove has so far refrained from preemptively recusing himself from any future case involving his former client and current boss, Donald Trump. By comparison, another one of Trump’s current judicial nominees, Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe, pledged to recuse herself from any case involving her family or companies owned by her husband.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Individual North Carolina voters Amy Grace Bryant, Rani Dasi, Audrey Meigs, Gabriela Adler-Espino, Larry Repanes, Ralim Allston, Kemeka Sidbury, and Mary Kay Heling, along with the NAACP North Carolina State Conference and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina — represented by attorneys from Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Forward Justice, and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law — filed a motion Tuesday to intervene in United States v. N.C. State Board of Elections.

The lawsuit claims the state is not complying with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), based on alleged missing information in voter registration databases, and seeks to compel a process that requires affected voters to resubmit personal information to remain on the rolls. The state’s failure to collect or preserve the missing information is not the fault of the affected voters, who fully complied with all registration requirements at the time—yet they now risk being removed from the rolls based on the relief being pursued in this case.

The intervenors seek to ensure eligible North Carolina voters at risk of being wrongfully removed from the rolls can participate in elections and are safeguarded from this serious threat to their fundamental right to vote.

Read the motion here.

“I believe in democracy and fighting for human rights. I cannot in good conscience claim to fight for other people’s rights and let my own get taken away,” said Gabriela Adler-Espino, a voter in Craven County who lives abroad with her husband who is in the military. “I did everything I had to do to ensure my vote was valid. What kind of person would I be—and what example would I be setting for my child—if I did not now fight for my own?”

“I felt angry and disheartened,” said Audrey Meigs, a voter from Durham County. “It’s infuriating that I once again have to worry about someone challenging my voter registration.”

“Instead of helping people vote, this administration is trying to block North Carolinians from having their say at the ballot box,” said Deborah Maxwell, president of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference. “We’re speaking out today to stand up for Black voters and our democracy—and to demand that everyone’s right to take part in our elections is protected.”

"Over the past few years, anti-voter forces sought to silence hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, but the League of Women Voters of North Carolina fought back — and voters and democracy prevailed,” said Jennifer McMillan Rubin, president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina. “Now, the Department of Justice is seeking to unlawfully put hundreds of thousands of North Carolina voters at risk of disenfranchisement. Once again, the League won’t back down. We will always fight to protect voters who deserve to have a say in North Carolina elections.”

Background

In late May, the Trump administration sued North Carolina’s State Board of Elections (NCSBE) for violating federal law by allegedly processing incomplete voter registration forms. For years, North Carolina’s voter registration form requested, but did not require, a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Though the form was fixed in 2023 to clarify that this identification information was required, and voters have to verify their identity when presenting to vote, the Justice Department now wants a federal judge to compel the NCSBE, to contact affected voters, obtain their missing info, and update the records.

The real danger of the lawsuit is that eligible voters who are either unable to be contacted or respond in time could lose their right to vote through no fault of their own. These hundreds of thousands of voters have repeatedly faced challenges to their right to cast a ballot despite following the rules at the time of registering. Their eligibility was questioned in an October 2023 administrative complaint; an ongoing August 2024 lawsuit; after the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court race; and now again in this case.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

These four Task Forces—focused on lowering costs, ending corporate greed, fighting corruption, and securing better pay and benefits—are part of a broader effort by the CPC to define a Democratic governing agenda that is clear, popular, easy to understand, and quickly delivers material benefits to working people.

Among other work, the Task Forces will be focused on advancing a slate of policy proposals members have been working on internally for several months that are not only progressive, but also enjoy support from voters across the ideological and demographic spectrum—from suburban voters to non-college-educated to independents—and could be passed by a Democratic House after the midterms. New polling from Data for Progress finds these policies enjoy a supermajority and give a 9-point advantage for Democrats who lead with these themes compared to a generic Democratic message against a Republican opponent.

The four new Task Forces are:

• Lowering Costs

Chair: Rep. Yassamin Ansari

• Fighting Corruption

Chair: Rep. Dave Min

Vice Chair: Rep. Hank Johnson

• Ending Corporate Greed

Chair: Rep. Becca Balint

• Better Pay and Benefits

Chair: Rep. Emily Randall

Vice Chair: Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

In addition, CPC Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar will help lead the coordination of Task Force work and take over as Chair of the Caucus’s longstanding Peace & Security Task Force this Congress.

"Working people in America are getting screwed by corrupt politicians and big corporations that are driving costs up and keeping pay and benefits down,” said Rep. Greg Casar (TX-35). “Our four new task forces go directly at those big problems facing Americans: fighting corruption and corporate greed in order to lower costs and win better pay and benefits."

“In my home state of Arizona, families have been crushed by rising costs brought on by Trump and Republicans—whether it’s skyrocketing healthcare premiums, unaffordable housing, or the soaring costs of education, childcare, long-term care, and even just commuting to work,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03). “I’m honored to lead the Lowering Costs Task Force as one of the ways we’re fighting back to deliver bold policies that will help working families.”

“Whether it was prosecuting fraud at the SEC or teaching the next generation of advocates as a law professor at UC Irvine, I’ve spent my career fighting to uphold the rule of law and root out corruption,” said Rep. Dave Min (CA-47). “Americans are fed up with an economy and a government that are rigged in favor of the powerful and well connected while failing to serve working people. I’m proud to continue the anti-corruption fight in Congress and look forward to working with my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus to fight for transparency and fairness.”

“I came to Congress to unrig a system that makes it so hard for so many Americans to get a fair shot,” said Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL). “And today, I’m fired up to launch the Ending Corporate Greed Task Force alongside my progressive colleagues to do the real work necessary to build an America that gives people a real chance at an easier life. Corporate greed is at the root of so many of the struggles working people face. And it’s time we take back power over our rigged economy and fight back against the greed that makes everything harder for the rest of us. Because we have a vision for a reality where we can all afford to make rent, have affordable health care, get paid fair wages, and get an education without crippling debt. ”

“In my family and in my community, I’ve seen firsthand how good Union wages and pensions open doors to stability, to opportunity, to economic security. I’ve seen my grandparents, my teachers, my neighbors afford homes and vacations and childcare because they had good jobs. But over the years, affording a good life has gotten harder and harder,” said Rep. Emily Randall (WA-06). “Our neighbors deserve leaders who put people before profits and stand up for what’s right. They deserve leaders who understand that an economy that is centered on working people is a stronger economy for everyone. As Chair of the Better Pay and Benefits Task Force, I’m committed to fighting for fairer wages, stronger benefits, safer workplaces, and an economy that puts working people first – right at the center of our policies.”

“In a time of record-breaking income inequality and rampant corporate greed, it is more important than ever that we as Democrats reassert and reinforce our commitment to working people,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10). “As both a former union member and small business owner, I have seen firsthand how American workers have for too long been taken advantage of by big corporations and greedy CEOs. I am proud to help lead the Task Force for Better Pay and Benefits as Vice Chair to restore power to working people, the engine of our economy, so they can continue to be the best, most productive labor force in the world while living with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

“I am thrilled to take over as Chair of the Promoting Peace and Security Task Force and follow in the footsteps of my mentor, the incredible Barbara Lee,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05). “This task force is needed now more than ever to hold this corrupt administration accountable. Our task force will focus on limiting our global armed presence and instead investing in diplomacy that will allow us to reorient our engagement with the world.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Today, Main Street Action announced its role as a grassroots partner in the Battleground Alliance, a $50 million effort to flip control of the U.S. House by organizing in more than 35 key districts. The campaign will focus on places where the GOP’s brutal budget cuts, especially to healthcare, are hitting families hard.

Main Street Action will lead organizing efforts in Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan, where small business owners are stepping up as trusted messengers and community anchors.

“We’re not here to play pundit. We’re here because Americans can’t afford their meds, the employees of small businesses are losing healthcare coverage, and our communities are barely hanging on,” said Richard Trent, Executive Director of Main Street Action. “Small business owners talk to hundreds of people a week—and when they speak out, people listen. They’re perfectly positioned to ensure politicians can’t hide behind spin while working families pay the price.”

The Battleground Alliance, a coalition of more than 30 labor and grassroots organizations, is tapping directly impacted people to lead this fight—workers, caregivers, immigrants, and small business owners who’ve watched Congress put billionaires and lobbyists ahead of everyday Americans.

Main Street Action’s contribution to the coalition is clear: cutting through the noise with the kind of local credibility no TV ad can buy.

“Small business owners aren’t political insiders—they’re the folks running the coffee shop, the barber shop, the corner store,” said Shawn Phetteplace, National Campaigns Director of Main Street Action. “But we see what these policies do in real life, and we’re done staying quiet. If our Representatives vote to gut Medicaid or reward corporations while the rest of Main Street struggles, we’re gonna make sure every voter knows it.”

With this bold new partnership, Main Street Action is doubling down on what they do best: turning the voices of everyday entrepreneurs into political power. By organizing in the communities where small businesses are most vital and most vulnerable. Main Street Action is not just fighting for votes, they are fighting for a future where working families shape our democracy.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Named for Asunción Valdivia, a worker who died in 2004 after picking grapes for ten hours straight in 105-degree temperatures, the bill directs the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to establish effective heat standards to protect workers. The mandated standard would include requirements triggered based on exposure thresholds, including hydration, paid and scheduled breaks, an acclimatization plan, and more. The standard would have to be at least as good as the most protective state standard, which is currently California’s, and would cover both indoor and outdoor workplaces, as well as employees, contractors and sub-contractors.

In response, Ernesto Archila, policy director with Public Citizen, issued the following statement:

"Workers in America are facing unprecedented dangers from climate-driven heat and extreme weather, and things are only getting worse. It is far past time for a strong national standard to protect workers from illness and death caused by exposure to extreme heat. The provisions mandated in this bill, including temperature triggers, acclimatization, water, shade and paid rest breaks, would save countless lives. They represent a common sense and common decency approach that employers could quickly adopt. American workers deserve no less, and they urgently need it. Today, OSHA is in the final stage of issuing a final rule on this issue. It is imperative that the rule maintain the integrity and high standards called for in the Asuncíon Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury and Fatality Prevention Act. We applaud Senators Padilla and Cortez Masto and Representatives Chu, Grijalva, Adams and Scott, as well as the dozens of Senators and Congresspersons who have joined them in this long effort. It's time to bring a high quality, protective standard to the finish line for American workers."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Read the full filing here.

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:

“For nearly a century, the law has been very clear that the government has a responsibility to assure an abundant supply of electric energy throughout the United States and can only permit electricity exports after a finding that such exports would not ‘impair the sufficiency of electric supply within the United States.’

“In a radical, reckless and unsupported deregulatory act, the U.S. Department of Energy proposes replacing the current standard of review with whatever energy companies suggest, as the proposed rule literally ‘will simply allow applicants to include information the applicant deems relevant to such an authorization for consideration by the DOE under the Federal Power Act.’ In our opposition to this inane proposed rule, we argue that DOE cannot ignore a clear statutory mandate by Congress, and the proposed rule must be rejected. The Trump Administration proposes eviscerating a core consumer protection of the Federal Power Act to promote the agenda of financial traders and energy companies at the expense of American families.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Late last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a species status assessment for grizzly bears finding that decreased conservation measures for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem would threaten their viability, resiliency, and ultimately recovery. The service thus concluded that the best available science requires the GYE population to remain listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Since the species status assessment was published, the Trump administration has proposed rolling back habitat protections under the Endangered Species Act; fast-tracking mining and logging, including in grizzly bear habitat; and eliminating protections for roadless areas that form the secure core habitat for grizzly bears.

Rep. Hageman’s bill seeks to override both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Fish and Wildlife Service by turning grizzly management over to Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho–exposing grizzly bears to greater threats.

“Efforts to delist grizzly bears by congressional action are attempts to ignore what is required by the Endangered Species Act to achieve grizzly recovery,” said Christopher Servheen, Ph.D., retired USFWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator. “The current administration and Congress are working to defund grizzly bear science and monitoring, dramatically reduce funding for federal land management agencies in grizzly range, increase timber harvest and road building in grizzly habitat, and weaken or eliminate the fundamental laws that grizzly recovery depends on like the ESA, the National Environmental Policy Act and the USFS Roadless Rule. At the same time, recreation pressure on public lands and private land development are accelerating rapidly in grizzly habitat putting even more stress on grizzlies. Congressional delisting while the cumulative impacts of these actions are ongoing is irresponsible and will result in immediate declines in grizzly numbers and range.”

“This bill completely disregards both federal courts and a science-based agency decision to forcefully turn over management of Greater Yellowstone grizzly bears to the states,” said Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies Office. “Barring judicial review and handing over the management keys to state agencies that ignore science would increase the already-high number of grizzly bear deaths and would be devastating to bears’ long-term recovery. Safeguards must remain in place until science shows grizzly bears are fully recovered, and until states have protections in place to ensure grizzly bears will thrive for future generations.”

Earthjustice and over 50 groups signed onto a letter opposing the bill.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Buried at the end of the House version of the FY 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill unveiled yesterday is this prohibition:

“SEC. 507. None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the draft risk assessment titled ‘‘Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS)’’ published by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Register on January 15, 2025 (90 Fed. Reg. 3859).”

The draft risk assessment was a long overdue review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into PFAS found within sewage sludge-based fertilizer. That assessment found human health risks “exceeding EPA’s acceptable thresholds, sometimes by several orders of magnitude, for some scenarios where the farmer applied biosolids containing“ even minute amounts of certain types of PFAS found in these biosolid fertilizers.

“Preventing EPA from protecting public health and our food supply from toxic contamination epitomizes special interest politics at their worst,” stated PEER Science Policy Director Kyla Bennett, a scientist and attorney formerly with EPA. “If finalized, this ban will leave ill-equipped state agricultural agencies to deal with a rapidly spreading chemical disaster.”

Maine has already banned fertilizer applications containing PFAS on farmlands, and Michigan is considering such a ban. The Texas Legislature recently tabled its own limits on PFAS in biosolids. Several other states are considering their own actions because EPA has been so slow to act.

EPA’s latest draft risk assessment springs from a provision of the Clean Water Act enacted in 1987 which requires the agency to identify toxic pollutants in biosolids on a biennial basis and adopt regulations to prevent harm to human health or the environment. EPA regulated nine heavy metals in 1993, but since then it has taken no action on the additional 250 pollutants of all types that it has subsequently identified in sewage sludge.

Last year, PEER sued EPA for its unreasonably slow pace in addressing PFAS in these fertilizers. EPA is using the 2025 draft risk assessment as its main defense against the PEER suit.

“Across the country, farms have had to be condemned and livestock slaughtered due to PFAS pollution from fertilizers,” added PEER Staff Counsel Laura Dumais, who filed the suit against EPA. “Further delay in preventing more of these needless tragedies would be unconscionable.”

The House will consider the bill in subcommittee today.

###

Read the appropriations ban (Section 507)

Look at EPA’s Draft Risk Assessment

Examine PEER’s lawsuit over EPA’s failure to regulate PFAS in biosolids

See agricultural damage from PFAS fertilizer contamination

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Judge Sean Jordan, a Trump-appointed judge, joined congressional Republicans in making it easier for the Trump administration to raise costs on millions of Americans. Not only are they dismantling healthcare for 17 million through their big, ugly betrayal, but they’re dooming millions more with low credit scores due to illness and injury. Republicans are holding a grudge against the CFPB and it’s costing Americans money.” —Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk

Reporting from Accountable.US revealed earlier this year that House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) Republicans accepted a combined $867,000 from trade groups opposed to the CFPB’s medical debt rule. In turn, HFSC Republicans voted to block the rule.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The racist madness explodes, the stuff of dystopian nightmares, devastating to dumb - from blameless brown families "hunted like animals" by roving bands of thugs or packed into fetid concentration camps devised by cartoon ghouls to inane war waged on "SLIMEBALL" protesters, prostrate farmworkers, brown toddlers - no Head Start for you - and a woke Superman decried as "the ultimate immigrant." In a God-awful timeline, Clark Kent's father's message: "Your choices, your actions make you who you are."

And your words. The linguistic framework for the regime's war on immigrants, the hateful "glue that holds together the MAGA movement," is itself depraved, leading to and warping the rest. The White House proclaimed its rabid intent to protect us from an "invasion" of "illegal aliens" who "present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans," with some "engaged in hostile activities, including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities." Steadfastly, robotically, they snarl and spit out the terms, enough said. Illegal. Alien. Other than. Distanced from. Not us. Not quite human, menacing brown-skinned replicas of David Bowie's Man Who Fell to Earth.

Ever since Trump rode down his fucking fake gold escalator to defame all Mexicans as rapists or murderers and launched his hateful fake war against brown "worst of the worst" gang leaders and drug dealers, it's been one vile vicious racist lie. Facts, one more time. Immigrants commit far fewer crimes than native-born Americans. Immigrants do much of the hardest and shittiest work in this country, which they've largely built, because white people don't want to. And entering the country without proper documentation is not a crime. It's not a felony. It's not even a misdemeanor. It's a civil violation, akin in venal criminality to a parking ticket. So why the fuck are Goebbel's masked shock troops in Amazon-bought camo grabbing gardeners off the street?

Now, with the big fascist bill throwing unholy amounts of money at the hate - $170 billion, with $45 billion for detention and $30 billion for recruitment, making ICE richer than Israel's and Russia's military - emboldened goons will abandon any pretense of due diligence. Fentanyl dealer or farmworker: "If they cross the border illegally, they're coming with us." Increasingly authoritarian law enforcement, conflating peaceful protest with terroristic violence, will respond to criticism of its police state tactics by escalating them; DHS urges officers to consider signs, cellphone cameras, requests for ID, protesters on bikes - scouting for weapons? - "from the point of view of an adversary," deserving to be met with force. One advocate: "It’s going to get really scary."

Meanwhile, the racism grows more brazen. Last week, top goon Tom Homan told Fox, "People need to understand we don't need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them." (Not.) He babbled on about getting "the totality of the circumstances" and "the articulable facts based on their location, their occupation, their physical appearance." In other words, "Trump's thugs will racially profile you, then go on national television to brag about getting away with it." Totally credible DHS response: "Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE. These type of smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement." Uh huh.

Stephen Miller, master of the master race though ostensibly Jewish, is updating actual Nazi talking points - "Without the Jew, the German school would thrive" - positing Los Angeles as a paradise without any "illegal aliens" and charging Dem leaders with forming "an alliance with the cartels." It was his furious rant to ICE agents in May they up their arrests to 3,000 a day - like Raising Arizona's Holly Hunter spitting, "Go out there and get me a toddler!" - that sparked the escalation of "straight-up Gestapo stuff" in L.A. County, where masked henchmen roam the streets, leap from unmarked cars and grab hapless laborers and gardeners to meet the quota: "If someone runs, they're taken. If they don't answer a question, they're taken. If they can't produce papers, they're taken."

Over 100 raids in southern California - at least 15 Home Depots, also car washes, parks, farms, churches, swap meets - have been documented by Bellingcat, an independent investigative collective, working with CalMatters and Evident Media. They found many similarities to an infamous April raid in Bakersfield to the north, touted as a search for violent criminals, in which 77 of 78 victims had committed no crimes; it prompted a judge's angry injunction barring warrantless raids: "You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers.’" But the relentless raids continue in LA County, with about 95 arrests a day, including U.S. citizens and green-card holders who "look like an illegal alien." An ICE training/propaganda video "If they run, we go."

Chilling bystander videos of our marauding police state abound. People grabbed at court, guys chased and pummeled at Home Depot, women cuffed as their kids cry, crowds shouting in rage. A guy on the ground, piled on by thugs, screams, "I'm an American!" Brown workers at a car wash are dragged off past two dazed white workers. Beefy stormtroopers shriek into terrified faces, "What hospital were you born in?" A guy in a truck, his window blithely shattered by goons: "Are you fucking serious, bro?" A young woman and U.S. citizen abducted as she's dropped at work by her weeping mother: "The only thing wrong with her (was) the color of her skin." A furious witness: “They don’t care if you have papers, as long as you look like what they want you to look like."

Especially egregious was the surreal, pointless scene in LA where about 100 heavily armed, camo'ed, masked troops, some flamboyantly on horseback, descended on downtown's MacArthur Park to sweep a now-empty area where low-income kids in day camp had just been playing before they fled in terror. (As a result, we're sure they slept well and peacefully that night, as did their parents.) Mayor Karen Bass angrily denounced what's become "a city under siege, under armed occupation." Snarling ICE sector chief Gregory Bovino shrugged her and it off: "I don't work for Karen Bass. Better get used to us now, 'cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles." Fox chyron: "Karen Bass Interferes with Raid."

As the abuses in California snowball, support plunges. The Catholic Bishop of San Bernardino, one of the country's largest dioceses, issued a rare decree allowing parishioners to miss Mass due to fear of raids that "may impede the spiritual good of the faithful." The mayor of largely Hispanic Perris warned residents to stay home and "know your rights." Polls show only a fragment of MAGA creeps back the terror, with a record-high 80% of Americans saying immigration is "good" for the country. (Duh). Even many stormtroopers don't like snatching gardeners, not drug traffickers, off the street, and morale is "in the crapper." A former ICE guy: "What we're seeing now is what, for many years, we were accused of being, and could always safely say, ‘We don’t do that.’”

Amidst multiple lawsuits - "What they're doing is actual terror" - there have been legal victories. In one class action suit, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the effort to end birthright citizenship as doing "irreparable harm." In another class action suit by the ACLU, 18 Democratic AGs and advocacy groups who describe "racial profiling on a scale unseen since Jim Crow," a judge in L.A. ordered a halt to raids in 7 California counties, citing "a mountain of evidence" that ICE is "indiscriminately rounding up numerous Individuals with brown skin without reasonable suspicion," as well as doing racial profiling and denying access to counsel for people held in "dungeon-like" facilities. DHS: "Whah?!" Also, "highly targeted," dietician-approved meals and "the best health care many aliens have received in their lives."

Speaking of dungeons: Reports from the swampland concentration camp tagged by giddy MAGA-ites as Alligator Alcatraz - see the cinematic "memefication of cruelty" - describe vile conditions: Sparse food with maggots, temps veering from steamy to freezing, not enough toilets, showers or water, no calls, huge mosquitoes, sweltering people packed into cages "like dogs in a kennel." Three Dem reps who just got a staged tour recounted "disturbing, disgusting conditions," an unforgettable stench, and "wall-to-wall humans" yelling "Help me" and "I'm an American citizen." "This place needs to be shut the hell down,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "They're abusing human beings here." As they left, inmates began chanting, "Libertad! Libertad!" Freedom.

Two days earlier, ICE launched its largest, most violent raid on two Glass House Farms, in Camarillo and Carpinteria CA., that grow tomatoes, cucumbers and cannabis. In an ugly scene - injuries, women cuffed, kids running and crying: One to another, "They took your Mom?" - a phalanx of goons faced off against swiftly-summoned families and allies, attacking them with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets before arresting about 200 farmworkers, many longtimers in their 50s or 60s. "We are not the enemy," protesters chanted. Also, "This is an abomination," "What's your ammunition for?" and, "Has any fucking single one of you ever worked as hard as these field workers?" Workers were held for hours in a parking lot, their cells phones taken and erased, before being loaded into vans for parts unknown.

Most of the country's over 2.6 million farmworkers are Hispanic non-citizens - perhaps 40% undocumented - working in "close to slavery" conditions and, until they began hiding at home, easy to find. Still, said the United Farmworkers, nowhere is it legal "to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture." The next day, Jaime Alanis, 57, who'd worked at Camarillo 10 years while sending his pay back to Mexico, died of catastrophic injuries - broken neck, fractured skull - after he fell from a roof running from state agents. His niece began a GoFundMe with a $50K goal; it raised $159,432. He was, she said, "just a hard-working innocent farmer...He will be taken to his hometown Huajumbaro, Michoacán. His wife and daughter are waiting for him. We are still looking for justice."

Back in D.C., a vengeful, racist bully, incensed people had flocked to defend mere farmworkers - one protester maybe even threw something at stormtroopers - said he's giving "Total Authorization" for any ICE or other thug "confronted by thrown rocks, bricks, or other form of assault to arrest these SLIMEBALLS, using whatever means is necessary." At a White House meeting with African leaders, he also put his "aggressive ignorance proudly on full display" by patronizingly praising Liberian President Joseph Boakai's "such good English...Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?" Fact: The official language of Liberia, settled by former U.S. slaves, is English. America cringed: "Bro is a dumb racist. Straight up." He also ewww flirted with a Black reporter, handing her some crapola trinket with, "Darling, that's for you."

Having failed to adequately abuse people of color, his HHS also cracked down on brown three-to-five-year-olds by banning them from Head Start - which he'd tried but failed to kill - and other federal programs meant to "only serve America citizens." "For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans' tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration," spouted JFK Jr., arguing a Clinton-era law had "improperly extended (some) public benefits to illegal aliens." (His father spun in his grave.) The action applies not just to Head Start's pre-school, which for 60 years hasn't labeled any child "illegal," but its meals and health screenings and other services brown people def don't need - health clinics, family planning, energy assistance. In Illinois, Head Start told members to just keep serving undocumented children. Sorry, small illegal aliens.

Things got not just mean but weird when, on behalf of our Christo-fascist homeland, DHS posted a video claiming ICE is bringing God's justice - a move deemed "the height of blasphemy." "There's a Bible verse I think about," muses the narrator, citing Isaiah: "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send?' And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.'" Cue shots of ICE goons as Johnny Cash sings God’s Gonna Cut You Down. Zach Lambert, an Austin pastor "fed up with the Bible being weaponized to hurt people," calls bullshit. In fact, the verse decries corrupt leaders "who make unjust laws (to) deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed"; Isaiah steps up to stop them. As usual, they got it wrong, and illegal: The song is by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, who trashed DHS for using it without permission and disrespecting Copyright Law, Habeas Corpus, Due Process and separation of Church and State. They ordered them to cease and desist, take down the video, "Oh, and go fuck yourselves."

Finally, for the release of James Gunn's new Superman movie, the White House inexplicably posted this Felonman, Pooperman, Supergeriatric. After Gunn said the story, of "an immigrant from another place," is "the story of America," and that "basic human kindness is a value (we ) have lost," MAGA threw a fit. "Superwoke," sneered Fox of a guy who "fights for your preferred pronoun (with) MS13 on his cape." Superman, "Champion of the Oppressed," first appeared in a 1938 comic by two sons of Jewish immigrants who fled Europe. "If you haven't noticed he's been an immigrant for the past 87 years, I don't know what to tell you," says Mark Waid, who's written it for 40 years. “Every day, Superman is learning to be a better human. The point (is) we need to be kinder to each other. Bullies hate that because kindness (is) their kryptonite." In a mock review, Rex Huppke charges the movie "gave me the woke virus" with its "aggressive humanity" and "way too much caring" about fellow humans who don't agree with or look exactly like him. "The Superman movie tried to make me less hateful," he gloats. "Nice try!" As to the rest, from the Idaho history teacher ordered to remove welcome posters now banned by law to the fascist thugs on our streets, "Do not look away."

Poster put up by Idaho history teacher Sarah Inama, now banned as "ideological."Photo by Sarah Inama

How user-generated videos on social media brought Trump\xe2\x80\x99s immigration crackdown to America\xe2\x80\x99s screens www.nbcnews.com

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

“Bondi’s sudden firing of the DOJ Ethics Advisor shines a bright spotlight back on her own glaring ethical conflicts and how she’s handled major DOJ decisions involving her former clients like Qatar and Pfizer,” said Public Citizen democracy advocate Jon Golinger. “The question this drastic firing raises is: are there even worse ethics problems Bondi is trying to hide?”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This budget proposal shows yet again the extremes to which anti-wildlife members of Congress will go to sacrifice endangered species,” said Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife. “The bill is loaded with riders that attack the Endangered Species Act and would put some of America’s most iconic species, including the grizzly bear and wolverine, at serious risk of extinction. By blocking protections for public lands while also providing short-sighted lease sales for the benefit of oil and gas corporations, the bill and all who support it are compromising the crucial habitats, outdoor recreation areas and natural resources that Americans and wildlife rely on.”

Of its most egregious provisions, the bill slashes funding for listing threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act by two-thirds and includes poison-pill riders that would:

• Block all funding for listing the greater sage-grouse and for implementing the new range wide plans to conserve the species.
• Delist the gray wolf.
• Delist the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear population.
• Block funding for protecting the wolverine.
• Block funding for protecting the northern long-eared bat.
• Block funding for protecting the lesser prairie-chicken.
• Block funding for protecting captive fish listed under the ESA, like sturgeon.
• Block funding for reintroducing grizzly bears to the North Cascades Ecosystem.
• Block funding for reintroducing grizzly bears to the Bitterroot ecosystem.
• Block Biden-era ESA rules.
• Block funding for the protection of seven freshwater mussel species in Texas.
• Reissue a harmful rule overturning legal precedent set by the “Cottonwood” court case.
• Block the BLM Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, which puts conserving wildlife and ecosystems on par with other uses of public lands.
• Block funding for reintroduction of American bison on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.
• Block funding for the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge land protection plan.
• Promote continued expansion of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.
• Mandate issuing at least four onshore oil and gas lease sales in any state where there is land available, including Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nevada and Alaska.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Anne Jellema, Chief Executive at 350.org

“Working families should not be footing the bill so tech giants can keep feeding their AI machines. This is a textbook case of corporate profit being prioritized over the public good. If AI is driving up demand, then it’s the tech companies, not everyday consumers, who should pay for the strain they’re putting on our energy systems.”

According to new data from PowerLines, US power providers have already filed for a staggering $29 billion in rate increases in the first half of 2025 alone, a 142% jump from the same period last year.

Candice Fortin, 350.org US Campaign Manager,

"Across the country, we’re seeing the power grid being reshaped to serve the profits of Big Tech while households are being asked to pay more for less. Instead of secretive deals and backroom contracts with data centers, we need transparent, public investment in clean, decentralized energy that serves people, not corporations.

Utilities and the fossil fuel companies rely on a lack of public knowledge to allow them to continue business as usual. In some states, that means greenwashing and misrepresenting themselves to maintain their positive reputations and the public’s trust. In others, it simply means making the system seem inevitable, impenetrable, and not worth people’s time. They are banking on us continuing to pay our bills and air any grievances. As the deadly impacts of the climate crisis are felt across the US, the push to protect utility profits and AI expansion at the expense of public affordability is predatory and comes at a moment when the U.S. should be doubling down on energy justice and equitable climate solutions."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Trump’s radical AI agenda entails abusing emergency authorities to usurp state and local laws to accommodate Big Oil and Big Tech’s profits at the expense of everyone else. While no public interest consumer or environmental groups are invited, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute are slated to speak, along with EQT’s Toby Rice, and the CEOs of ExxonMobil (Darren Woods), Shell (Wael Sawan), Chevron (Mike Wirth), OpenAI (Sam Altman), Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), Microsoft (Satya Nadella) and Alphabet (Sundar Pichai) are on the guest list.

“Trump’s scheme is to abuse an array of emergency powers to force communities to host energy-gobbling AI data centers by designating such facilities and all associated energy infrastructure as national security assets, thereby crushing any state and local zoning laws and other public health and safety protections. Trump’s actions will promote dirty natural gas and coal as the fuel of choice, which will raise Americans’ energy bills while contaminating the environment. Trump’s agenda will put Big Tech in control of America’s AI policy, despite the industry’s widespread abuses. Trump’s radical AI plan is yet another example of the President siding with powerful corporations ahead of the American people.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In a brief executive order, Donald Trump called for the formation of the “Make America Beautiful Again” commission. Chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who also serves as the administration’s energy czar, the commission is tasked with providing recommendations on conserving “America’s national treasures and natural resources.” A parallel executive order directs the Department of the Interior to consider charging foreign visitors higher entrance fees to the National Park System.

While conservatives have hailed the order as an environmental win, the Trump administration’s record is one of the most pro-polluter in the country’s history. On his first day back in office, Trump issued a flurry of executive orders opening up the Arctic to oil and gas drilling and prioritizing energy development on public lands. The administration has also fast-tracked drilling and mining projects on public lands, slashed royalty rates oil and gas companies must pay for drilling on public lands, and gutted bedrock environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act.

In response, Dan Ritzman, Director of Conservation at Sierra Club, released the following statement:

“This country has some of the most majestic and treasured public lands in the world. If we hope to pass that unparalleled heritage onto the next generation, those landscapes need stewardship and resources. Donald Trump is offering anything but. From day one, the Trump administration has slashed budgets at conservation agencies, fired thousands of essential conservation staff, gutted bedrock environmental laws, and given free rein to billionaires and corporations to pollute our public lands. ‘Make America Beautiful Again’ is the tiniest fig leaf on the most anti-environment administration in our country’s history.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Carrying boxes of over 30,000 petition signatures, organizers demanded that Sen. Gillibrand and other Democratic leaders who have so far withheld clear support publicly affirm Mamdani’s candidacy and reject coordinated efforts by billionaire donors and corporate-aligned groups to reverse the outcome of a democratic primary.

The group attempted to deliver the petitions directly to Gillibrand’s New York City office at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 49th Street, but were repeatedly denied entry by building security, who said the office “does not meet with constituents.” After multiple calls to both the NYC and DC offices, staff refused to accept the petition in person and directed organizers to submit it online—despite the urgent, NYC-specific nature of the issue.

The petition, launched by Our Revolution, continues to gain momentum across grassroots supporters throughout the country and highlights a growing frustration within the party: progressives are expected to unify behind establishment nominees, yet are often met with resistance or silence when they win themselves.

“Democratic leaders love to talk about unity—until a progressive wins,” said Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution. “Every cycle, we’re told to fall in line for the good of the party. Well, Zohran Mamdani is the nominee—and yet the establishment’s silence is deafening. It’s time for party leaders to live up to their own standards and stand with Zohran against these billionaire-funded attempts to undo the will of the voters.”

The event was organized to draw attention to the double standard and disconnect between party leadership and grassroots voters, especially in races where big money interests work behind the scenes to push out progressives.

The action was first reported by POLITICO, which highlighted the growing push to pressure top Democrats, including Gillibrand, to defend Mamdani and democracy itself.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

• Opening up federal lands and waters to fossil fuel exploration as official US policy and revoking several climate action policies;
• Establishing a new group to advise his office on how to accelerate the ‘permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation’ of oil and gas;
• Removing regulations on coal production to revive the flagging industry; and,
• Ordering the US Attorney General to quash state-level “polluters pay” laws that would push fossil fuel companies to pay their fair share of climate damages.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

There is no question that cybersecurity and protecting the privacy of Americans’ health care records are important issues that we need to deal with.

But, Mr. Chairman, let me be very clear. That is not the issue that is right now on the minds of the American people. What people are worried about is the catastrophic impact that the reconciliation bill that was passed last week will have on the health and well-being of the American people. And that is the issue that I'm going to be focused on today.

That legislation, passed by one vote here in the Senate, will be making the largest cut to Medicaid in American history to pay for the largest tax break for billionaires in American history.

At a time when our current health care system is broken, dysfunctional and cruel — 85 million today are uninsured or underinsured. This bill will make a horrible situation even worse.

This legislation will cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by more than $1.1 trillion.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this bill, along with the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits, will cause 17 million people to lose their health insurance.

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health and health care economists at the University of Pennsylvania have found that these health care policies would cause over 50,000 people in our country to die unnecessarily every year. That's what happens when you can't get to a doctor.

I am delighted that one of the lead researchers of this report, Dr. Alison Galvani, is here with us today to talk more about that study.

Mr. Chairman: it is not rocket science. You're a doctor, you know this. If people don’t have access to health care, if they can’t get to a doctor when they need to, people will suffer and tens of thousands will die. It happens today and it will only get worse.

Make no mistake about it: This bill is a death sentence for working-class and low-income Americans.

Further, as a result of this bill, more than 300 rural hospitals are now at risk of closing down altogether or substantially reducing their services. That is not my estimate. That’s what the Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina recently estimated.

And we are already beginning to see the devastating impact this bill will have on rural America: The Curtis Medical Center in Southwest Nebraska has already announced that it will be shutting down because it cannot withstand the cuts to Medicaid contained in this bill.

It’s not just rural hospitals that are now in crisis as a result of this legislation.

According to a recent survey from the American Health Care Association, as a result of this bill, 27% of nursing homes have indicated that they will be forced to close their doors and 58% will have to reduce staff. And it’s not just nursing homes.

Health care researchers at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University have found that this bill will be a disaster for community health centers.

They have estimated that as a result of the passage of this bill, over 40% of community health center sites will shut down. Today, there are over 15,000 community health center clinics throughout America. This could result in the shutting down of some 9,000 of them.

And it's not just community health centers, it's not just nursing homes and it's not just individuals.

This legislation will substantially increase the uninsured rate in every state in this country.

As a result of this bill, the uninsured rate in my own state of Vermont would go up from 3.3% to 6%.

In Louisiana, the Chairman's state, the uninsured rate will go up from 6.7% to 12.4%.

In Florida, the uninsured rate will go up from 10.4% to 18.8%.

In Texas, the second largest state in this country, the uninsured rate will go up to 20% — in the United States, in the richest country in the history of the world.

Mr. Chairman, this is an issue that needs to be explained to the American people, and I look forward to discussing it with all of our panelists.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As the Trump administration barrels forward with its pro-fossil fuel agenda, and European and Asian governments and financial institutions debate whether to increase investments in U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) projects, a report published today by Greenpeace USA, Earthworks, and Oil Change International highlights the climate threats and financial risks posed by five major new liquefied gas export projects proposed for the US Gulf Coast, all but one of them still awaiting a final investment decision.

“What we found was crystal clear – any further investment in LNG is not compatible with a livable climate,” says Andres Chang, Senior Research Specialist at Greenpeace USA and lead author of the report. “The massive growth in infrastructure along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast has already created significant public health and ecosystem impacts, threatening entire coastal communities. But it doesn’t stop there. This report shows that if built, these projects would put global climate goals even further out of reach.”

The report analyzes five major U.S. LNG projects – Venture Global CP2, Cameron LNG Phase II, Sabine Pass Stage V, Cheniere Corpus Christi LNG Midscale 8-9, and Freeport LNG Expansion – and finds that each and every one fails a “climate test” derived from models in the DOE’s 2024 LNG Export public interest studies. Contrary to industry claims, the report shows that decreasing methane venting and leaking during gas drilling, transportation, and liquefaction is not enough to make these projects “climate neutral.”

“Focusing the Department of Energy’s model on individual US LNG terminals that are yet to be built, we found that they all result in increased greenhouse gas emissions because they pollute the climate, displace renewable energy, and drive up gas demand,” says Lorne Stockman, Oil Change International Research Director and report co-author. “It is very clear that governments, investors, and insurers must stop supporting the reckless LNG buildout now and instead invest in a rapid and just transition to renewable energy that will protect our communities from toxic pollution and climate-fueled superstorms.”

Future administrations could revoke export authorizations that were rubber-stamped under Trump based on their failure to pass the DOE “climate test,” which introduces a new layer of uncertainty to these already-risky projects. This report adds to a rapidly growing body of evidence that financing U.S. LNG is not a sound decision for insurers, investors, or purchasers – something the EU and America’s Asian allies must keep in mind as President Trump pressures them to increase their imports of U.S. LNG under threat of sweeping tariffs. “Countries with climate commitments, such as those in the EU, should be very wary of the climate cost of importing US LNG,” says Dr. Dakota Raynes, Senior Manager of Research, Policy, and Data at Earthworks and report co-author.

“Fossil fuel dependency has long externalized its true costs, forcing communities to bear the burden of pollution, sickness, and economic instability,” says James Hiatt, founder and director of For a Better Bayou. “For decades the oil and gas industry has known about the devastating health and climate impacts of its operations, yet it continues to expand, backed by billions in private and public financing. These harms are not isolated – they’re systemic, and they threaten all of us. This report is a call to conscience. It’s time we stop propping up deadly false solutions and start investing in a transition to energy systems that sustain life, not sacrifice it.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The new report follows by just days the passage of the congressional tax bill in a party-line vote that stymies the additions of low-cost and much-needed new solar, wind and battery power. Analysts predict that the legislation will reduce additions of the electricity needed to meet surging power demand, and spike wholesale electricity prices by as much as 25% in five years.

DOE has already falsely invoked emergency powers to prevent two fossil fuel plants from retiring despite regional and state approval and against the plant owners' wishes. This report promises to continue to usurp the process at the cost of consumers' pocketbooks.

The following is a comment from Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“It’s ironic that the Energy department is warning about reliability just days after Republicans in Congress repealed the clean energy tax credits. More clean energy will make the U.S. grid stronger, more reliable and more resilient – all while saving consumers money on their electricity bills. Bailing out old, dirty coal, gas and oil plants would mean higher costs and a less reliable grid.”

“No matter how they try to gussy it up, bailing out coal or other fossil fuels when low-cost solar and wind power is growing so quickly makes even less sense today than it did in 2017 when the previous Trump administration tried it before. That’s why we will be fighting this plan, too.”

For more, please see this blog from NRDC’s Christy Walsh.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Since the beginning of its genocidal assault on Gaza twenty-one months ago, the Israeli government has deprived millions of Palestinians of food and other basic necessities for life. Now, amid the widespread starvation that it has created, the Netanyahu government has sidelined the U.N.’s neutral, internationally recognized Gaza-wide system of aid delivery in favor of GHF’s privatized and militarized model, which one U.N. expert describes as a “death trap.” Israeli soldiers were ordered to fire on Palestinians waiting for food, according to a report in Haaretz.

GHF’s system was designed to align with the Israeli’s government stated goal of forcibly displacing Palestinians from the north to the south of Gaza – a war crime under international law. While the UN’s 400 distribution sites largely sit dormant, GHF delivers aid at a handful of sites primarily located in the south. In fact, internal planning documents reveal that people involved in the development of GHF understood the risk that its distribution hubs would force the displacement of Palestinians.

In its FOIA request, the Center for Constitutional Rights seeks records that could reveal whether GHF was also created to further President Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” redevelopment – and ethnic cleansing – plan. The Center of Constitutional Rights has previously joined other human rights and legal organizations in warning that individuals and entities involved in GHF could face legal liability for complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

It is against this backdrop that the State Department approved a $30 million United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant for GHF, which is chaired by Johnnie Moore, an evangelical preacher who worked in the first Trump administration. GHF has not disclosed information about its funding, yet in announcing the grant, the State Department exempted it from the audit required for groups receiving USAID funds for the first time.

“It is outrageous that rather than investigating GHF and the private military contractors at its distribution hubs for complicity in war crimes, the Trump administration has doubled down in furthering Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by giving GHF tens of millions of dollars,” said, Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Katherine Gallagher. “The GHF operation raises many concerning questions about U.S. long-term plans for Gaza, and we will use this FOIA to get answers. The United States must stop sending arms and contractors to Gaza, and instead demand that the United Nations be permitted to resume its aid operations until Palestinians can fully return and rebuild a free Gaza.”

With its FOIA request, the Center for Constitutional Rights seeks all relevant records from the State Department and USAID from October 1st, 2024 to present, including information about GHF’s creation, the role of consulting groups like the Boston Consulting Group, its leadership, and financing. The FOIA also seeks information about the U.S. government links to the newly formed private military contractors in Gaza, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) and UG Solutions.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

We staggered through the darkest ever ostensible celebration of American independence mournfully grappling with what Rev. William Barber calls the "all-out attack on who we even claim we are trying to be." A tireless pillar of righteous rage, he takes a long, moral view and a tough, simple stand on fighting for our rights and moving forward from catastrophe: "All of us have to find our way together now." Hopefully, we'd add, with brass bands accompanying us.

The good Rev. Barber, of course, comes to the fight against fascism armed with far more moral clarity and fortitude than most of the rest of us. His battle, both "a moral rebellion against Trump’s America" and against a deeper, longtime "architecture of inequality" since Frederick Douglas asked, "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" confronts a politics wed to nationalism, capitalism, exploitation and, in an especially "unholy relationship," religion, even as masked goons disappear our neighbors.

For the rest of us, Barber's resolve to bear witness, to build "a memory that resists the lie," takes many other, often mundane forms. We blunder forward as best we can. We seek strength and solace in small joys - friends, dogs, gardens, nature and solidarity - increasingly, at protests around the country, with music, often tubas. Kurt Vonnegut, always wise, was on it: "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.'"

In St. Louis, the Funky Butt Band sang This Land Is Your Land. In Auburn CA, people sang Les Miserables' soaring Do You Hear the People Sing? In New York, the Street Beat Brass Band play; in Minneapolis, since George Floyd's murder, it's Brass Solidarity with This Little Light of Mine and I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free. In Atlanta on No Kings Day, exuberant tubas drowned out the Proud Boys with Bella Ciao, a 19th-century Italian folk song turned anthem of freedom and resistance.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

In Somerville MA, the Good Trouble Brass Band has joined forces with the Boston Area Brigade of Activist Musicians (BABAM) for parades and protests in "a tradition of resilience and community" to contribute "something that is loud and joyful." And here in Portland ME we boast and love our Ideal Maine Social Aid & Sanctuary Band - "Easy tunes with friendly people" - a community activist, consensus-governed band in the New Orleans street band tradition spreading joy and advocacy since 2017.

They've played and marched at pride, homelessness, voting rights, abortion rights, Veterans for Peace events; at puppet slams, neighborhood gigs like Porchfest; a fabulous, four-tiered May Day gala; food coop, bike coalition, park conservancy parties; at a small, moving, buoyant Kneeling Photo Art Project - "We Kneel For An Equitable Future" - four years ago during a COVID winter, in their masks and down coats and sailor caps. Searing echoes of make love and music, not war and fascism.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Entirely aptly, these messengers of hope, rage joy offer diverse music, from Civil Rights- era anthems to old folk faves to Brass Band classics. Adding some spice is feverish new entrant from left field, Boston's Celtic punk rock band Dropkick Murphys. Longtime, blue-collar supporters of workers' and veterans' rights, they've been bringing their furious energy to protests; says front man Ken Casey “I think everything we’ve been doing for the past 30 years was a kind of warm-up for the moment we’re in.”

The hardscrabble Casey - from a recent show: "This Magger guy in the audience was waving his fucking Trump hat in people’s faces, and I could just tell he wanted to enter into discourse with me...I’m not going to shut up, just out of spite” - was raised by his grandfather. His foundational lesson: "If I ever see you bullying someone, I’ll kick the shit out of you. And if I ever see you back down from a bully, I’ll kick the shit out of you." On July 4th, they released new album For the People. Its fiery first single, Who’ll Stand With Us? and a quick-cut, seething video are a gut-punch call-out against fascist scumbags and oligarchs, with all the fury the moment demands. Just whew. Onward, evidently.

Through crime and crusade
Our labor, it’s been stolen
We’ve been robbed of our freedom
We’ve been held down and beholden
To the bosses and bankers
Who never gave their share
Of any blood
Of any sweat
Of any tears

Who’ll stand with us?
Don’t tell us everything is fine
Who’ll stand with us?
Because this treatment is a crime
The working people fuel the engine
While you yank the chain
We fight the wars and build buildings
For someone else’s gain.

So tell me
Who will stand with us?

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

This is the first time governments have gathered to discuss deep sea mining since The Metals Company (TMC) submitted the first ever application to commercially mine the international seabed. The move was encouraged by an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump aimed to fast-track deep-sea mining operations in both US and international waters, and has bolstered opposition to deep sea mining, not only to protect the environment but also to defend international cooperation and international law.[1]

Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson, who is attending the meeting, said: “We are witnessing the dangers that arise when nations take unilateral action without regard for collective consequences. We should learn from nature that ecosystems collapse without cooperation; our global systems are at risk when we fail to work together for the common good. The deep sea must not fall victim to predatory corporate seizure. It is time for governments at the ISA to commit to a moratorium—this is the only viable path to prevent the irreversible harm that deep-sea mining would unleash.”

Nearly 200 governments have signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), often referred to as the “constitution of the ocean”, which establishes a global legal framework that prevents states from taking unilateral action to exploit them.

In its latest financial filings, TMC acknowledged that many governments and the ISA are likely to view any deep sea mining permit issued under the Trump administration as a violation of international law.[2] This could result in lawsuits, being unable to sell minerals, and companies refusing to work with TMC throughout the supply chain.

Pressure is already mounting on Allseas, a company headquartered in Switzerland with significant presence in the Netherlands, who own the deep sea mining ship and machinery that TMC intends to rely on for commercial operations, and are also one of its largest shareholders. Last week, Greenpeace activists hung a banner from Allseas office in Delft, urging the company to break ties with Trump.[3]

Recently, Dutch media reported that Climate Minister Sophie Hermans is raising concerns directly with Allseas over their involvement with TMC, while the Swiss government outlined its expectations for companies registered or active in Switzerland to follow international law and norms.[4][5] Allseas’ CEO has stated that the company “would not do anything illegal”.

Moreover, TMC’s strategic collaboration with PAMCO is coming under new scrutiny, with the Japanese metal processing company admitting that it “consider(s) the establishment of the business via a route that has earned international credibility to be a material issue”.[6]

The ISA risks caving in to corporate pressure with the President of the Council, H.E. Duncan Laki, circulating instructions to ISA parties to speed up discussions in an attempt to finalize a Mining Code by this year, which would pave the way for commercial deep sea mining to begin in the international seabed.[7] These included strong limitations of intervention times or recourse to smaller meetings where observers were excluded. In response, Greenpeace has sent a letter to Secretary General Leticia Carvalho, warning that the ISA must not reward industry-led efforts to rush the adoption of the Mining Code.[8] Several governments have also voiced strong opposition, stating, “We categorically disassociate ourselves from any suggestion or interpretation that the Council is bound, legally or politically, to adopt the regulations by the end of the year.”[9] Other NGOs, Indigenous peoples and some States also addressed the issue.

Louisa Casson added: “Governments are not powerless in the face of deep sea miners doing a doomed deal with Trump. They have both the authority and, now more than ever, the responsibility to act. With growing scientific concern, mounting public pressure, and unprecedented risks to fragile marine ecosystems, the time for courageous leadership is now”.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In response, Erica Payne, Founder and President of Patriotic Millionaires, said:

“As Patriotic Millionaires predicted back in January, this bill was always going to pass. Since then, we have seen cynical acts of performative politics, only for elected officials to sell out working people and hand over tax cuts to their wealthy donors and benefactors. This is another nail in the coffin for democratic capitalism. Lawmakers have no issue taxing working people into poverty as the cost of living continues to skyrocket if it means ensuring the investor class does not pay their share of taxes. This legislation just handed oligarchs the keys they needed to drive policy decisions and to subvert American democracy for their own financial gain, and we will all be worse off for it.”

Morris Pearl, Chair of Patriotic Millionaires and a former Managing Director at BlackRock, said:

“Republicans placed their bets on corporations and the ultra-wealthy over working people, most of whom will suffer from the outrageously uneven playing field they have created. Throughout all of these changes to the tax code and beyond, wealthy people will be fine in the short term, but the damage done to working people, and eventually to our whole society, will be irreparable.
By passing this bill, Republicans caused and created real harm that cannot be understated. They put us further down a path towards oligarchy that will now be much harder to get off. Republicans must come to terms and realize that in their pursuit to give the ultra-wealthy tax cuts, they also co-signed onto the beginning of the end of American democracy. We cannot and will not let them absolve themselves of the economic ruin they will bring to working people across the country.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

• Kick 17 million of Americans off of their insurance,
• Leave 4 million children without access to nutrition assistance and 7.5 million at risk of losing free and reduced lunch at school,
• Drive up costs on everything from groceries, energy to education,

All to pay for tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-rich, including many House Republicans themselves. Today’s vote follows a historic speech from Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries warning of the bill’s devastating consequences for millions of Americans.

The passage of this bill comes after months of “concerns” from congressional Republicans and explicit acknowledgment of the fact that this bill would gut healthcare and raise costs for their own constituents, with a decisive number of House Republicans previously vowing to never vote to cut Medicaid.

As it turns out, those congressional Republicans lied to us.

Today’s party-line vote by House Republicans to rip healthcare away and raise grocery costs for tens of millions of Americans is as devastating as it is enraging. For months, a decisive number of House Republicans voiced their concerns, acknowledging that this bill would make people poorer and sicker, only to vote in favor of this bill. It’s a cruel betrayal and proof positive you cannot trust career politicians who will put their interests over those of their own constituents' health care and wallets.” — Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk

A reminder that more than 70% of congressional Republicans are poised to financially benefit from their tax and budget scam, per Accountable.US’s CashinCongress.org database, while their most vulnerable constituents can expect to lose their healthcare.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

STATEMENT from AMY HANAUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE ON TAXATION AND ECONOMIC POLICY:

“This abominable bill will make history – in appalling ways. Never before has legislation taken so much from struggling families to give so much to the richest. It makes the biggest cuts to food aid for hungry families, executes the largest cuts to health care ever, adds trillions to the national debt – all to give $117 billion to the richest 1 percent in a single year. It’s no wonder that this bill is also extremely unpopular. Historians – and voters – will look back at this as a dark day in U.S. history.”

BY THE NUMBERS:

Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Senate Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates

The megabill’s tax impact is highly regressive, a regressivity that is amplified by the legislation’s deep cuts to health care, food assistance, and other services:

• More than 70 percent of the net tax cuts would go to the richest fifth of Americans in 2026, only 10 percent would go to the middle fifth of Americans, and less than 1 percent would go to the poorest fifth.
• The richest 5 percent alone would receive 45 percent of the net tax cuts next year.
• The richest 1 percent of Americans would receive an average net tax cut of $66,000, many, many times more than the average tax cut received by other income groups.
• The richest 1 percent of Americans would receive a total of $117 billion in net tax cuts in 2026. The middle 20 percent of taxpayers on the income scale, a group that has 20 times the number of taxpayers as the richest 1 percent, would receive less than half that much, $53 billion in net tax cuts that year.
• The $117 billion in net tax cuts going to the richest 1 percent next year would exceed the amount going to the entire bottom 60 percent of taxpayers (about $77 billion).
• The effects of President Trump’s tariff policies alone offset most of the tax cuts for the bottom 80 percent of Americans. For the bottom 40 percent of Americans, the tariffs impose a cost that is greater than the tax cuts they would receive under this legislation.
• Even foreign investors who own shares in U.S. companies would benefit more than many Americans. These foreign investors would enjoy $32 billion in tax cuts in 2026 compared to just $1.5 billion for the bottom 20 percent of Americans.
• The legislation provides the greatest rewards to high-income people living in states that have low state and local taxes on the wealthy. In these states, high-income people are not much affected by the cap on deductions for state and local taxes, which the Senate bill would make permanent. The states where the richest 1 percent of residents receive the largest average net tax cuts would mostly be states that have particularly unfair tax systems because they have no personal income tax.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Today, Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have finally achieved their craven goal of delivering massive tax giveaways to the billionaires and wealthy corporations that fund their campaigns at the cost of average Americans,” said ATF executive director David Kass. “This bill represents a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the top 1%. It enacts the largest Medicaid and SNAP cuts in history while adding over $3 trillion to the national debt. Furthermore it makes the tax code more complex with new special interest tax breaks and handouts to the ultra wealthy. In the coming years, Democrats must prioritize repealing and replacing these disastrous policies to protect American families from rising costs and loss of healthcare coverage. We need to create a truly fair tax system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Below is a statement by Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Thanks to this bill, millions of people will lose access to federal safety net programs, like food assistance and health care, to fund tax cuts that benefit the ultra-wealthy. The bill also trades the health and well-being of people across the country for the profits of oil, gas and coal companies. Our country will be paying the price for these reckless policies for decades to come.

“In passing this bill, lawmakers repeatedly overrode the needs and interests of their constituents. When benefits are lost, when energy prices spike, when major clean energy and clean transportation investments are canceled, when jobs are cut, when climate-exacerbated extreme weather disasters hit, people should know who they have to thank.

“This bill is a damning indictment of Congress' priorities and values. Our country needs policymakers willing to confront the challenges of our time and fight for a better tomorrow, not sell out America for the benefit of a few.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The final text—the product of a legislative process coordinated by Republicans that seemed designed to do the most harm possible to working families—would expand on- and off-shore drilling, end nearly all clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, gut fuel efficiency standards for cars, stifle industrial innovation, and give massive handouts to fossil fuel companies and polluters.

Several studies of the legislation found that termination of the clean energy tax credits repealed in this bill could raise the average American family’s energy bills by as much as $400 per year by 2035. Additional analyses released earlier this week by the non-partisan CBO estimates that the bill will add $3.4 trillion in debt and result in more than 12 million Americans losing their health care coverage.

In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:

“This is a sad and scary day for all who work to build up our communities, care for our friends and neighbors, and wish to leave this planet in a better place for future generations. Instead of working to make life better for American families and communities, what Donald Trump and his loyalists in Congress have delivered today will mean higher energy costs for working families and small businesses, the end of life-saving health care that millions rely on, and ceding the race to build the clean energy economy of tomorrow to China. Trump and Congressional Republicans have advanced the most anti-environment, anti-job, and anti-American bill in history. The Sierra Club will not forget it. America will not forget it.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

• Completely strip Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) access for more than 2 million vulnerable Americans. The bill cuts $186 billion, an approximate 20 percent cut – the largest cut to the program in U.S. history. As many as 5 million people, including about 1 million children, live in households that could lose some or all of their hunger and nutrition assistance.
• Mandate more oil and gas sales on public lands and offshore, drastically increasing pollution and climate risks for all Americans.
• Increase subsidies for oil extraction by $14 billion through changes to the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture and utilization, on top of provisions in the bill that create tax loopholes that would allow the carbon capture industry to escape federal income taxes.
• Repeal major clean energy and environmental justice programs, including funding to address air pollution at schools, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Climate Pollution Reduction Grants, and Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants.
• Create a pay-to-play scheme to fast track environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act.

In response, Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said:

“As we approach Independence Day, Republicans in Congress have passed a budget that is a direct attack on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we should be celebrating. This draconian budget will mean more hunger, more premature death from lack of healthcare, and more people’s lives and homes devastated by climate disasters. This is a massive handout to big corporations and billionaires at the expense of ordinary people. Extravagant White House celebrations won’t save the millions of people impacted by this terrible bill.
“Congress acted on Trump’s artificial deadline to get this bill passed by July 4th, but there is nothing patriotic or freeing about this direct attack on American’s safe food, clean water and a livable climate.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“The megabill isn’t about reform—it’s about rewarding the super rich and doling out fossil fuel industry handouts, all while dismantling the social safety nets on which millions depend for stability. It is a bet against the future.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Seville was a key moment in an ongoing journey to fight inequality, achieve gender justice and reform the international debt architecture under the UN. The conference showed that considerable challenges remain to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. But it also paved the way for governments to build more coalitions to tax the super-rich and finance care, and put equality, democracy and sustainability at the core of their efforts. In a context of geopolitical uncertainty, multilateralism is the way ahead.”

“Despite the lacklustre ambition of the Compromiso de Sevilla where rich countries shirked their responsibility to act on the debt crisis and continued to embrace the private finance first approach to development, this conference also showed what international cooperation can achieve when there is political will for it. Our new research found that the new wealth of the top 1% surged by over 33.9$ trillion since 2015. This is enough to end annual poverty 22 times over, yet over three billion people still live in countries that spend more on debt repayments than on education or health. Therefore, we welcome the new alliance to tax the super-rich launched by Spain and Brazil, with the support of South Africa and Chile.

"We also welcome the new care financing initiative by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. These coalitions provide much needed political ambition and have the potential to deliver vital funding towards the Sustainable Development Goals and fight extreme inequality, which disproportionately impacts women and girls.

“We are very concerned by the limitations placed on civil society over the course of the conference to do what we came here to do: tell truth to power. Civil society organizations are the backbone of democracy. The UN was built to defend human rights - if it cedes to the global trend of shrinking civic space, it will undermine its legitimacy.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status. Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do–to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” said Joshua Block, Senior Counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”

“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Tara Borelli. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”

Earlier this year, efforts to enact a national ban failed in the U.S. Congress. Since 2020, 27 states have banned transgender youth from playing school sports. Many of these bans allow for invasive forms of sex testing that put all female student athletes at risk and open the door for any school official or adult to question and harass young women.

In Florida, a 15-year-old junior varsity volleyball player was the subject of a police investigation after an anonymous accusation, prompting local officials to draft a 500-page report investigating her medical history, body weight, and anatomy. In Utah, a teenage basketball player was accused of being transgender by a member of the state board of education, leading to threats of violence against her and her family, and a teenager in Maine faced a similar attack from a state senator. In May, President Donald Trump bullied a 16-year-old transgender girl for participating in a high school track meet.

Many women athletes have spoken out against bullying and discrimination against transgender student athletes. This includes Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe, Dawn Staley, Sue Bird, and Brianna Turner, as well as leading organizations fighting for gender equality in athletics including the Women’s Sports Foundation, the Women’s National Basketball Player’s Association, and the National Women’s Law Center.

The two cases the Supreme Court has agreed to hear include:

• Little v. Hecox, a challenge brought by one transgender and one cisgender student athlete against Idaho’s 2020 ban on transgender athletes and requirements for sex testing
• West Virginia v. B.P.J., a challenge brought by a teenage transgender girl against West Virginia’s 2021 ban on transgender athletic participation

The two cases charge the bans with violating the rights of transgender and cisgender female students under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. In addition, West Virginia v. B.P.J. argues that the bans violate Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs. Federal courts have blocked enforcement of these bans in both lawsuits.

These cases are part of the ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Plunging to new lows of "cartoonish cruelty" in our fascist reality show, MAGA perps just voted for our "most deeply immoral piece of legislation," depriving millions of food and health care as their fuehrer celebrated the launch of a scorched-swamp, mosquito-infested concentration camp - "Let's feed people to alligators!" - to detain millions more for overlooking the paperwork in their search for a better life. And there's merch! Fact: "Snakes in the Everglades got nothin' on the vermin in our government."

The Senate's barely-there approval - fuck Shady Vance - of Trump's heinous 900-page bill represents the largest transfer of wealth to the rich in U.S. history along with the largest cut to Medicaid and food assistance, all in the obscene name of (partly) funding a $975 billion tax break for the already richest 1%. The bill, "a tipping point between normality and fascism," also pours over $170.7 billion into "a campaign of extermination against immigrants that evokes the greatest human rights atrocities of the past," funding the hiring of vastly more Nazi thugs to terrorize, humiliate and put in cages millions of brown people who do much of this country's work.

It will kick about 16 million people off health insurance by cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid, because who needs health insurance. It will throw millions of poor families, veterans, the elderly and disabled off SNAP by cutting $285 billion in food assistance, because who needs food. It will cut funding to rural hospitals, nursing homes, student loans, wind and solar energy - electric bills will soar 30% - costing millions of jobs and adding almost $4 trillion to the national debt, to be paid by our children and grandchildren, one of many excellent reasons it's said to be the most unpopular legislation since passage of the economically disastrous Embargo Act of 1807.

Bernie Sanders calls it, "The most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country.” Decrying the GOP's "obsession" with stripping people of health care, Maine Sen. Angus King calls it "disgusting..I have never seen a bill this irresponsible, regressive and downright cruel." To longtime Sen. Chris Murphy, it's "the most deeply immoral piece of legislation I have ever voted on in my entire time in Congress." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said passage of a bill "cooked up in back rooms, cloaked in fake numbers (that) loots our country (for) the least deserving people you could imagine feels (like) a crime scene...When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust.”

The bill is so bad the GOP delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the mid-terms, and had to bribe its own members with perks to pass it; Alaska's Lisa Murkowski won the I Got Mine, Jack award by getting exemptions for her state and then complaining about how bad the bill is. To many, even worse than its craven kowtowing to oligarchs is its grotesque billions bestowed on a brutal, unprecedented white nationalist drive to dehumanize, criminalize and rip apart millions of families deemed undesirable by the color of their skin - and, possibly, eventually, their political persuasions - by making ICE, America's SS, the highest-funded law enforcement agency in a now-barbaric federal government.

The bill boosts the ranks of roaming Nazi goons by nearly 50%, with $8 billion slated to hire 10,000 more over five years (with signing bonuses!). ICE detention will get $45 billion more, a staggering 365% increase; "removal" gets $14.4 billion, a 500% surge; enforcement (see goons) almost $30 billion, up threefold, but we definitely can't afford to feed hungry kids. Billions more will go to build new camps, ramp up flights, double beds to 100,000, and round up more (hungry) terrified kids to meet a goal of 3,000 arrests a day. Of those arrested, despite the absurd claim of targeting "the worst" violent criminals, maybe 8% have committed crimes; even ICE data shows over 93% are guiltless of anything but crossing the border.

The rabid stalking of migrants has given Republicans "license to be as openly racist as possible." Moving on from pet-eating Haitians, Scott Bessent sneered New York is turning into "Caracas on the Hudson"; on an image of its new mayor Zohran Mamdani eating with his hands, Texas' Brandon Gill, who's evidently never met a burger, sniped, "Civilized people in America don't eat like this - go back to the Third World"; and Trump already threatened to arrest "communist" Mamdani, blathering, "A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally." (Not.) Witless Tommy Tuberville called the residents of sanctuary cities "inner-city rats" we should "send back home"; Paul Krugman, home-grown but Jewish with a bi-racial wife: "We’re all rats now."

Thus do we have once-vibrant Hispanic communities from New York to L.A. now largely shut down, with frightened residents carrying passports to the corner store, keeping their kids inside until dark, or not venturing out at all for fear of abduction by masked gangs. Farmworkers across the country, up to 80% foreign-born and perhaps half undocumented, are also staying home: "If they show up to work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again." In California, which grows much of our fruit and vegetables, those crops can go bad in one day as farmers struggle to harvest what they've grown. Experts say that many, already barely breaking even, will likely fold.

Meanwhile, ICE's daily atrocities go on. A 75-year-old Cuban man here for 60 years just died in custody, the 13th death since October; Tom Homan shrugged, "People die in ICE custody." Jacked-up stormtroopers assaulted day laborers at Home Depot and a woman selling tacos, tossing out tear gas as they peeled away. They arrested the wrong mother of two, though her kids tried to stop them. In Texas, they detained a preschool teacher with her three-year-old outside a courtroom. In L.A., they took a Honduran mother at a hearing with two children, one her six-year-old son with leukemia; they've been detained in Texas for weeks, the sick boy getting sicker, and she's filed the first lawsuit challenging their arrests.

And so, because it's still not enough cruelty for these ghouls, to Alligator Auschwitz, a steamy, "sadistic one-stop deportation shop" of tents filled with cages of bunk beds soon thronged with humans in a predator-replete swamp, a "concentration camp without the culpability of execution chambers" pitilessly "designed to enact suffering,” and help sick racists feel good about their whiteness. Set on a disused "shit-hole airstrip" in Florida's vast Everglades, the "bloodcurdlingly-monikered," built-in-8-days "Alligator Alcatraz” is surrounded by swampland brimming with alligators and Burmese pythons in a flood-prone, bug-plagued area where summer temps routinely top 100 degrees, rendering it "a calculatedly provocative celebration of the dystopian."

Tents in an environmentally treasured nature preserve often hit by floods, tropical storms and hurricanes at a time the regime has decimated the agency that warns about those events, operated by a likewise-decimated FEMA and commanded by haphazardly- deputized, wildly ill-qualified members of the National Guard serving as "deportation judges" - what could possibly go wrong? Set to cost almost half a billion dollars a year - but no, we really can't afford to feed hungry children - the barbed-wire re-invention of World War ll Japanese Internment Camps, with a fresh touch of El Salvador's CECOT, evidently fulfills Republicans' most fervent wet dream: To feed immigrants to animals.

On Tuesday, touring this "beyond horrifying" showcase of ruthlessness - initial intake 1,000, ultimately 5,000 - the cartoon villains who created it proudly paraded in: Nazi Barbie, Stephen Goebbels, Ron DeFascist and Trump with a botched make-up line that made him look like The Joker. He delightedly handed the floor to "our superstar," the sociopathic Miller, who praised the use of "novel legal and diplomatic tools," along with building death camps and letting ICE goons rampage through terrorized communities, to "deliver on a 50-year hope and dream of the American people to secure the border," at least on the repulsive planet he inhabits, and we wish he'd go back to.

On her foul planet, replicating her photo-op before CECOT's shaved-head detainees in her illegal $50,000 Rolex, ICE Barbie is still somehow celebrating her imaginary "going after murderers and rapists and traffickers." Tuesday she even added an alleged cannibal they'd put on a plane home who "started to eat himself," arguing he was "the kind of deranged individuals on our streets (that) we're trying to get out of our country because they are so deranged, they don't belong here." Hmm. Ever hard-core, she's also busy menacing one patriot for a nifty ICE Block app: "This sure looks like obstruction of justice - if you obstruct our brave law enforcement, we will hunt you down."

Just before her visit, her "reptile-run Gestapo" shared an AI-generated Alligator Alcatraz image featuring smirking alligators in ICE caps; Noem giddily posted, "Coming soon!" Americans recoiled. "Have you ever wondered what it would have looked like if Hitler's SS had social media?" asked one. Many suggested putting the people who built the atrocity in it; others decried MAGA's dehumanized trolling about concentration camps: "History is repeating - just with better branding." One: "Posting memes that boast about the manner in which people will die if they try to escape the undoubtedly inhumane conditions that will become the norm in a facility (gives) major "Alligator Auschwitz" vibes."

The visit came exactly a year after SCOTUS declared Trump above the law. Standing before cages in a dumb Gulf of America cap, the eternal victim sneered "Biden wanted me in here, that son of a bitch," but "it didn't work out that way." He called Noem "elegant" and "an unbelievable horse person" (umm) before happily noting "they have a lot of cops in the form of alligators" to "keep people where they’re supposed to be." He praised his grotesque cohorts - “It’s really government working together, I'm proud of them" - made zigzag moves with his pudgy hands - "We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator" - and opined, "A little controversial, but I couldn’t care less.”

A dead-eyed, servile DeSantis outlined the task - "intake, process, then deport" - and hailed the camp about to hold human beings who did nothing wrong: "This is as secure as it gets." He added, “This is a model, but we need other states to step up." Meanwhile, his state's party of zombies is so into it they're selling depraved merch - t-shirts, drink cozies - for "Florida’s gator-guarded prison for illegal aliens...It's a one-way ticket to regret." One appalled observer: "That's some Idi Amin stuff right there." Much like Trump on Fox, extolling his latest grotesquerie and airily explaining on potential migrant escapes, "They'll just get eaten by wildlife. I guess that's the concept."

There's more. Amidst performative acts of political intimidation, he's mused, "We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time...many born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too" - maybe including Musk: "We'll have to take a look." He's selling $249 perfume, "a rallying cry in a bottle...They're all about winning, strength and success." He's musing about nationwide alligator-themed camps: "They might morph into a system where you're going to keep it for a long time,” citing facilities to "handle (some) of the most vicious people on the planet." Observers: "Consider the Alligator Alcatraz gear on sale (before) deciding who are the most vicious people on the planet."

And he's losing what's left of his putrid mind. Asked about a timeline for detainees, he raved: "In Florida? I'm going to spend a lot. This is my home state. I love it." He "fixed up the little Oval Office, I make it - it's like a diamond," he has "a nice little cottage to stay at," he pays lots of fictional taxes, everyone in New York is leaving. "I'll be here as much as I can," he ended. "Very nice question." Lawrence O'Donnell on "the banality of their cruelty," the "utter emptiness of his mind," notably on the virtually ignored day USAID ends, with its expected millions of deaths, its "worldwide campaign of cruelty in their name." Others: "But her emails. I didn't like her laugh. Biden was too old." Now here we are: "A more loathsome fuck never walked the earth."

And on Wednesday, Alligator Alcatraz already began flooding.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

The decision by the Redstone family, the major owners of Paramount, to settle a bogus lawsuit with President Trump over a 60 Minutes report he did not like is an extremely dangerous precedent in terms of both the First Amendment and government extortion.

Paramount’s decision will only embolden Trump to continue attacking, suing and intimidating the media which he has labeled “the enemy of the people.” It is a dark day for independent journalism and freedom of the press — an essential part of our democracy. It is a victory for a president who is attempting to stifle dissent and undermine American democracy.

It’s pretty obvious why Paramount chose to surrender to Trump. The Redstone family is in line to receive $2.4 billion from the sale of Paramount to Skydance, but they can only receive this money if the Trump administration approves this deal. In other words, the Redstone family diminished the freedom of the press today in exchange for a $2.4 billion payday.

Make no mistake about it. Trump is undermining our democracy and rapidly moving us towards authoritarianism and the billionaires who care more about their stock portfolios than our democracy are helping him do it.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Congress enacted NEPA to give the American public a voice in projects affecting their communities and our nation’s irreplaceable public lands, including national parks, wildlife refuges, and forests,” said Mike Senatore, senior vice president of conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife. “Now the administration is robbing the public of that right so businesses and billionaires can exploit communities and public lands under cover of darkness. Without the ability to know about or comment on federal land projects, people will see their most cherished wildlife habitats and outdoor recreation areas bulldozed without warning.”

The administration’s proposed changes will:

• Eliminate the requirement for federal land management agencies to inform Americans about most proposed projects and permits.
• Eliminate required opportunities for Americans to participate meaningfully in government decision-making, including for projects that can be devastating for wildlife and endangered species such as oil and gas drilling and roadbuilding.
• Eliminate requirements for federal agencies to consider and meaningfully respond to public comments to explain the human and environmental effects of their decisions.
• Limit the scope of environmental effects that federal agencies must consider when conducting an environmental analysis of proposed projects.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"We welcome the leadership of Brazil, Spain and South Africa in calling for taxes on the super-rich. People around the world are pushing for more countries to reject the corrupting political influence of oligarchies. Taxation of the super-rich is a vital tool to secure sustainable development and fight inequalities. The wealth of the richest 1% has surged $33.9 trillion since 2015, enough to end annual poverty 22 times, yet billionaires only pay around 0.3% in real taxes.

“This extreme inequality is being driven by a financial system that puts the interests of a wealthy few above everyone else. This concentration of wealth is blocking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and keeping over three billion people living in poverty: over half of poor countries are spending more on debt repayments than on healthcare or education.

“In a tense geopolitical environment, Spain, Brazil and South Africa have taken an important step in forging an alliance here at the UN conference in Seville to show political will for taxation of the super-rich. Now other countries must follow their lead and join forces. This year, the FFD in Seville, COP30 in Brazil and G20 in South Africa are key opportunities for international cooperation to tax the super-rich and invest in a sustainable future that puts human rights and equality at its core.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This is a bold move by Spain and Brazil to drive forward taxing the super-rich as a key solution to the lack of funds being delivered by rich countries for climate action. We want more countries to join this coalition so that billionaires and multi-millionaires help to foot the bill for the climate damage they have caused and decrease the huge gap between the rich and the poorest. We won't rest until governments like the UK, France, and Germany make the right choice to force the super rich to pay what they owe and increase their spending on climate action and public services at home and around the world.” Kate Blagojevic, 350.org Associate Director for Europe Campaigns.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The following is a statement from Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress:

“For once, the Senate prioritized the American people over the profits of David Sacks, Mark Zuckerberg and other Big Tech billionaires desperate to unleash predatory, half-baked AI on us without any safeguards. It’s hard to believe that we were on the precipice of letting Big Tech wipe out all state and local AI laws for an entire decade, but common sense prevailed. We thank all the senators who voted to kill the noxious ban on protections against AI. We also urge all House members to follow the Senate’s lead and ensure the AI moratorium stays out of the bill.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As evidence mounts America's reckless, illegal, peace-through-stupidity attacks on Iran's nuclear sites did not in fact "OBLITERATE" them and could instead prove perilous, the moronic man-child lurches, rages, yammers on with deranged declarations - THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT! CNN is scum! Prosecute Dems! Unpatriotic! - duly parroted by his rabid flunkies: "Wave American Flags!" Still they go lower and crasser: Who had a juvenile White House resurrecting Vince Vance & The Valiants' Bomb Iran on their Clown Show Bingo Card?

After Israel finally got a U.S. president dumb enough to bomb Iran if they did - and to take his Very Serious strategic geo-political leads from what Fox News was saying - the TV-game-show-host-in chief who'd always wanted to be in a war as long as he didn't have to, you know, be in it violated U.S. and international law by launching strikes on Iran's three largest nuclear sites without legally mandated Congressional approval to do so, probably after both Israel and Iran went to him with tears in their eyes and said, "Please sir, you're the only one who can save us." Then, with only early, flimsy reports coming in, he swiftly proclaimed it "ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY" and a "PERFECT FLIGHT" and "total Obliteration for years and years" by "genius people in the military" and "it was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and STOP THE WAR!” Uh huh

After declaring a yuge fake victory, he declared a yuge fake ceasefire - which he evidently thought was like pressing the button on the Resolute Desk for Diet Coke, or like Michael Scott in The Office yelling, "I declare bankruptcy!" - by announcing that both Iran and Israel, now that they'd "gotten it all out of their 'system,'" had agreed to “a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” that would lead to “an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR." He excitedly added, "CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, ITS TIME FOR PEACE!" (No, really, he did.) "THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT! DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”

The announcement, "friendly plane wave" and all, took not just Israel and Iran but his own advisers by surprise, probably because the so-called leader of the free world is a batshit crazy, power-mad, 12-year-old living in a fever dream reality show who thinks saying something, no matter how delusional, makes it so. It didn't. Iran promptly said, "As of now, there is NO ‘agreement’ on any cessation of military operations." Israel, despite all those impressive CAPS, promptly dropped a load of bombs that the ignored, enraged ringmaster for the 7,846th time called "the likes of which I've never seen before." "Israel has to calm down," he testily told reporters. "These are two countries fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing" - a blaring pot/kettle allusion that most of the sentient world savagely noted and mocked, but he somehow missed.

Still, reality came calling. Emerging assessments - from U.S. intelligence, European leaders, media like The Financial Times, New York Times, CNN - found the attacks did less-than-obliterating damage, likely only setting back the nuclear program a few months and leaving the stockpile "largely intact.” Evidence, including photos of trucks lined up the day before removing uranium enriched material to unknown sites, suggest Iran knew the attacks were coming. Other questions linger: Maybe Fordow wasn't a major site, maybe the bombs didn't go deep enough to inflict serious damage, etc. Meanwhile, Iran charged the U.S. had "crossed a very big red line," suspended cooperation with nuclear watchdog agencies, and, experts say, may have decided to move ahead with a nuclear weapon having learned that diplomacy is "reversible, fragile and vulnerable to changes in leadership in Washington."

With the rest of us now facing what Gestapo Barbie calls "a heightened threat environment" thanks to a clusterfuck regime of clowns who make Dr. Strangelove look like a statesman, the inept juvenile who failed at casinos, steak, water, wine and now war just keeps blustering: "The sites (were) totally destroyed and everyone knows it," "It's called obliteration. No other military on Earth could have done it," "an unbelievable hit by genius pilots," "It’s gone for years, years. Inside, it’s all collapsed. Nobody can get in. It's a room that has ten million tons of rock in it." Also, he gloated, it was just like Hiroshima: "That hit ended the war. And this was essentially the same thing.” Finally, for any lingering doubts or discomfiting facts, blame "Fake News," with ZERO CREDIBILITY!” who are "scum....They're bad people. They're sick," including a CNN reporter who should be "thrown out 'like a dog."

Puffed up, he also urged the trial of fellow felon Netanyahu be "CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY" to save a "Great Hero," because America "saved" Israel and "now it is going to be the United States of America that saves" Bibi." At NATO, he told a head-swiveling, wildly under-reported story about Iran asking if it was OK they shoot 14 retaliatory missiles at the U.S. military base in Qatar at 1 o'clock. "They were very nice," Trump burbled. "They gave us warning...I said it's fine," despite America's alleged commander-in-chief agreeing to be bombed sure sounds like treason to us. "I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done...There will, hopefully, be no further HATE." He also sagely explained that everyone was taken off the base "except the gunners - they call them the gunners." At his side, Marco Rubio looks like Homer Simpson trying to melt into bushes.

Still, lacking alternatives, the minions have gamely climbed on board. Press Barbie screeched the attack was an "overwhelming success - everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets," but spent more time trashing a CNN reporter who suggested it wasn't. Drunken Pete, even angrier and more unhinged, proclaimed the strikes "the most complex and secretive military operation in history" - except how Iran knew about them and D-Day's Allied invasion of France took a year's planning, 156,000 soldiers, 195,700 navy personnel, and the cooperation of 13 nations - and launched a furious diatribe for an audience of one against mean media for seeking accurate information, aka "hunting for scandals," insulting Dear Leader and "brave pilots," and trying to "manipulate the public mind" rather than "talk about how special America is" and "Wave an American flag." What a belligerent asshole.

Trump loved it, praising "one of the greatest, most professional, and - running out of adjectives besides "beautiful" and "strong" - most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" Less entertainingly, he simply ignored diverging assessments of the U.S. intelligence community - a move former CIA Director Leon Panetta called "a very scary prospect" - dismissed the whistleblower who leaked them as a “low-level loser” while "declaring a war on leakers," announced he will (illegally, irrationally) limit classified information he shares with Congress despite no evidence the leaks came from Congress, the next day charged Dems leaked the information and "they should be prosecuted!" - this from the idiots who leaked actual war plans on Signal - and jabbered that the photos of trucks lined up at nuclear sites were those of "concrete workers trying to cover up the tops of the shafts." Say what?

Improbably, even without SCOTUS evil, it keeps getting weirder and worse. After NATO Sec. General Mark Rutte made a cringe joke about Trump as "Daddy," MAGA picked up and ran with the grotesque "Daddy" shtick: The White House posted a "Daddy's home" video, Fox giddily smirked that, thanks to those cool, pointless big-boy bombs being dropped, Republicans are "back to being the Daddy party - he gets things done," hideous orange Daddy merch instantly materialized. The final, puerile, demented abomination (for this week), like something from The Whitest Kids U' Know: He posted a 1995 parody video of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann by Vince Vance & The Valiants called Bomb Iran: "Went to a mosque/ Gonna throw some rocks." Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. His country's stunned response: "Bro, how the fuck is this real?" Honestly, we have no idea.

— (@)

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

“You will search the dominant media largely in vain for journalists that tell the truth about the fading of the American dream,” Moyers told a crowd of more than 3,000 people assembled at the 2008 conference in Minneapolis. “So it’s up to you to remind us that democracy only works when ordinary people claim it as their own. It’s up to you to write the story of an America that leaves no one out.”

Moyers called on people to build “a movement to challenge the stranglehold of mega-media corporations over our press and to build alternative and independent sources of news and information that people can trust.”

Free Press President and Co-CEO Craig Aaron said:

“Bill Moyers was a legend who lived up to his reputation. Moyers believed that journalism should serve democracy, not just the bottom line. He believed deeply in the power and potential of public media, and he set the standard for public broadcasting by telling stories you couldn’t find anywhere else. He always stood up to bullies — including those who come forward in every generation to try to crush public media and end its independence. We can honor his memory by continuing that fight.

“Moyers was a giant, who used his wide reach and wise words to lift up the voices of activists and change-makers, including the co-founders of Free Press. It’s no exaggeration to say that Free Press would not exist without Moyers’ support and encouragement. He was among the earliest supporters of Free Press and encouraged many others to join him. His wise and inspirational words motivated generations of media activists.

“Above all, Moyers was a kind and generous man, mentoring young journalists and activists – including me – and leading by example. We send our deepest condolences to his family, many friends and devoted colleagues, and millions of fans. There won’t be another Bill Moyers, but legions of us will try to carry on his work.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In response to the release of the letter, Sierra Club Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“There’s nothing beautiful about toxic air pollution, saddling drivers with higher costs, and rolling back progress on clean transportation. At this moment, as half of the country is affected by an intense heat wave, we need to focus on investing in climate solutions and holding polluters accountable. The previous Congress had funded innovative and strategic programs to reduce costs, protect American jobs, and drive the competitiveness of the U.S. vehicle industry, and they’re working in communities across the nation in Republican and Democratic districts. This disastrous bill threatens to strip away that progress in giveaways to billionaires and corporate polluters. We urge all Senators to vote one, big beautiful no on this bill.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Public Citizen Global Vaccines Access Campaign Director Liza Barrie issued the following statement:

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s reported decision to cut off support for Gavi is reckless and deadly. The Trump administration is turning its back on a program that has helped vaccinate more than a billion children and save over 17 million lives—while Kennedy spreads lies about science, safety and one of the world’s most effective public health efforts.The facts are clear. Gavi exists to get vaccines to children who need them most. It works with governments in lower-income countries, health workers and communities to stop deadly diseases. Because of Gavi, millions of children who would have died are alive today.

Kennedy claims that Gavi ignored science are entirely false. Gavi’s recommendations—are grounded in global evidence and reviewed by independent experts. His suggestion otherwise fuels the same disinformation that has already led to deadly measles outbreaks and the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio.

Gavi has publicly refuted Kennedy’s claims, reaffirming its commitment to vaccine safety and evidence-based decisions.

“This isn’t about protecting children. It’s about abandoning them. Choosing to walk away from a program that saves lives—knowing full well what the consequences will be—isn’t just reckless. It’s cruel.

“Public Citizen urges Congress to act—starting with protecting the Gavi funding already allocated in the FY25 budget, which the Trump administration is now trying to claw back through its rescissions proposal. Lawmakers must also protect Gavi funding in the FY26 budget. The United States must not walk away from global vaccine access. Not now, not ever. Turning away would be a choice to let disease spread and let children die.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Even amidst lunatic new war threats, armed, masked, unnamed stormtroopers still roam the land keeping us safe from "the worst of the worst illegal alien criminals" by abducting vicious landscapers, car wash workers, Wal Mart greeters, tamale makers, swap meet fans and distraught mothers of children with cancer. As glorified "state-sanctioned intimidation" turns some terrified Latino neighborhoods into ghost towns, "Day by passing day, we are watching what amounts to a national police riot by ICE."

In our new Police States of America, the chilling images are everywhere: Throngs of burly, ill-trained, rifle-toting bullies cosplaying as soldiers, storming a car wash or Home Depot in their fearless face masks, headphones, neck gaiters, camo helmets, armored vests, mirrored sunglasses, dime-store badges, tight t-shirts and tough-guy walkie-talkies to round up and terrorize whatever brown-skinned innocents they can find into unmarked cars and then, whoosh just like Fast and Furious, into unknown, possibly illegal, probably distant detention camps. Who are these louts? Nobody knows. Operating under an ominous "shroud of opacity" lacking any accountability, they could be any racist losers with a penchant for violence: For an entry-level "frontline" ICE gig, they just need a driver's license and have to be a U.S. citizen, eligible to carry a firearm, younger than 40. They can apply online.

Rumors abound: They are Proud Boys, Patriot Front, J-6 warriors, former goons of Erik Prince's malignant Blackwater, which would be "quite the callback to Season One of Fascist Celebrity Apprentice." Some are likely former cops gone flabby or fired for excessive force. Many are likely garden-variety white nationalists, friendless basement-dwelling incels weary of playing Call of Duty and eager to up their ugly game by arresting brown people. To a point: Despite being giddily kitted out in over-the-top, Bagdad-ready military gear, they've reportedly been advised to avoid all the seriously gangsterish areas around L.A., which is why we've seen virtually no videos of amateur-hour Nazi thugs confronting gang members who might actually punch or shoot back - just manhandling pregnant moms, elderly farmworkers, dazed young skinny guys wiping down windshields at car washes.

Starting years ago with a heinous orange guy pronouncing all Mexicans rapists and murderers, it keeps getting worse as guard rails drop. His marauding agents of chaos can now go after frightened targets in once-safe spaces: schools, courts, hospitals, places of worship. They often skip warrants, mask up, refuse to identify themselves, grab U.S. citizens or witnesses (legally) recording - reminiscent, many note, of Gestapo on the streets of Poland. They just further limited oversight by ending lawmakers' unannounced visits to detention facilities and requiring at least 72 hours' notice. And now - thanks Goebbels - the "heat's on to (go) after the devils who are taking away the jobs." No wonder stories of random bigots impersonating ICE - "Don’t be speaking that pig-Latin in my fucking country!" - are soaring. Also, kudos to Gloria Johnson on her "unhealthy toddler impersonating a President."

And so to harrowing videos of working people suddenly assaulted, cuffed and whisked away by mobs of jumpy, bellicose hoodlums in what newly arrested New York Comptroller Brad Lander calls "a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice." Like the 238 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador, at least 75% have no criminal history; most of the rest have paltry traffic or immigration violations before being "effectively disappeared." They grabbed a young Afghan interpreter for U.S. troops who invaded his country; he was at court, checking in as instructed. They pinned a pregnant U.S. citizen to a truck, detained the baby's father, then let her go to give birth four days later. They cuffed, interrogated and pulled a gun on a U.S. citizen in Chicago who, driving past thugs accosting a woman, "gave a little honk (to) be there for my people"; said thugs claimed he tried to kill them.

ICE rampages are nationwide. Here in Portland ME, an immigration legal advocacy group gets over 60 calls a day from people too scared to go to work, Hispanic kids only go out to play after dark, and abduction stories spread. In Oregon's wine country, thugs nabbed and put in chains Moises Sotelo, popular 2020 winner of the Oregon Wine Board's Vineyard Excellence Award, who's lived and raised a family there for decades. In a statement, ICE got all the facts wrong about Sotelo; when a friend tried to visit him in detention, he'd vanished and an official insisted they didn't have to tell him to where: "I told him I thought that sounded wrong, and he said, ‘Well, that’s the way it is.'" The Guardian managed to find out Sotelo was shipped to Arizona; when they asked for ICE confirmation they're under no obligation to tell family or attorneys where prisoners are, they responded, "That is correct."

Clearly California, and especially majority-Latino L.A., are the hardest hit. One resident tries to describe it: "Imagine vans roll up to your local Hobby Lobby. Heavily armed men pour out, body armor, masked, no I.D. They immediately move to every white person they see. They handcuff them, assuming they're Jan. 6 rioters." In Pico Rivera, they mobbed and took down a scrawny 20-year-old Wal-Mart worker and U.S. citizen when he tried to stop them from grabbing an older worker; the community loudly protested. In Huffington Park, a half-dozen cars filled with armed, masked, cosplay soldiers barged into the home of a pregnant mother of four; they were looking for her husband David; she said her husband's name is Jorge, and he wasn't there. Nazi Barbie stood outside, ready for the cameras; instead, they left empty-handed, after which the kids got to go back into their now-trashed house.

In Santa Fe Springs, a DHS copter circled overhead as about sixty armed, masked, geared-up etc fake warriors surged across a crowded flea market as vendors and customers fled in terror. After dragging out people from bathrooms and harassing whoever they found for I.D's, they cuffed and hauled off two victims. Another mob of about 20 masked, psyched, uber-armed hooligans went after a 60-year-old woman selling tamales outside a Lowe's; after she had a panic attack and collapsed, chaos ensued: Sirens, air horns, brave furious swarms of locals, cell cameras held high, yelling, "You guys are fucking terrorists!" and "What the fuck are you doing here?" As one chubby jerk lifted his rifle, they shrieked, "We don't need fucking guns here! Go get some bad guys!" "What a bunch of weak-ass cowards," said one. "If kidnapping the Tamale Lady doesn't wake you up, you're dead inside."

In Santa Ana, in video that's gone viral, goons brutally beat, punched and pepper-sprayed a 48-year-old landscaper and father of three U.S. Marines before dragging him so hard into an unmarked van they dislocated his shoulder; one son said over 24 hours later his father had gotten no treatment, water or food (but thank you for your service). In Pasadena, a power-drunk thug leapt out of his car, drew his gun and (illegally) pointed it at the head of a guy taking a photo of his (illegally) glare-guard-obscured license plate. Comments on a hyper-militarized GI-Joe wannabe with zero accountability: "Needs to deport: illegal, paranoid, jumpy," "Where can I report a masked man pulling a firearm on a civilian while stopped in traffic in the middle of the day?" "In hindsight, maybe empowering thugs to become American Gestapo might not have been so wise," and, "I think we're officially a shithole country now."

In what passes for mercy these days, an El Monte mother of a 21-year-old daughter battling bone cancer - the mom filmed weeping as she was dragged off - was released on bond on "humanitarian" grounds after outraged "Free Yolanda" marches; in an interview, she stoically displayed her ankle monitor. But that was a rare, small victory. Much more common are surreal scenes like the geared-up punk in Santa Ana, part of a raid outside the Little Market, seeing an observer recording from a nearby car and swiftly sticking his rifle in her face. Later, the woman, part of a local, grassroots rapid response team, calmly posted video of the encounter with helpful information: "You are legally allowed to record an ICE raid from a safe distance, for you and them. They are NOT supposed to draw any type of weapon at you for simply recording...With that said, move with caution.",

In his Doomsday Scenario, Garrett Graff argues the regime's anti-immigrant machinery has "switftly transformed itself into the closest thing the US has ever had to a secret police at the heart of our democracy" - an entity more culturally akin to the Klan nightriders of Reconstruction than any legit law enforcement agency, and one that does not believe it will ever be subject to any meaningful legal oversight or restraint by people in power wholly indifferent to public perceptions of their abuses. Given that indifference, the Goebbel push for 2,000 arrests a day, and soaring assaults on California's farm workers, day laborers, street vendors and other "easy targets" in easily accessed outdoor jobs, local lawmakers and rights advocates are doing what they can to tweak the laws, educate and protect the most vulnerable, and stem the authoritarian tide.

In response to all the documented abuses, two Bay Area legislators just introduced a bill to bar all law enforcement from wearing masks; it also requires them to identify themselves with badges and names. Arguing, "These are not lawful arrests," Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores has also called on local police to verify identities of gun-in-your-face yahoos carrying out "masked abductions," and to enforce vehicle codes on visible license plates and agency markings. Still, with many rights advocates charging there's often distance between Dems' rhetoric and reality - LAPD is "protecting (ICE), not protecting us" - local organizers have ratcheted up advocacy efforts with groups like CLEAN Carwash Worker Center and Community Self-Defense Coalition, offering residents rights workshops, “Know Your Rights” cards, and “adopt a corner” programs to warn workers of raids.

In L.A., protests continue, tow trucks are reportedly hauling off ICE rigs in solidarity, and cowboys did a unity ride because, "Nobody is going to save us. We have to come out and stand up." Elsewhere, there are No Sleep For Ice protests - drums, cans, trombones - at hotels where they stay. A new “Dictator Approved" sculpture appeared in D.C. featuring a fat, gold, thumbs-up hand crushing the crown of Lady Liberty and mock tributes from despots: "Trump is a very bright and talented man."The Onion did a special issue - sample: "Think Tank Called Himmler Institute Assures Nation This All Legal" - thanking a craven Congress for doing nothing as we "stand in the smoldering ruins of our democratic government...slipping smoothly into the warm bath of authoritarianism...Now more than ever, our nation needs your cowardice." Then they stuck a print copy in every congressperson’s mailbox.

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This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

“Despite its timid wording, the European Commission finally states the obvious: Israel is breaching its human rights obligations under the Agreement. This is an indisputable fact that Amnesty International, international courts, UN bodies, independent experts, prominent Palestinian, Israeli and international NGOs, scholars, commentators and former diplomats have been saying for years.

“It is unforgivable that it took the EU so long to launch this review and disturbing to see the EU fail to set out any measures it plans to take against Israel. Every day the EU delays meaningful action, is a greenlight for Israel to continue its genocide in the Gaza Strip and unlawful occupation of the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

“The EU and its member states have an obligation to ban trade and investment that could contribute to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and other grave violations of international law, including the crime against humanity of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.

“Now that they have determined there are ‘indications’ that Israel is breaching human rights, there is no excuse for inaction or delays. Every deal that EU member states do with Israel in the meantime, leaves them at risk of being complicit in Israel’s grave violations of international law, including genocide.

“Member states in favour of suspending the agreement must use all their diplomatic weight to ensure that opponents of the suspension, including Germany, fully understand the risk of complicity and the cruel toll on Palestinian lives of continued EU inaction. If the EU fails to live up to these obligations as a bloc, and seeks to shield itself from its clear legal obligations, its member states must unilaterally suspend all forms of cooperation that may contribute to violations of international law.”

Background

On 23 June 2025, the European Commission presented its review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement to EU foreign ministers. The review found ‘indications’ that Israel is breaching its human rights obligations but did not present any measures for the EU to take in response.

Amnesty International has long called for a thorough, comprehensive, and credible review the Association Agreement in line with EU member states’ obligations to prevent trade and investment that contributes to maintaining Israel’s unlawful occupation of the OPT, as set out by the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 and obligations not to render aid or assistance to the commission of crimes under international law.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Trump and the billionaire-backed GOP majority in the Senate are on the verge of creating a crisis for state governments across the country. Trump’s reconciliation bill would cut billions from life-saving programs like Medicaid and SNAP while slashing funding for education and environmental programs—all to pay for a massive tax giveaway to billionaires and wealthy corporations,” said ATF Executive Director David Kass. “If this bill is enacted, states will have to shoulder the burden of not only raising costs for their residents but also administrative and benefit costs due to the draconian SNAP provisions in this bill. Some states, which want to ensure their residents still have access to Medicaid, may be forced to raise taxes or cut other public goods, while others risk thousands of residents losing vital access to healthcare. We applaud these state legislators for signing on and standing up for their constituents. Senators from both parties should follow their example and reject this truly disastrous bill.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Coined by Congressman John Lewis, “Good Trouble” is the action of coming together to take peaceful, non-violent action to challenge injustice and create meaningful change. Led by the Transformative Justice Coalition, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Black Voters Matter, and more, movement leaders are inviting folks across the country to “Make Good Trouble” on July 17 by hosting an event in their community.

Organizers hope to build on the momentum from the historic “No Kings” mass mobilization on June 14, the largest demonstration to take place in Trump’s second term with over 2,100 events spanning across all 50 states. We will take to the streets, courthouses and community spaces to carry forward his fight for justice, voting rights and dignity for all.

The Trump administration’s recent escalating authoritarian actions, attacks on DEI initiatives and voting rights and dismantling of government agencies have raised alarm bells for democracy advocates, and that’s why we’re mobilizing:

• President Trump escalated immigration raids in Los Angeles, where reports showed immigrants being detained and deported without access to family or lawyers. Trump then ordered the National Guard and Marines to the city, leading to mass arrests—including peaceful protestors like SEIU California President David Huerta.
• The Trump administration attempted to weaponize the Justice Department through an indictment of Representative LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), who was simply conducting an Congressional oversight visit of an ICE detention center.
  • When Senator Alex Padilla (CA) asked a question at a Department of Homeland Security press conference, FBI agents tackled, handcuffed and pushed him to the ground.
  • Trump’s ICE detained NYC Comptroller Brad Lander for asking to see a warrant at immigration court.
• From House Republicans’ so-called “SAVE Act,” which would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, to Donald Trump’s attempted anti-voter Executive Order and attacks on the DOJ’s Voting Rights division, the Trump administration and his allies in Congress are determined to put up hurdles for millions of eligible Americans to cast their ballots.

This isn’t the government our founders envisioned, nor the democracy generations of Americans have fought to realize. As the Trump administration continues violating civil liberties and attacking fundamental freedoms, pro-democracy groups are staying vigilant. The power lies with the American people to unify and “Make Good Trouble.”

Good Trouble Lives On is led by Transformative Justice Coalition, Black Voters Matter, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, Mi Familia Acción and more.

For more information on Good Trouble Lives On, please visit https://goodtroubleliveson.org/.

MEDIA CONTACT: For media inquiries, please email media@goodtroubleliveson.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Progressive Democrats of America condemns Trump’s unconstitutional bombing of Iran. We’re outraged by these reckless, lawless, aggressive actions. We support the Khanna/Massie War Powers Resolution to curtail the abuse of war powers.

Donald Trump ordered a surprise bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including sites under international monitoring, without a vote from Congress. Without any public debate. The airstrikes on Iran’s Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites shocked the Congress and the rest of the world including, U.S. allies.

Carried out without congressional authorization or clear evidence of an imminent threat, Trump’s actions blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution as well as U.S. and international law.

As Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) stated: “Trump said he would end wars; now he has dragged America into one. His actions are a clear violation of our Constitution.”

The U.S. intelligence community confirmed in March that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. There was no emergency, no justification whatsoever. Only Trump’s irrational warmongering.

International leaders responded with horror. As expected, Iran called the attack “a grave violation of the UN Charter.” They’re far from alone in this, however. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned it could spiral into catastrophe. The EU and other nations have also condemned this unprovoked aggression.

Trump’s own political allies expressed dismay. Trump loyalists including Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene called these attacks a betrayal of the “America First” mandate to avoid endless wars.

This is not foreign policy. This is militarized authoritarianism. We must act to stop it now, before it spreads to enflame the entire Middle East, if not the entire globe in dangerous, unnecessary conflict.

We are outraged, but this moment demands more than outrage. It demands organized, coordinated resistance. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is helping lead the charge, organizing with our allies inside and outside of Congress to push back.

We’re mobilizing support for the War Powers Resolution and coordinating protests demanding an immediate ceasefire and all party negotiations to achieve a just and durable peace treaty as soon as practicable.

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) was founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and U.S. politics by working inside and outside of the party. This, by electing empowered progressives and by building the progressive movement in solidarity with with peace, justice, civil rights, environmental, and other reform efforts. For more information about the organization, please see https://PDAmerica.org

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This latest IEA report repeats the decade-old fallacy that the LNG industry is on the cusp of cleaning up its act, even though it has consistently refused to do so. The methane reductions that are supposed to result from a suite of new technologies and a slew of industry-led voluntary initiatives have failed to materialize again and again. The IEA’s own Methane Tracker data shows that the oil and gas industry’s methane emissions are massive and growing, and “have still not reached a definitive peak.” While the IEA attempts to downplay the life-cycle GHG emissions of LNG compared to coal, The IEA’s own modelling also clearly shows that there is no room for any new LNG export projects if the world is to stave off climate disaster.

“The IEA estimates that 80.5 million metric tons of methane were emitted from the global oil and gas industry in 2024, while highlighting that “methane emissions are widely underreported.” In the short term (20-year equivalency), this equates to over 6.4 billion tons of CO2. This is like adding nearly 1,700 US coal plants.

“It is beyond time that the IEA, the oil and gas industry, and enabling governments such as Japan and the US stop spreading misinformation about gas. The only way to reduce emissions from oil and gas, and the toxic pollution they spread into communities’ air and water, is to phase out fossil fuel production and use. We have waited too long. The planet is literally burning while the oil and gas industry fiddles.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The nature of the Guardian's changes to their reporting, upon which our article was based, made it impossible to keep our version published.

The Guardian's editorial note for their piece is below, in full, and their updated article can be read here:

Guardian editorial note: This article and its headline were amended on 18 June 2025. An earlier version said that under the new rules, medical staff could refuse to treat veterans based on their beliefs or marital status, and that candidates for hospital positions could face discrimination on grounds of further characteristics removed from the bylaws. After publication, the VA contacted the Guardian citing a 2013 policy directive that it says will continue to protect patients from discrimination despite the redactions in its bylaws; the VA also cited federal law protecting staff from discrimination. The VA further emphasized that federal law gives all eligible veterans access to hospital services. The VA’s comments on this were added.

In the name of transparency, we include the full text of our original article below, though we can no longer stand by the original reporting upon which it was based and disavow any further sourcing or citation of it. The public reaction to the Guardian's initial version, also documented throughout and integral to our summary of the Guardian's reporting and responses to it, no longer had the same news value or meaning given the updates from the Guardian, which is why, in the end, we decided to take our story down in full.

—Jon Queally, managing editor
Common Dreams (6/20/25)

'Disgusting': VA Doctors Can Now Reportedly Refuse to Treat Unmarried People, Democrats
This is a "political purity tests for people who risked their lives for this country," wrote one veterans group.

In response to a January executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has implemented new guidelines that permit individual doctors and other health professionals to refuse to treat patients based on their marital status or political beliefs, according to Monday reporting from The Guardian.

With the changes in place, "individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law."

According to The Guardian, previously VA hospitals' bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients based on "race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status, or disability in any employment matter." Terms on that list including, "national origin," "politics," and "marital status," are no longer there.

The changes "seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected," Dr. Kenneth Kizer, the VA's top healthcare official during the Clinton administration, told The Guardian.

The new guidelines, which also apply to psychologists and other occupations, are already in effect in at least some Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers, according to the outlet.

The Veterans Health Administration, the largest integrated healthcare system in the country, provides care at over 1,300 healthcare facilities. According to the VA's website, over 9.1 million veterans are enrolled in the VA healthcare program.

What's more, the outlet reviewed documents that show that medical staff including doctors can now be barred "from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity." Workers like certified nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and licensed clinical social workers, among others, are also impacted by the changes.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is a senior member and former chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, issued a sharp statement in response to the news.

"Healthcare isn't just a special privilege Trump gets to dole out to veterans who agree with the president—it's a moral obligation our country owes to every single man and woman who serves in uniform. Anyone who doesn't understand that has no business leading our armed forces in any way," wrote Murray in a statement on Monday.

"It's disgusting that this policy was ever allowed to go into effect, and I will not let it fly under the radar," she added.

"This isn't healthcare. It's political purity tests for people who risked their lives for this country. It's unethical, authoritarian, and every one of us should be outraged," wrote VoteVets, a progressive veterans group, in a Bluesky post on Monday in response to The Guardian's reporting.

According to The Guardian, VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz did not dispute these aspects of the new rules, but told the outlet that "all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they've earned under the law."

The rule change, according to The Guardian, stems from the January 30 executive order called "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."

The outlet reported that the "primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including 'gender affirming' and 'transgender,' from clinical settings." The VA is currently led by former Republican congressman Doug Collins.

Kasperowicz confirmed that they were implemented to adhere to January executive order. He called the changes nothing more than a "formality." He added that the revisions were necessary to "ensure VA policy comports with federal law," but did not specify which laws made the changes necessary.

Common Dreams Update: Following publication of this article, which was based on June 16 Guardian reporting, that news outlet posted updates to its coverage in response to demands for clarification from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Guardian's editorial note for their piece is below, in full, and their updated article can be read here.

Guardian editorial note: This article and its headline were amended on 18 June 2025. An earlier version said that under the new rules, medical staff could refuse to treat veterans based on their beliefs or marital status, and that candidates for hospital positions could face discrimination on grounds of further characteristics removed from the bylaws. After publication, the VA contacted the Guardian citing a 2013 policy directive that it says will continue to protect patients from discrimination despite the redactions in its bylaws; the VA also cited federal law protecting staff from discrimination. The VA further emphasized that federal law gives all eligible veterans access to hospital services. The VA’s comments on this were added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Common Dreams staff.

“Older American retirees can feel confident about their Social Security based on the Trustees’ report released today.

“Today’s report reaffirms that the Social Security Trust Fund is able to pay full benefits and expenses until 2033 as is the Medicare Trust Fund. If Congress does not make any changes, the Social Security Trust Fund will then pay 77% of benefits to all current and future beneficiaries.

“However, we cannot be complacent. Republicans in Congress have made clear they are eager to cut the benefits Americans have worked a lifetime to earn. Whether it’s raising the retirement age beyond 67, privatizing Social Security, or continuing the DOGE agenda of dismantling the Social Security Administration to make it harder to claim benefits, the future of our guaranteed benefits is at risk.

“There is a better way to strengthen Social Security for current and future generations. 94% of working Americans pay into Social Security with every paycheck. If the wealthiest 6% of Americans had to do the same, current and future generations of Americans would not only receive all the benefits they have earned, but we could increase benefits for those who need it the most.

“We urge Congress and the Administration to strengthen Medicare’s finances by reining in the high cost of prescription drugs and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices for more drugs. In addition, we urge HHS to hold Medicare Advantage insurance corporations accountable for delivering care at a reasonable cost and crack down on practices that increase corporate profits without improving patient care.

“In just a few weeks Medicare will celebrate its 60th anniversary while Social Security will celebrate its 90th. There is no better time for all Americans to commit to strengthening these critical programs. Our children and grandchildren are counting on us.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This report shows that Social Security is fully affordable, costing only about 6 percent of GDP at the end of the 21st century. It has a modest funding shortfall, which is still years away. There is no question Congress will act to avert the shortfall, as it always has in the past. The question is what Congress will do.

There are two options for action: Bringing more money into Social Security, or reducing benefits. Any politician who doesn’t support increasing Social Security’s revenue is, by default, supporting benefit cuts.

In poll after poll, the American people are clear that they strongly support making the wealthy pay their fair share into Social Security, and overwhelmingly oppose benefit cuts. As divided as Americans are over many issues, we are united about Social Security.

Not only is requiring the wealthy to pay into Social Security on all their income popular, it is also excellent policy. Income inequality has cost Social Security more than $1.4 trillion since 1983. If the wealthy pay in on all of their income, including unearned investment income, we can easily afford to protect and expand Social Security’s modest benefits.

Democrats have introduced several bills that would do just that. In sharp contrast, Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues want to give even more tax breaks to billionaires.

Importantly, the question about whether to expand or cut Social Security is a question of values, not affordability. America is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, at the wealthiest moment in our history. That money can remain concentrated in the hands of billionaires, or it can go towards Social Security, enriching all of our lives.

There is an urgent crisis facing Social Security, but it’s not a shortfall years in the future. It is sabotage that’s happening right now. Despite Donald Trump’s promise to protect Social Security, Elon Musk’s DOGE is undermining it every day. DOGE has pushed out thousands of Social Security staffers, including nearly half of senior executives. This is an incalculable loss of institutional knowledge and expertise.

These cuts are completely misguided and unnecessary. Social Security is run very efficiently, with well under a penny of every dollar spent on administrative costs. Given that, substantially increasing or decreasing Social Security’s administrative budget has a negligible impact on the system’s finances.

Today’s report is a reminder that even as DOGE’s cuts to the Social Security Administration are wrecking Social Security’s customer service, they are doing nothing to improve its solvency.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Transgender health care bans legislate Christian Nationalist view of gender

“The Supreme Court’s ultra-conservative justices are allowing Christian Nationalists and their allies to legislate a narrow, religious view of gender that will harm countless children and families. Not only has the court failed to protect America’s children, but this decision will encourage Christian Nationalists to further restrict any and all health care that doesn’t align with their narrow religious beliefs. LGBTQ+ people, women, religious minorities, the nonreligious and other traditionally marginalized communities are particularly at risk.

“Christian Nationalists have achieved yet another milestone in their decades-long effort to drag our country back in time. We need a national recommitment to church-state separation, which ensures freedom without favor and equality without exception. At Americans United, we will continue to fight for the right of all Americans to live as themselves and believe as they choose, as long as they do not harm others. That includes our gender-nonconforming and transgender family members, coworkers, friends, and neighbors.”

AU joined amicus brief opposing transgender health care ban

Americans United joined Kentucky parents of transgender children and civil rights groups in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the case involving the Tennessee ban, explaining that transgender health care bans intentionally discriminate against transgender youth by denying them medications that are prescribed for other youth. These laws do not ban these medications for all minors, but only when they are prescribed for transgender minors. As a result of this discriminatory treatment, transgender youth are unable to obtain the only effective treatment for the severe distress caused by gender dysphoria.

AU’s brief was among more than 30 friend-of-the-court briefs in which bioethicists, medical providers, medical historians, family law professors, and additional families in states where care has been banned had urged the Supreme Court to rule against bans on essential medical care for transgender adolescents so that families can make the health care decisions that are best for their children.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Court agreed with parts of the Sixth Circuit’s opinion that allowed the law to take effect, holding that Tennessee’s SB1 does not draw a sex-based (or a trans status-based) line and thus only necessitates deferential review by the courts. That means SB1 can remain in effect. Notably, however, the decision is based on the record in and context of the Tennessee case and therefore does not extend to other cases concerning discrimination based on transgender status.

“Today’s ruling is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution,” said Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Though this is a painful setback, it does not mean that transgender people and our allies are left with no options to defend our freedom, our health care, or our lives. The Court left undisturbed Supreme Court and lower court precedent that other examples of discrimination against transgender people are unlawful. We are as determined as ever to fight for the dignity and equality of every transgender person and we will continue to do so with defiant strength, a restless resolve, and a lasting commitment to our families, our communities, and the freedom we all deserve.”

“This is a heartbreaking ruling, making it more difficult for transgender youth to escape the danger and trauma of being denied their ability to live and thrive,” said Sasha Buchert, Counsel and Director of the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project at Lambda Legal. “But we will continue to fight fiercely to protect them. Make no mistake, gender-affirming care is often life-saving care, and all major medical associations have determined it to be safe, appropriate, and effective. This is a sad day, and the implications will reverberate for years and across the country, but it does not shake our resolve to continue fighting.”

“Today the Supreme Court told Tennessee transgender youth and their families that they cannot access healthcare that is vitally important for a successful life,” said Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee. “This ruling creates a class of people who politicians believe deserve healthcare, and a class of people who do not. We will continue to stand with transgender people in Tennessee and are committed to realizing a world where all people belong, are valued, and can access the necessary healthcare they need.”

U.S. v. Skrmetti began when a lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on behalf of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 16-year-old transgender daughter, as well as two other plaintiff families filing anonymously and Memphis-based physician Dr. Susan Lacy. The plaintiff families and Dr. Lacy argued that the law violates the Equal Protection rights of transgender adolescents. Under President Joe Biden, the United States intervened to also argue that the Tennessee law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. After President Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. reversed its position.

Since 2021, 25 states have enacted categorical bans on gender-affirming medical care, such as hormone therapy and puberty-suppressant medications, for treating gender dysphoria in transgender youth yet readily allow those same medications for other and similar purposes for cisgender youth. Over 100,000 transgender people under 18 now live in a state with a ban on their health care.

In January 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to withhold funds from medical providers and institutions that provide gender-affirming medical treatments such as puberty suppressants and hormone therapies to any trans person under 19. That order was soon challenged on behalf of families, medical providers, and advocates by the ACLU and the Lambda Legal and is blocked from enforcement by a preliminary injunction.

This case is a part of the ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Of course the long-coveted, savagely panned parade for a man-child who would be king was a bust, "a pathetic event for a pathetic president," notably in contrast to the estimated 11 million angry Americans who came out to say, "No Cons, No Clowns, No Dicks, No Kings." The sad poseur raved about Marxist lunatics who want "transgender for everybody," but he evidently missed the silent, stellar protest by scores of Army troops who in "malicious compliance" were in fact doing "the fuck Trump shuffle."

The Continental Army was established 250 years ago this weekend on June 14, 1775 by the Thirteen Colonies as they fought to defend their freedoms against autocrats. Coincidentally, June 14 is also Flag Day, International Bath Day, Knit in Public Day, and the birthday of Che Guevara, yours truly and that orange stain on humanity, Commander Tinpot Bone Spur. So it was that the five-time draft dodger and aspiring despot was fundraising for "my military parade" while arguing America can't afford health care for seniors, free lunch for schoolchildren, HIV drugs for sick children - or more than two dolls each - so "a broken-inside narcissist can pretend he’s not the worthless piece of shit failure his father never stopped telling him he was" and have a bellicose vanity parade like all the other Big Boy Supreme Leaders like North Korea's Kim Jong Un - "We fell in love" - who isn't speaking to him any more.

Pretty much everyone else, including veterans furious about the gutting of the V.A, agreed it was a stupid, vulgar, deeply offensive, hideously timed idea, with Retired Maj. General Paul Easton of VoteVets calling it "an exercise in puffery" echoing Soviets marching around Red Square in the Cold War: "We didn’t do it because our greatest strength was our democracy. Today, that democracy is under attack." Indeed, even as House co-chairs of a new Democratic Veterans Caucus handed out small flags to colleagues because, "Patriotism does not belong to one party," one party was doing its damnedest to shred democratic governance. At that moment, ICE goons were handcuffing Sen. Alex Patilla for asking a question of Nazi Barbie Homeland as she vowed that illegally called-up military won't leave L.A. until they can "liberate" the city from its "socialist," albeit duly elected officials.

There's been a Dem mayor arrested, Dem Rep indicted, Dem comptroller detained, a goading, vicious Tinpot speech (behind bulletproof glass) at Ft. Bragg, a threat protests at his party "will be met with very big force - these are people who hate our country" (nope, just you) - and deranged taunts from a Florida sheriff that if fictional protesters "throw a brick..we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at, because we will kill you graveyard dead." Now, a few days later, we've seen real murders of Dem lawmakers in Minnesota, a Middle East increasingly, mindlessly facing conflagration, our own deportation police state's spiraling effort to render the military and every U.S institution a weapon of a madman's vengeful agenda, and untold reasons why a dog-and-pony-and-tank show for an idiot narcissist was not what we needed at this dark historic moment.

Yet here they came: 6,600 soldiers, Black Hawk helicopters, Chinooks, tanks, P-51 aircraft, B-25 bomber, 34 horses, two mules, robot dogs, paratroopers dropping, soldiers absurdly carrying drones like pizzas, a soundtrack of canned applause and bad covers of 80s rock songs, Lee Greenwood warbling "God Bless the U.S.A," an MC squawking, "Special thanks to our sponsors" - Lockheed Martin, Coinbase, Palantir, UFC, though he left out U.S. tax payers - because, "Corporate sponsorship for autocracy is such an American thing." They even hawked watches by Trump, who's wanted a parade since seeing a 2017 Bastille Day event in Paris; first term Defense Sec. James Mattis said he'd "rather swallow acid." Now Trump blathered, "We’re the hottest country in the world right now...Our warriors will charge into battle. They will plunge into the crucible of fire, and they will seize the crown of victory."

Uh huh. Facts owe: Everything he touches dies. Despite the $45 million price tag, trainloads of tanks and fears of goose-stepping storm-troopers, the day was "a flop at best," "a little underwhelming," a shoddy, bleak vision of aspiring fascism by a low-rent, third-world country whose sweaty denizens endured "a very long and uncomfortable day" of speeches, exhibits, humidity, slow lines, no shade, little food, sticky drizzle, shrieking music, kids clambering on tanks, warm Screamin’ Freedom energy drinks, too few signs - "Nobody knows what’s going on" - and sparse crowds: "I had more people at my bar mitzvah party," "I've seen more people at Applebees on a Tuesday." Much lampooned were near-empty stands of onlookers gazing silent, uncheering, perhaps pondering their life choices as lumbering tanks s-l-o-w-l-y squeaked past. The consensus from one young poet: "It was just...kind of lame."

— (@)

Online, many viewers mocked the sad small crowds peppering the vast National Mall: "I guess they didn't get much interest from the seat-filler Craigslist ad," "It's like watching a poorly attended golf tournament," "What a fucking clown show. What keeps surprising me is how embarrassing it all is - just one shameful, cringey, mortifying moment after another." Drawing particular ire were the "clusterfuck" of sloppy slouching troops, line after line of soldiers in fatigues not marching in step but numbly, blankly sauntering, often out of sync with the cheesy music: "How to embarrass our troops and country in one day," "Sad. Kim Jong Un will not be impressed," "Most ridiculous thing I have ever seen," "The marchers do not appear to be thrilled to be there - maybe they forgot to feed them," "I have seen first graders walking in a crosswalk do better than that."

It took a day or so for astute commentators, especially veterans, to surface and report, "This is 100% a silent protest," a deliberate rejection of “being treated like props for the benefit of an egomaniacal toddler," a "quiet, disciplined Foxtrot Delta Tango that says, 'We're here because we have to be, not because we believe in this clown show.' It’s protest through precision silence and damn, it speaks volumes." "Troops don’t forget how to march," insisted many veterans. "Former army here. It takes about a week of drill in basic to learn how to march. Once you do, it’s ingrained in you for life." Also: "If the cadence is off, they correct. If no one’s calling it, someone steps up. Unless...they don’t want to," "I took JROTC 2 decades ago. I can still march in step. It was absolutely on purpose," "Anyone vaguely familiar with actual military knew this on sight," "It's a big 'fuck you' to Trump from the soldiers."

They posted slick contrasting video to argue, "The Army knows how to march." They noted nobody returned Private Tinpot's limp mock salute; the irony of clueless officials playing Fortunate Son, a song about poor kids fighting in wars that rich kids dodge; the reality that, "To anyone that hasn’t served, it’s actually HARD to be this out of step." They praised "a classic example of messaging whilst under duress, hidden in plain sight" and "showing Don the Con the respect he deserves." They reported young soldiers drinking, hanging out, doing "a lot of eye-rolling" with chatter about playing "cosplay for a dumb ass wannabe dictator like you're a court jester." They celebrated that "6,000 troops voted with their feet on Saturday to tell President Bone Spurs where he can stick any plans for deploying them to enforce martial law." And they said, sincerely, pointedly, "Thank you for your service."

Dear Leader bedecked in cartoon gloryScreenshot from Bluesky

The White House claimed 250,000 people turned up for the whiny toddler's birthday; Planet Earth put the number at 17, or more generously, 40,000 tops. Enraged by yet more failure, "a big tub of rock salt poured on his wounds of lifelong insecurity," he lashed out - because he's a racist psycopath, at brown people and their allies trying to sneak them in to vote, though they're not and they can't. ICE is "herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” he raved of abducting dishwashers and house painters in L.A., Chicago, New York, "where millions upon millions of illegal aliens reside." He berated "Radical Left Democrats" who "are sick of mind," "hate our country," "want Transgender for Everybody" and "believe in Open Boarders" (sic), with friendly people staying at their houses.

Deservedly, foreign coverage of the day was merciless. Via Ireland's Waterford Whispers News, North Korea reported America "held a gaudy and vainglorious display of their dwindling military might," with "their inferior leader looking old, confused and tired (as) he sat next to an expensive prostitute and a drunk telvision host for the duration of the parade. In total, $40 million was spent on the parade by the debt-ridden failed state, shamefully so at a time of increasing poverty in the country. Many have noted how pudgy and overweight the Trump looks at a time when Americans struggle for food." They also cited several instances of political violence in a nation "unable to tolerate political dissent...The propaganda exercise was swallowed whole by the dull of mind and incurious of spirit. The helpless sheep believe themselves to be the envy of the world, but the world laughs in their faces."

Fresh from his squeaky-wheeled humiliation, our inferior leader then took his stunning incompetence to the G7 meeting in Alberta, where he made more of an ass of himself. He parroted Russian talking points, misstated history - Obama and "a person named Trudeau" didn't want Russia in G7 - yammered about Dems conspiring with immigrants until Mark Carney shut him up, confused the U.K. and E.U., claimed he made a trade deal before dropping the papers, earned a killer wink from the adults in the room, argued "Iran should have signed the deal I told them to sign" though he himself pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, proclaimed 9 million people "should immediately evacuate Tehran!” and left G7 early while bad-mouthing Macron - "Emmanuel always gets it wrong" - for saying he'd left to work on a ceasefire when he wants "a complete give-up" by Iran. Mr. Art-of-the-Taco strikes again.

— (@)

Back home, he still miserably failed. After the horrific shootings of Minnesota lawmakers, as MAGA-ites raved "the left has become a full blown domestic terrorist organization” about the anti-abortion, Trump-supporting perp, Trump vilely declined to call Gov. Tim Walz because, "The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess...Why waste time?" Meanwhile, rumors swirl about his own (further) cognitive and physical decline, from stumbles to diapers, catheters, his "unmistakable" odor. Mob-boss-like, he's ever more cruel, erratic, incoherent, a dumpster fire of random, head-swiveling "policies" enacted by his Nazi flunkies. He's rarely seen outside the Oval Office or Hell-a-Lago; when he is he nods off, or does nothing but sign illegal executive orders and post vindictive rants. Never up to the emotional, intellectual, moral demands of the job, now his physical decline may be "the last penny to drop."

But even incontinent and deranged, he's still grifting. Along with his $600 million worth of crappy watches, sneakers, Bibles, coins et al, he and his cretinous sons just launched a largely fictional, error-ridden Trump Mobile phone service and a $499 "sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance" that "looks both bad and impossible" which may or may not ship in August or September unless, you know, it doesn't, but is available to pre-order now to try and fill that gaping hole of endless insatiable greed where a soul should be. The blurb says it's made in America but actually, said Eric right after calling L.A. protesters "mongoloids," that means it could eventually be made in America, "because our ethos is build for Americans, by Americans," maybe even by some of those workers we've disappeared to foreign gulags or are now ripping from their wives and children, they'll need work right?

No wonder up to 11 million Americans "radicalized by basic decency" came out last weekend to say we hate you rapacious shitheads. See us here, here, here with our fabulous signs: "It's A Beautiful Day to Melt Some Ice. No Clowns, No Dicks, No Nazis. Rapist, Felon, Putting the Dick Into Dictatorship. Deport Oligarchs Not Immigrants. Rejecting Kings Since 1776. This Sucks. Fuck Trump. Fuck ICE." Rev. William Barber: "Remember that no one can become our king if we refuse to bow." Cue 87-year-old veteran John Spitzberg, arrested for peacefully protesting with about 75 veterans who crossed a police line; one cop cuffed him, wobbly, behind his back - comrades yelled "Shame, Shame, Shame!" - as another wheeled away his walker. How did arrest at 87 feel, he was asked. "I'm just beginning, my friend," he said. "I'm gonna just get a little sleep, and I'm starting again."

Pictures of the parade crowd released by White HouseScreenshot from Bluesky

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

The Parliamentarian is tasked with issuing rulings to determine which provisions of the bill are subject to the “Byrd rule” and thus not eligible to be passed by simple majority using the reconciliation process. However, Thune and the Senate Republican majority recently took steps to override the Parliamentarian’s guidance on the Congressional Review Act, another fast-track legislative mechanism, to pass a measure by simple majority that otherwise would have required 60 votes.

“While the signatories to this letter have a range of views on the ongoing utility of the Senate filibuster, there is a unifying principle upon which we all can agree: the law as it stands must be followed,” the letter reads. “Indeed, you acknowledged as much earlier this Congress, when asked whether you would advise against moving to override the Senate Parliamentarian’s determinations under Byrd, stating, ‘[T]hat’s totally akin to killing the filibuster. We can’t go there. People need to understand that.’ This public stance would be heartening, had you not made similar assurances on maintaining the integrity of CRA process and followed them up by improperly extending that Act’s expedited procedures to the disapproval of any executive branch action, forging a primrose path around the filibuster in the process. Such depredations on law, precedent, and the institution of the Senate must end.”

“The Senate majority has already demonstrated it is willing to follow or ignore the rules based entirely on their preferences. But lives hang in the balance depending on the outcome of this bill, and it would be inexcusable for the majority to again burn the rulebook in the service of the destructive Trump agenda,” added Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen.

“The leadership in the Senate is heading down a dangerous path of ignoring the rules to get what it wants. If the Senate majority disregards the existing rules again for its massive tax bill, that would do incalculable damage to law, precedent, and the institution of the Senate,” added Kyle Jones, director of federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

• Read the report: www.bankingonclimatechaos.org
• Read the key findings here

“The retreat by U.S. banks from robust climate commitments is unacceptable, deeply irresponsible, and a clear capitulation to political pressure. Banks must shift away from risky financing and commit to reducing emissions via the companies they finance, with a genuine focus on helping to decarbonize the economy and support the urgent and necessary clean energy transition. For example, it’s indefensible that US banks reject direct project finance as too risky, only to support the same projects indirectly through corporate lending—these loopholes must be closed,” said Jessye Waxman, Campaign Advisor for the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Finance campaign.
See more quotes from report co-authors.

OVERALL TRENDS

The report shows that global banks increased their fossil fuel financing by $162 billion from 2023 to 2024. This is a new trend, since overall fossil fuel finance had been decreasing since 2021. Global banks have financed $7.9 trillion in fossil fuels since 2016, when the Paris Agreement was signed.

In 2024, loans were the top form of financing with an increase to $467 billion from $422 billion from 2023. Bonds saw the largest increase to $401 billion from $284 billion in 2023. Acquisition financing also rose to $82.9 billion from $63.7 billion in 2023.

COMPANIES EXPANDING FOSSIL FUELS

The report reveals that global banks have financed companies expanding fossil fuels with $1.6 trillion since 2021. In 2024, global banks financed these companies with $429 billion alone — a rise of $84.8 billion from 2023.

Some of the top companies that received 2024 financing to expand fossil fuels from the 65 global banks listed in the report include:

• Diamondback Energy, $20.9 billion. Its oil & gas expansion plans are located largely in the Permian Basin in Texas.
• Enbridge, $16.5 billion. Its pipeline expansion plans are located in Canada and the US. The Sierra Club is fighting Enbridge’s T15 pipeline expansion in North Carolina intended to service Duke’s planned gas-burning power plants in Person County.
• BP, $10.9 billion. Its oil & gas expansion plans are located in 30 countries and include focusing on exploration, pipeline development, LNG terminals, and gas-fired power.
• Energy Transfer, $7.8 billion. Its pipeline and LNG expansion plans are located largely in the US. The Sierra Club has opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, arguing it poses significant risks to the climate, local communities, and Indigenous sovereignty.
• Duke Energy, $7.1 billion. It is the second largest utility burning fossil fuels in the US, and it operates in six states. Duke’s expansion plans include a heavy reliance on coal and gas, with very little renewable energy. The Sierra Club is calling on utilities across the US to prioritize powering the electric grid with renewable energy to support a healthy and sustainable future.

BANK FINANCING: BY THE NUMBERS

JP Morgan Chase is the largest fossil fuel financier in the world, committing $53.5 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2024. Four banks increased their fossil fuel financing by more than $10 billion. The top four banks with the largest absolute increase are JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Barclays.

U.S. banks committed $289 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2024, one third of the global financing for that year in the scope of the report. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, the top four U.S. banks, alone represent 21% of total global fossil fuel financing in the scope of this report.

Japanese companies Mizuho, MUFG, and SMBC contributed 12% of this report’s overall financing for that year. Nearly half of that financing went to companies headquartered in the United States.

In Europe, the UK bank Barclay’s is the largest fossil fuel financier in 2024 with $35.4 billion. Spain’s Santander, France’s BNP Paribas, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, and the UK’s HSBC each contributed between $14 and $17.3 billion to the industry in 2024.

BACKGROUND

The Banking on Climate Chaos report is authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald. It has been endorsed by 480 organizations in 69 countries. Learn more at www.bankingonclimatechaos.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

ICAN's Executive Director, Melissa Parke, said: “The escalation in the conflict following nuclear-armed Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has to stop before it is too late. Attacking nuclear facilities is illegal and threatens to release radiation, causing a long term threat to people’s health and the environment. The conflict is also a threat to international peace and security.

ICAN calls on the international community, including Israel’s allies, to clearly condemn Israel’s action and to put pressure on both parties to end hostilities. International treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are essential tools to bring peace and security to the region and globally. The two countries should take immediate action - Israel should join both treaties and Iran should join the TPNW and reiterate its commitment to the NPT. ”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“Americans should slam down the phone in response to the latest marketing ploy from the Trump family business. Everything about this plan should tell Americans to disconnect right away.

“First, while the details of the Trump phone plan remain murky, the plan appears to be far more expensive than options available from existing competitors — suggesting it will join a long line of Trump consumer scams and ripoffs. And good luck getting a federal agency to hold the company accountable if service fails or things go off the rails.

“Second, the Trump announcement claims the physical phone will be made in the USA, but there is reason to doubt that claim. There is only one existing phone that is made in the United States — costing $2000 — so the phone is, at minimum, likely to rely heavily on imported parts, raising questions about how Trump’s chaotic tariffs will apply to any imported parts for the Trump phone.

“Third, if the phone actually takes off, how are competitors supposed to respond? Should they advertise, truthfully, that they have a cheaper, comparable product? Or will they be too frightened? Will other businesses choose to rely on the Trump phone plan as a way to curry favor with the president? Does this portend a Trump corruption of the economy to parallel the Trump corruption of politics?

“We’ll need many more details to fully assess what’s going on — including the worrisome claim of offering a pharmacy and telehealth benefit — but it’s already clear this is a plan that should be cancelled, immediately.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Well-over 90% of respondents supported endorsing Zohran Mamdani for Mayor.

Given these overwhelming results PDA-NY and P4DA are singularly endorsing State Representative Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City.

This is fitting for two organizations associated with Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) since Mamdani's platform is perfectly in line with PDA's policy positions.

Indeed! PDA has authored proposals for a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights (which Mamdani's platform matches up with perfectly) and also a 21st Century Rural New Deal, and, most significantly, we are in the process of composing a 21st Century Template for Urban Renewal.

Zohran Mamdani's platform is exemplary, providing a vision of a dramatically improved life for urban dwellers.

On issue after issue, PDA-NY and P4DA feel that Mr. Mamdani is spot-on: from his extraordinary proposals to improve NYC housing, his visionary proposals for transportation, public safety, food security, child care, and higher education, as well as his sane approach to the climate emergency, wages, labor, libraries, healthcare, small businesses, and taxation, his call clarion call for peace and justice in the Middle East, and his compassionate support and protection for immigrants and the LGBTQIA+ communities, which are under hateful, bigoted attacks by Trump and the GOP.

And, yes, we love his proposal for Trump-proofing NYC!

Also, in these dark days in which the nation's politics are dominated by another native New Yorker, it's worth noting that Mr. Mamdani has proven himself to be as charismatic and as he is thoughtful. This is significant unto itself. The country and the world longs for such a leader in Trump's hometown, to be a countervailing force to the reprehensible, anti-democratic, and clearly fascist President. Comparisons will inevitably be made between the President and the next Mayor. We are confident that Mr. Mamdani will inspire people across the City, the State, the country and the world to recognize and support democracy over authoritarianism, and the people over the oligarchs

Lastly, it must be said, we at PDA are thrilled to endorse a Democratic Socialist candidate for Mayor!

Let us not forget that NYC's greatest Mayor, Fiorella La Guardia, was a socialist; and that the socialist Mayors of Milwaukee were consistently acknowledged as the best Mayors in the country during their multiple decades in office in the 20th century.

Likewise, no region in the world was more heralded for its local governance, than the socialist-led cities of Central and Northern Italy in their post-fascist era. And, to this day, no city in the world has better housing than Vienna, Austria where they've maintained the housing model established by their great socialist city leaders in the 1920s.

Socialist Mayors have an unrivalled legacy of urban governance and it's time again for the richest city in the world to do right by its working class majority – and, in the process, improve the lives of all New Yorkers, and the experience of all visitors to the Big Apple, by electing Zohran Mamdani the Mayor of New York.

Early voting begins today Saturday June 14 and election day is Tuesday June 24^th.

When you vote for Mayor of NYC, rank Zohran Mamdani first!

One final note: PDA-NY's and P4DA's endorsement of Zohran Mamdani is especially notable because PDA has rarely made state, county or municipal endorsements in NY State because of a quirk of PDA's history. When PDA was founded in 2004, the founding Executive Director had such respect for the Working Families Party that it decided not to emphasize organizing in NY State. So, as PDA grew rapidly across the country in the first decade of the century, there was one state where that wasn't the case, New York. Then, PDA transformed American politics by successfully drafting Bernie Sanders to run for President as a Democrat in 2016 (PDA launched the Run Bernie Run campaign in 2013!). As a consequence of that, PDA now has thousands of members across the State and in the City - and when we polled our NYC members the result was spectacular: over 90% support for Zohran Mamdani.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In honor of Pride Month, singular acts of courage and "being brave, strong and gorgeous," enjoy the glad spectacle of four drag queens dolled up to kill, see Les Misérables, and crash Dear Leader's first visit to a Kennedy Center purportedly scrubbed of wokeness. Yet here they were - buoyant, sparkling, cheered by a crowd that moments before had loudly booed the ugly tyrant and his MAGA cohort. The queens' gist, said Mari Con Carne: "You can’t erase us."

The queens turned up for an evening already bursting with irony if any MAGA goons and losers were capable of it. Amidst a Pride Month he refused to recognize - and fierce pushback to his hate - the Bigot-In-Chief who already decimated a time-honored institution devoted to art and open-mindedness witlessly chose to attend a beloved show about an oppressed people fighting back against tyranny much like his.

Accompanied by the grotesque likes of Vance, Bondi, Loomer, RFK Jr., Kellyanne Conway and a fragile Gym Jordan who visibly cringed when he walked past four people who don't look like him, Trump et al were roundly booed by the modest crowd. There were also shouts of "Felon!" and "Rapist!" - what a time to be alive - along with a muted, incongruous chant of "USA!" on behalf of the cretins who are working so hard to destroy it.

In full, defiant finery, the four drag queens - Tara Hoot, Ricky Rosé, Vagenesis, and Mari Con Carne - were greeted by the audience with joyful whoops, cheers and applause as they sashayed in and took their seats below the presidential box. Their tickets had been donated by season ticket-holders through Qommittee, a national advocacy network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of high-profile hate crimes like the Pulse and Club Q mass shootings.

"It was delightful,” said Hoot, stressing their "message of inclusivity" but adding, "I love musicals. I mean, I’m a drag queen." "Kudos to all bringing art to the world," she said. "Unfortunately, there were some other people there too, but I think we brightened the audience as much as we could." In family story time events, she noted, "I often read books about being brave (and) true to who you are. Showing up (here) with my fellow drag stars allowed me to live those words. Here's to being brave, strong, and gorgeous."

Trump, ever uncouth, left before the lights came up. Still, Mari Con Carne felt it was "crucial" to be there before him. As a drag queen and an immigrant, "I wanted it to be known you can prevent us from performing on your stages, but you can’t erase us...We aren’t going anywhere and we will face you head-on with every ounce of courage we have." When Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables, he was shocked by the silence of his compatriots before "the negation of all law, equilibrium resting on iniquity." This week's troupe of "delightfully audacious" drag queens might give him hope.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

The video begins with Mahmoud’s voice speaking over the phone to Deen from ICE detention in Louisiana: “Yaba Deen, these are my first words to you,” Mahmoud says.

It comes just one day after a federal judge granted Mr. Khalil’s request for preliminary injunction, finding that he would continue to suffer irreparable harm if he remains detained. Further, the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to detain and seek to deport someone purely on the basis of their advocacy. Despite this ruling, he remains detained in Louisiana.

As fathers themselves, these artists are using their platforms to speak out. Palestinian American comedian and actor Mo Amer explains, “I am a Palestinian refugee, asylee to America, became a citizen in 2009, and in 2023 I had a son. Mahmoud’s letter is like a dagger to the heart, and that’s why I am doing this.”

They also understand that if it can happen to Mahmoud, a permanent lawful resident and U.S. green card holder, it can happen to anyone. As Iranian American actor and screenwriter Arian Moayed noted, “I can't imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for labor rights. I can't imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for Iranian rights. I can't imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for veterans rights. All of which I have done in the past. And now I'm saying the same thing. No human being deserves to be taken away from their child because of what they believe in. That's not what this country is made for.”

The celebrity fathers filmed this video because they see how Mahmoud’s struggle is intertwined with theirs. “I know that on this stolen land, nobody is free unless we are all free. And so this is an act of solidarity and love for any and all who dream for a better and healthier future for all of us, in all life on this planet,” said Native American activist and actor from Reservation Dogs’ Dallas Goldtooth.

Furthermore, they know that every day that Mahmoud remains detained is a day too long. Emmy-winning TV host, comedian and activist W. Kamau Bell said it plainly: “I get to go home to my kids. All dads should get that.”

Just last week, dozens of experts outlined the “irreparable harm” he and his loved ones will continue to suffer as long as he remains detained thousands of miles away from him.

“True justice would mean Mahmoud was never taken away from us in the first place, that no Palestinian father, from New York to Gaza, would have to endure the painful separation of prison walls like Mahmoud has. I will not rest until Mahmoud is free, and hope that he can be with us to experience his first Father’s Day at home in New York with Deen in his arms,” said Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud’s wife.

Mr. Khalil is represented by Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights, CLEAR, Van Der Hout LLP, Washington Square Legal Services, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the ACLU of New Jersey, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In the days leading up to the events, President Trump sought to deter attendance, saying any protestors at his event would “be met with very big force.” The comment and his administration’s actions in Los Angeles have ignited greater enthusiasm in the rallies.

Statement of Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause President & CEO

From weaponizing the government against the people to throwing a sitting U.S. Senator to the ground for exercising his right to ask a question, the Trump Administration is leading this country right into a tyrannical dictatorship. There is nothing patriotic about activating our military force for political gamesmanship.

That’s why, despite Trump’s efforts to scare us from speaking out, we will fill the streets of America’s cities with peaceful protest and joyful resistance. Together, we will march for our futures to declare we have no kings in America.

The people are doing their part, and now it’s time for Congress to do theirs.

Congress is to blame for bringing us to this breaking point. Their partisanship has fueled widespread division, their inaction on comprehensive immigration reform has filled us with doubt, and their corruption has broken our trust.

Instead of passing comprehensive immigration reform, they wrung their hands for four decades, leaving millions of our neighbors without a pathway or plan. Today’s Congress wants to pass a budget that would give this president greater license to turn our government into a weapon against us — with our taxpayer dollars funding it all.

And because of their neglect, this administration is using these very real immigration challenges to attack and terrorize our communities.

We will not let this Congress repeat the mistakes of the past and we will not allow this President to play political football with this crisis. This is why tomorrow, we march.

In Washington, we marched for economic justice. In Selma, we marched for civil rights. And tomorrow, on Flag Day, from Los Angeles to Omaha to Concord, we will patriotically march for our freedoms and remind those in power that this is a government by the people.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In response, Sierra Club Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“The Trump administration’s attack on clean air and clean vehicles only benefits the fossil fuel industry, leaving Americans to foot the bill with higher fueling costs, limited vehicle choices, and more pollution. Instead of investing in electric vehicle manufacturing here in the U.S. and leading us towards a healthier future, the administration is dead set on pushing us backwards and ceding EV innovation and leadership to China. The Sierra Club will continue to fight for clean transportation solutions across the country.”

Background on the clean vehicle programs and CRA votes:

The EPA granted waivers to California for these three programs through congressionally-granted authority under the Clean Air Act. For nearly 50 years, California has had the authority to establish vehicle pollution standards that are more protective than the federal standards, and states have had the explicit right granted under the Clean Air Act to protect their residents’ health by choosing California’s standards.

The Senate votes on May 22 were an unlawful use of the CRA, and inconsistent with decades of precedent, decisions by the Government Accountability Office, and the Senate Parliamentarian. The CRA does not apply to “adjudicatory orders” or “rules of particular applicability” like waivers, as the Government Accountability Office determined in 2023 and recognized again in March. The Senate Parliamentarian also confirmed earlier in April that the CRA cannot be used to repeal the waivers.

All three programs help to improve air quality for Californians, as well as for residents in many other states that have adopted the programs. See Sierra Club’s state tracker here.

Advanced Clean Cars II: The ACC II program allows California to enforce vehicle emission standards stronger than the federal government’s which the state needs to comply with federal air quality standards and curb health-harming vehicle pollution for its residents. California has severe problems meeting the federal ozone air quality standards, and reducing vehicle pollution is essential since vehicles are the largest source of ozone precursors in the State. Twelve other states and the District of Columbia have adopted the program as well under the authority of the Clean Air Act.

Advanced Clean Trucks: The ACT program requires manufacturers to increasingly sell a certain number of zero-emission trucks and buses in California, ramping up gradually over time to reach 40-75% sales requirement for zero-emission trucks and buses in 2035. Ten other states have adopted the program as well.

Heavy-Duty low-NOx Omnibus: The HDO program helps to cut smog-forming nitrogen oxides from heavy-duty vehicles in California by setting more stringent air pollution emissions standards (eventually requiring a 90% cut in NOx emissions from model year 2027 engines), improving testing requirements for engines, and extending engine warranties. Nine other states have adopted the program as well.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Trump and Senate Republicans finally delivered a long-awaited return on investment to the billionaire backers that fund their party: an IRS Chief with extreme views on tax policy and no interest in reining in wealthy tax cheats or helping working families. It’s alarming that a nominee with so many clear-cut, publicly visible instances of potential fraud or corruption was able to get the votes of Senate Republicans to become the lead administrator of our country’s tax system,” said David Kass, ATF’s Executive Director. “Long—who once co-sponsored legislation to abolish the agency he now leads—is sending a clear signal to wealthy tax cheats everywhere that Trump’s IRS will serve the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of working and middle-class families. With Long at the helm, it becomes even more critical to stop Trump’s disastrous tax bill that cuts critical programs Americans depend on, like Medicaid and SNAP, to fund massive tax giveaways for billionaires.”

For more information on Billy Long’s tax positions, please see our recent report analyzing his positions on tax issues in Congress. The report examines his support for eliminating estate and federal income taxes in favor of a national sales tax—a policy that would raise consumer prices while giving substantial tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Tax cheats just received a huge gift. Billy Long has a clear history of working to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to skirt paying their fair share of taxes. He has even supported abolishing the very agency he has now been tasked to lead – the agency meant to take the lead in cracking down on tax evasion and ensuring that government is sufficiently resourced to serve the public interest. Wall Street may celebrate his confirmation as IRS Commissioner, but it is bad news for everyday people.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In response, Sierra Club Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“The Trump administration’s attack on clean air and clean vehicles only benefits the fossil fuel industry, leaving Americans to foot the bill with higher fueling costs, limited vehicle choices, and more pollution. Instead of investing in electric vehicle manufacturing here in the U.S. and leading us towards a healthier future, the administration is dead set on pushing us backwards and ceding EV innovation and leadership to China. The Sierra Club will continue to fight for clean transportation solutions across the country.”

Background on the clean vehicle programs and CRA votes:

The EPA granted waivers to California for these three programs through congressionally-granted authority under the Clean Air Act. For nearly 50 years, California has had the authority to establish vehicle pollution standards that are more protective than the federal standards, and states have had the explicit right granted under the Clean Air Act to protect their residents’ health by choosing California’s standards.

The Senate votes on May 22 were an unlawful use of the CRA, and inconsistent with decades of precedent, decisions by the Government Accountability Office, and the Senate Parliamentarian. The CRA does not apply to “adjudicatory orders” or “rules of particular applicability” like waivers, as the Government Accountability Office determined in 2023 and recognized again in March. The Senate Parliamentarian also confirmed earlier in April that the CRA cannot be used to repeal the waivers.

All three programs help to improve air quality for Californians, as well as for residents in many other states that have adopted the programs. See Sierra Club’s state tracker here.

Advanced Clean Cars II: The ACC II program allows California to enforce vehicle emission standards stronger than the federal government’s which the state needs to comply with federal air quality standards and curb health-harming vehicle pollution for its residents. California has severe problems meeting the federal ozone air quality standards, and reducing vehicle pollution is essential since vehicles are the largest source of ozone precursors in the State. Twelve other states and the District of Columbia have adopted the program as well under the authority of the Clean Air Act.

Advanced Clean Trucks: The ACT program requires manufacturers to increasingly sell a certain number of zero-emission trucks and buses in California, ramping up gradually over time to reach 40-75% sales requirement for zero-emission trucks and buses in 2035. Ten other states have adopted the program as well.

Heavy-Duty low-NOx Omnibus: The HDO program helps to cut smog-forming nitrogen oxides from heavy-duty vehicles in California by setting more stringent air pollution emissions standards (eventually requiring a 90% cut in NOx emissions from model year 2027 engines), improving testing requirements for engines, and extending engine warranties. Nine other states have adopted the program as well.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“The American people are sick and tired of greedy pharmaceutical companies spending billions of dollars on absurd TV commercials pushing their outrageously expensive prescription drugs,” Sanders said. “With the exception of New Zealand, the United States is the only country in the world where it is legal for pharmaceutical companies to advertise their drugs on television. It is time for us to end that international embarrassment. The American people don’t want to see misleading and deceptive prescription drug ads on television. They want us to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and ban these bogus ads.”

“The widespread use of direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical companies drives up costs and doesn’t necessarily make patients healthier,” King said. “The End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act would prohibit direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical drugs to protect people. This bill is a great step to ensure that patients are getting the best information possible and from the right source: their providers and not biased advertisements.”

Last year, the 10 largest drug companies made more than $100 billion in profits while the pharmaceutical industry spent over $5 billion on television ads. Prescription drug commercials now account for more than 30% of commercial time on major networks’ evening news programs. In the first three months of this year, Big Pharma spent more than $725 million advertising just 10 drugs. Meanwhile, the American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and one in four Americans cannot afford the costs of the medicine their doctors prescribe.

Banning direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is not a radical idea. In addition to Secretary Kennedy, the American Medical Association endorsed a ban a decade ago. Studies have shown that more than half of prescription drug ads are misleading or false, causing many Americans to underestimate the associated risks. Harvard researchers found that the majority of the most advertised drugs had little to no therapeutic benefit compared to existing prescription drugs. America’s seniors are particularly at risk of being misled as pharmaceutical companies strategically target them by pushing high-priced medications that may cause them harm.

For example, in 2010, Eli Lilly spent $205 million on direct-to-consumer ads and made $3.2 billion in sales for the antidepressant drug Cymbalta, despite Food and Drug Administration (FDA) findings that the company’s ads made unsupported and misleading claims of effectiveness and minimized its safety risks. Merck spent $300 million marketing the painkiller Vioxx and made $2.5 billion in sales, despite finding in 2000 that their product raised the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Dr. David Graham, a senior FDA official, testified in 2004 that Merck’s failure to stop selling Vioxx had resulted in as many as 55,000 unnecessary deaths from heart attacks and stroke.

Drug companies are also spending huge amounts of money on prescription drugs that cost, in some cases, more than ten times as much in the United States than other countries. In 2023, Novo Nordisk spent $263 million on direct-to-consumer ads for Wegovy and $208 million on ads for Ozempic. Today, Novo Nordisk charges nearly $1,000 a month for Ozempic in the United States, while this same exact drug can be purchased for just $59 in Germany, $71 in France, $122 in Denmark, and $155 in Canada. Novo Nordisk also charges Americans with obesity $1,349 a month for Wegovy while this same exact product can be purchased for just $92 in the United Kingdom, $137 in Germany, $186 in Denmark and $265 in Canada.

Joining Sanders and King as cosponsors of the legislation are Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill).

Read the bill text here.

Read a summary of the bill here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Republican-controlled Congress passed the resolutions despite the Government Accounting Office and the Senate parliamentarian ruling that the waivers are not subject to the CRA since they are adjudicatory orders, not rules.

“Ripping away California’s clean air protections is Trump’s latest betrayal of democracy,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “Signing this bill is a flagrant abuse of the law to reward Big Oil and Big Auto corporations at the expense of everyday people’s health and their wallets. Trump bet that Big Oil CEOs would deposit a billion dollars into his campaign. Now he’s the one-armed bandit that pays them off with environmental health rollbacks that cost consumers at the gas pump and the hospital.”

The illegal repeal of California’s clean air protections is part of a broader assault on environmental regulations.

On Wednesday Trump’s EPA proposed repealing rules that limit planet-heating pollution from coal- and gas-fired power plants, the nation’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas pollution after transportation.

Trump’s EPA has said it will roll back or repeal dozens of regulations, including those governing clean cars and trucks.

Climate protections from cleaner cars and trucks would save lives and ultimately lead to cost savings of more than $100 billion a year from reduced illnesses and deaths.

The makers of California’s clean vehicle policy estimated that electric vehicle owners would save $7,500 in gas and auto repair costs during the first ten years of ownership.

Congress voted decades ago to allow California, with the nation’s most smog-choked cities, to adopt stronger vehicle air pollution standards than the federal government as long as the EPA grants the state a waiver under the Clean Air Act. The EPA has issued these waivers to California more than 100 times. Although California’s protections have dramatically improved air quality, more work needs to be done. Five of the 10 cities with the country’s worst smog pollution are in California.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Recognizing the state’s unique air quality challenges, Congress specifically gave California the authority to set stronger tailpipe emissions standards when it passed the Clean Air Act more than five decades ago. Congress later gave other states the right to adopt California’s standards.

The following is a comment from Simon Mui, managing director for transportation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“California’s vehicle standards reduce costs for drivers, increase customer choice, boost domestic manufacturing, improve air quality and help address the climate crisis. The only losers from cleaner vehicles are oil industry billionaires, which is why they were on hand today while the president signed the measures to nix these rules.

“States know best how to strike the right balance and protect their residents from dangerous pollution. There is no reason politicians in Washington should be stepping in at this late date to try and undercut states’ protections for their residents.

“The oil industry may be celebrating today, but the rest of us are going to continue to keep fighting for cleaner air, lower energy bills and a safer climate.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The following is a statement from Manish Bapna, president & CEO of NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“The EPA is hoisting the white flag of surrender on the power plant pollution that's poisoning the air we breathe and harming our climate.

“Power plants are the largest industrial source of carbon emissions, spewing more than 1.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually. The EPA claims this pollution is insignificant—but try telling that to the people who will experience more storms, heat waves, hospitalizations, and asthma attacks because of this repeal.

“What’s more, the EPA is trying to repeal toxic air pollution standards for the nation’s dirtiest coal plants, allowing the worst actors to keep poisoning the air.

“Ignoring the immense harm to public health from power plant pollution is a clear violation of the law. Our lawyers will be watching closely, and if the EPA finalizes a slapdash effort to repeal those rules, we'll see them in court.”

Background:

Since the Industrial Revolution, the United States is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and, until recently, power plants were the largest source of emissions in the country. They now rank second after transportation.

Since the Supreme Court decided Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, and the EPA issued its foundational finding in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, the agency has been obligated under the Clean Air Act to regulate climate pollution.

The carbon standards for power plants were finalized in April of 2024 and require carbon pollution reductions from the coal- and gas-fired power plants responsible for almost one-third of the national carbon emissions under the authority of Clean Air Act Section 111. The EPA’s updated the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) of 2024 set safer limits on hazardous air pollutants like mercury, fine particulate matter, and other heavy metals. The public supports action on toxic air pollution and climate change and opposes the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back environmental standards.

According to the EPA’s 2024 analysis, the carbon pollution standards are predicted to deliver $390 billion in total climate and health benefits, more than 20 times the costs to industry. In addition, they would reduce soot, smog, and mercury pollution that cause asthma, heart attacks, lung disease, and premature death. In 2035 alone, the EPA found the rules would prevent 1,200 premature deaths and 360,000 asthma attacks. An outside analysis found these standards are a crucial “backstop” to ensure that the power sector achieves emissions reductions possible because of economic competitiveness of wind, solar and battery technologies.

The EPA’s 2024 MATS for power plants built on the success of the 2012 MATS, which reduced mercury emissions by 90 percent, reduced other metals by 80 percent, and helped save up to 11,000 lives each year. The strengthened MATS built on this tremendous success and were estimated to result in $33 million in annual health benefits. For most plants, the updated standards accomplished this by merely requiring plants to tune up the equipment that they had already installed on their smokestacks. The rule projected minimal impact on electricity reliability, with no expected retirements.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The proposal falsely claims that power plant greenhouse gas emissions “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.” In fact, the power sector is the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and releases more climate pollution than over half of all the world’s countries combined.

According to the Sierra Club’s estimates in the Trump Coal Pollution Dashboard, repealing the Section 111 carbon pollution standards would allow some of the largest plants to release nearly seven times as much carbon dioxide. It would also increase emissions of pollutants that lead to higher risk of heart disease, stroke, asthma and other respiratory diseases, pregnancy complications, and cancer.

The proposed repeal will now face a public comment period.

In response, Sierra Club Climate Policy Director Patrick Drupp issued the following response:

“It’s completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry. This repeal means more climate disasters, more heart attacks, more asthma attacks, more birth defects, more premature deaths.

“This administration is transparently trading American lives for campaign dollars and the support of fossil fuel companies, and Americans ought to be disgusted and outraged that their government has launched an assault on our health and our future. The Sierra Club will not stand by and let this corrupt administration destroy these critical, lifesaving guardrails.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

EPA is proposing to repeal outright greenhouse gas standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants in part on the false assertion that power plant emissions do not contribute “significantly” to climate change. In fact, coal- and gas-fired power plants are the largest stationary source of U.S. heat-trapping emissions and the United States is the second-largest contributor of annual heat-trapping emissions globally.

Additionally, EPA is proposing to strike critical amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). These protections, which had closed mercury polluter loopholes, lowered limits on hazardous air pollutants, and set important pollution monitoring requirements, had been finalized following an evaluation of ongoing public health risks and available pollution control technologies.

Below is a statement by Julie McNamara, associate director of policy for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

“Yet another day when the Trump administration proves it can somehow go lower still in its disregard for people’s health and well-being. These are astoundingly shameful proposals. It’s galling to watch the U.S. government so thoroughly debase itself as it sacrifices the public good to boost the bottom line of fossil fuel executives.

“In repealing the carbon standards, Administrator Zeldin is flagrantly disregarding incontrovertible evidence and long-standing precedent, intentionally sidelining EPA from the climate fight and letting fossil fuel companies freely pollute. There’s no meaningful path to meet U.S. climate goals without addressing carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants—and there’s no meaningful path to meet global climate goals without the United States. This repeal would condemn people across the country and around the world to a future of worsening climate impacts and devastating costs.

“Mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants are actively damaging people’s health. By walking back protections that address these harms, despite solutions being readily available, Administrator Zeldin is going out of his way to benefit the worst-of-the-worst polluters while forcing the public to bear the costs.

“People across the country—and around the world—unequivocally deserve better than this. These actions can, should, and will be challenged in court.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Arkansas Act 573 of 2025 requires the scriptural displays to be a minimum of 16 x 20 inches in size and hung in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom and library. The text of the Ten Commandments must be printed “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the room.” The law also mandates that a specific version of the Ten Commandments, associated with Protestant faiths and selected by lawmakers, be used for every display.

In their complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, the plaintiffs, who are Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, or non-religious, assert that Act 573 violates longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court ruled that the separation of church and state bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

Following this precedent, a federal district court held last year in Roake v. Brumley that a Louisiana law similar to Act 573 violates parents’ and students’ First Amendment rights. That case, in which the plaintiffs are represented by the same counsel as the plaintiffs here, is currently on appeal.

“As American Jews, my husband and I deeply value the ability to raise our children in our faith, without interference from the government,” said plaintiff Samantha Stinson. “By imposing a Christian-centric translation of the Ten Commandments on our children for nearly every hour of every day of their public-school education, this law will infringe on our rights as parents and create an unwelcoming and religiously coercive school environment for our children.”

Plaintiff Carol Vella agreed: “My children are among a small number of Jewish students at their school. The classroom displays required by Act 573 will make them feel like they don’t belong simply because they don’t follow the government’s favored religion. The displays will also violate core Jewish tenets, which emphasize tolerance and inclusion and prohibit evangelizing others.”

According to the complaint, which includes claims under both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment, Act 573’s classroom and library displays will interfere with parents’ First Amendment right to direct their children’s religious upbringing and create a religiously coercive school environment:

“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library—rendering them unavoidable—unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture. It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments—or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that Act 573 requires schools to display—do not belong in their own school community and pressures them to refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences.”

In addition to the complaint, the plaintiffs plan to file a motion for a preliminary injunction, which will ask the court to issue an order temporarily preventing implementation of the law, which takes effect on August 5, 2025, while the lawsuit is pending.

“Our Constitution’s guarantee of church-state separation means that families – not politicians – get to decide if, when and how public-school children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “This law is part of the nationwide Christian Nationalist scheme to win favor for one set of religious views over all others and nonreligion – in a country that promises religious freedom. Not on our watch. We’re proud to defend the religious freedom of Arkansas schoolchildren and their families.”

“The right to decide which religious beliefs, if any, to follow belongs to families and faith communities, not the government,” said John Williams, legal director for the ACLU of Arkansas. “We will not allow Arkansas politicians to misuse our public schools to impose scripture on children.”

Heather L. Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU added: “Public schools are not Sunday schools. Apparently, Arkansas lawmakers need a lesson in the First Amendment.”

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said, “This is a clear imposition of religious doctrine on Arkansas public school children. We will fight to uphold this nation’s foundational constitutional principles.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Some actions recommended in this playbook include: giving working people a raise, empowering workers to unionize, creating good union jobs through government spending, extending pathways into high-quality jobs, and more. This report also highlights some actions governors have taken in states across the country that governors in other states can look to as models of how they also can fight to strengthen the working class and boost their local economies.

“Working-class Americans have been struggling for decades. Governors have an opportunity to advance economic reforms that meet workers’ needs and create a contrasting vision to the Trump administration’s economic agenda that continues to favor billionaires at working class Americans’ expense,” said Karla Walter, senior fellow for Inclusive Economy at CAP and author of the issue brief. “Consistent and outspoken action on policies to rebalance power in the U.S. economy will demonstrate who actually stands with workers.”

Read the issue brief: “Governors Should Fight for an Economic Agenda to Improve the Lives of Working-Class Residents” by Karla Walter

For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sarah Nadeau at snadeau@americanprogress.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Today in our deportation police state: ICE goons in combat gear like they're on recon in Fallujah abduct 4th-graders and dishwashers at taco joints; Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a big-time human trafficker; and tear-gas-and-assault-rifle-laden National Guardsmen roam L.A. in a "massive overreach of authority" by a racist, flailing "chaos-junkie" - "BRING IN THE TROOPS!!" - intent on using Americans' righteous anger as a pretext for the unbridled despotism he hungers for. With tanks and Marines on the way.

The festering authoritarianism has been escalating for weeks as public opinion turns against a rancid regime's blundering "policies," from a big ugly bill cutting vital services to sowing fear by abducting the guiltless brown people who do much of this country's work as their families and neighbors weep, grieve, protest. "You’re going to see (more) enforcement than you’ve ever seen," bragged racist ghoul Tom Homan, who admits many victims have committed no crime except paperwork failures. “We’re going to flood the zone." Facing a malign, doubled quota of 3,000 arrests a day - 'cause these are numbers not humans - Deputy Chief Nazi Stephen Miller reportedly just "eviscerated" minions too focused on finding alleged criminals, "screaming" they need to go after more innocents: "(He) wants everybody arrested. 'Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?"

With many Hispanic workers concentrated in a few fields - construction, restaurants, landscaping, farm work - ICE thugs have in fact doing often-brutal sweeps of those workplaces. In Tallahassee, a horde descended on the site of a college student housing complex to terrorize - "GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!" (and stop building stuff amidst a housing crisis) - and arrest about 100 people; neither ICE nor the company seems to have any idea why they targeted the site or who they abducted. The resulting mayhem is often similarly, simultaneously inept and terrifying, from the so-called DOJ quietly deciding to allow ICE goons to do warrantless searches if they suspect the presence of any dreaded "alien enemy" to Homeland Security releasing a list of immigrant “sanctuary” jurisdictions so riddled with mistakes they later said oops never mind and took it down.

Still, the mindless rupturing of families and communities soars. ICE agents arrested 4th-grader Martir Garcia Laura, 9, of Torrance CA when he and his father went to a scheduled immigration hearing; each is now detained in separate facilities. In Milford MA they arrested high school honors student Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, who came here from Brazil at age 5, on his way to volleyball practice; he was released after families turned out to declare, "Hands Off Our Kids." In Tucson, residents complained goons were pretending to be Tucson Electric Power workers to ensnare a longtime neighbor from Honduras (TEP told the goons to stop); ICE lurk outside courthouses to grab immigrants whose cases are abruptly dismissed as organizers take shifts to warn them it's a trap; while there, ICE were so eager for victims they mistakenly detained a deputy U.S. Marshal. Atypically, they let him go.

Many others still languish. In D.C., Chief Judge Boasberg of the U.S. District Court is still trying to keep alive and get habeas corpus relief for the 130 mostly innocent Venezuelans summarily disappeared to El Salvador's hellish CECOT, comparing their plight to Franz Kafka's The Trial in which K., like them, never gets one. Even more bizarrely, ICE atrocities have "reached the art house film phase of ironic cruelty" with the news of eight immigrants - from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Mexico, South Sudan - originally banished to Sudan until a judge said nope not on my watch and halted the flight, thus stranding them and the 11 ICE agents who kidnapped them in an airless shipping container at a US Navy base in searing, malaria-ridden Djibouti; the brilliant move by the sages of our police state was so rash and random they didn't even get any shots, so there are a lot of bathroom trips.

Echoing authoritarianism from Nazi Germany to McCarthy's Red Scare, the stupid, baneful, xenophobic fear-mongering keeps coming: Foreign students banned, foreign scientists harassed, research destroyed, universities assaulted by the moronic likes of Ice Barbie who, straight-faced 'cause her face can't move, charges Harvard is "coordinating with Chinese Communist Party officials on training that undermined American national security." Asked on Fox News to "lay out" the Marxist threat, she babbles, "Oh, they absolutely. Harvard has perpetuated Communist China priorities and students on their campus...participating in para-military activities that supported them and feeding information back to our enemy which is Communist China," and look even their leader's daughter has a degree from Harvard and a "They Died Hungry" sign decrying genocide and what the fuck.

Seeking to cover up their hateful ineptness, they also quietly brought back Kilmar Abrego Garcia (sans fake MS-13 tattoos) more than two months after illegally shipping him to El Salvador. In a bravura deflection, they then threw a wild concoction of after-the-fact, Godfather-level charges at him, claiming he was part of an international trafficking conspiracy who over a decade hauled thousands of "illegals" from Texas into the rest of the country - children, women, men, for good measure "many of whom were MS-13 members" - to "further the aliens’ unlawful presence in the United States." The indictment stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop by Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding in a vehicle with eight guys and no luggage; he said they'd come from a construction site and the cops let him go, no charge, no ticket. Now, if convicted, he faces 10 years in prison for each "alien" transported.

His lawyer says the regime is "playing games" with the courts. "They'll stop at nothing, even the most preposterous charges imaginable, just to avoid admitting they made a mistake," he said. "This is an abuse of power." Though Abrego Garcia is the only "conspirator" named in an alleged "conspiracy" and the regime tossed in other grisly claims - murder, minors, drugs - absent from the indictment, Pam Bondi trumpeted at a presser, "Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice.” Asked what had changed since the traffic stop, she said, "Donald Trump is now president...Thanks to the bright light that's been shined (sic) on Abrego Garcia, this investigation continued with actually amazing police work, and we were able (to) stop this international smuggling ring." Too stupid to comprehend irony, she added, "This is what American justice looks like."

Not quite, say over 70 judges, lawyers and law professors who've filed an ethics complaint against Bondi with the Florida Bar accusing her of “serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law" and political bias that weaponizes the DOJ, from firing a lawyer for telling the truth about a deportation made "in error" to threatening lawyers who fail "to zealously pursue the President’s political objectives.” And Bondi continues to offend: The indictment led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a longtime federal prosecutor in Tennessee most recently chief of the criminal division, who charged the case against Abrego Garcia was pursued for political reasons, period. For 15 years, "The only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons," he wrote in his resignation letter. He didn't need to add, No more, with ghouls and lackeys in power.

And for now, they are. They are orchestrating massive, mindless, vicious assaults on brown people, sowing fear, terrorizing communities, rupturing families, disappearing the nice taco guy who daily dices the red chilis in a nationwide campaign of "pure public intimidation," cosplaying as soldiers in a racist, inequitable war, "cruelty disguised as policy." Last week they raided the Taqueria y Birreria Las Cuatro Milpas, a south Minneapolis taco joint in a majority-Latino neighborhood rocked five years ago by the police murder of George Floyd. A phalanx of ostensibly law-and-order federal acronyms - FBI, ATF, HSI, DHS, DEA - gathered in full combat gear, camo fatigues, guns, masks, with their flash grenades, tear gas, zip ties, stationing their squat HSI Bearcat armored car with mounted sound cannon in front of the popular restaurant, below its awning breezily urging, “Make Tacos, Not Walls.”

A crowd of wary residents began to assemble. Police, who weren't notified of the feds' action, hastened to clarify it was "not related to immigration enforcement" but what Homeland Security called “a groundbreaking criminal operation" to "confront complex, multidimensional threats" - drug smuggling, money laundering, trafficking. There were no arrests, but people were pissed by the "small-dick Nazi energy" of so much kitted-out law enforcement in the hood. "Imagine needing all that military gear to protect yourself from taco-makers," said one. "This is an intimidation campaign." Also: "That armor isn't designed to handle guacamole...DO YOU FEEL SAFE YET, CITIZEN?...Great to see a Mexican restaurant in Afghanistan." "We are a whisper away from Jim Crow," warned A.G. Keith Ellison. “If they want to inflict fear (and) discourage cooperation, they achieved both those goals."

In San Diego, it was both worse and better. At dinnertime last Friday, having gotten a tip about possible undocumented workers just like at Hell-a-Lago - a tip from 2020 that resurfaced months ago - ICE stormtroopers kitted out in full, bulky, combat gear stormed the popular restaurant Buona Forchetta in South Park for alleged "violations of hiring and harboring illegal aliens and false statements." After their big-bang entrance, they handcuffed the entire staff of about 20 before arresting four workers for the crime of trying too hard to find a job. Outside, meanwhile, over 250 angry residents gathered to protest "cops cosplaying like they were taking down Osama bin Laden" under the false pretense of "safety" against, not criminals but a community's wait staff and health aides and abuelas watching the kids. "This isn’t safety," said one City Council member. "It’s state-sponsored terrorism."

"Someone must have told these guys they were gonna be invading Fallujah," marveled Rachel Maddow of agents "in full battle rattle with helmets and long guns and flak jackets and goggles and masks...This was bananas. The whole neighborhood came out to say, 'This is what you're coming to save us from? The terrible menace of, like, the nice waiter at our favorite restaurant?’" As a GoFundMe launched to raise money for those abducted and DHS insisted they're "working day and night to remove murders (sic), pedophiles and gang members from our communities," the furious crowd confronted goons who, unclear on the ethics of shooting middle-aged white people, set off flash grenades and nervously backed away. "Shame shame shame!" yelled residents chasing them to an unmarked Gestapomobile. "Yeah, back up! Get the fuck out, you fucking Nazi cowards! Go!" Go, San Diego!

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Now there is the "immigration enforcement operation” in the largely Hispanic Paramount area of L.A, quickly spiraling into martial law. It began peacefully at Home Depot, just like Goebbels wanted, with ICE hauling out people - "workers, fathers, mothers being terrorized" - arresting over 40 and cuffing them in the basements of federal buildings. As crowds of protesters grew, agents in full tactical gear escalated to tear gas, pepper spray, flash grenades, "non-lethal" rubber bullets. They corralled groups holding Mexican flags chanting, "Fuera ICE!" - ICE, get out - manhandled and arrested a union president, tossed a tear-gas cannister at two female ACLU attorneys who asked to see a warrant. As usual, they attacked randomly, not criminals like they keep absurdly claiming. "That's never, ever, ever been the case," said one L.A. Council member. "When they come for one of us, they come for all of us."

When Trump took the rare move of asserting federal control over California's National Guard - an act the GOP and Nazi Barbie had decried in the past as an attack on states' rights and razor wire - Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted it as "purposefully inflammatory." With LAPD and county sheriffs serving as safety but not ICE enforcement backup, he insisted, the presence of the Guard was "not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis." "They want a spectacle. They want the violence," he said. "This is not the way a civilized country behaves. It is completely deranged behavior." It is also, says a former US Army War College professor, a legally dubious, "crazy broad," "massive overreach of POTUS authority" essentially functioning as "a show of force against a powerful blue state that (MAGA) have cast as an existential threat to the rest of America" - the "stuff of dictatorships throughout history."

Dems agreed calling out the Guard is "a completely inappropriate and misguided mission" aimed at "sowing more chaos and division." Particularly ominously, Trump's memo vaguely asserts the right to employ "members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary" against protests he calls "a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” He doesn't name LA or California - Lincoln, invoking the Insurrection Act, specified it targeted rebel southern states - paving the way to use the military against protestors anywhere on American soil, a "dangerous precedent" when "forces are there to aid/abet the actors provoking the community in the first place." Typically for this evil clown show, troops also came "wildly unprepared"; photos show them sleeping on concrete floors, having arrived without plans for food, water, lodging or bathrooms, expected "if you actually want law and order instead of chaos."

But who needs toilets amidst MAGA's frantic rhetoric about "a dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels," aka dishwashers and carpenters. Kash Patel: LA is "under siege by marauding criminals.” Drunken Hegseth: "Assaults on ICE (are) a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK." As usual "world-class hater" Goebbels wins the hysteria prize: Protests are "an insurrection against (US) laws and sovereignty," LA is "occupied territory" in "a fight to save civilization," California "conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States.” The Mad King raved "a once great American city" has been "occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals" with "insurrectionist mobs...swarming." But once his flunkies "put an end to these Migrant riots, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.” Meanwhile, evidently admirably unfazed by said "insurrection," he attended a UFC fight in Newark later that night.

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As to inconvenient truth: "L.A. is not a war zone." Kai Ryssdal, “I live in Los Angeles. The president is lying.” Another: "This is beyond delusional. It needs its own terminology for how devoid of reality it is...I am out doing errands. L.A. is like it is on any other day, with a few hundred protestors in a couple of spots in a city of nearly 10 million." In A Letter to Home from A Weary ICE Agent, Peter Birkenhead writes he and his "brave compatriots, fresh from a six-week Patriotic Abduction training course at a strip-mall karate studio," await orders to confront "a force of (up to) 11 or 12 of the enemy cleverly disguised as “dishwashers,” “nannies,” and “landscapers"....armed only with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of high-capacity automatic rifles, rubber bullets, smoke bombs, tanks, helmets, Kevlar vests and night-vision goggles" to protect them from a possible small stone "hurled our way by a weeping child or hysterical mother as we pry their loved ones from their dastardly hands."

The bottom line: "Everything that’s happened over the past six months has been a response to an imaginary crisis. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society. None of this had to happen." In this, Trump - "Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” - has "turned to a familiar script," "casting the sprawling city of L.A. in shades of fire and brimstone, a hub of dangerous lawlessness that required urgent military intervention (to) be contained." Such rhetoric is "an authoritarian trick," says fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat: “You create a sense of existential fear that social anarchy is spreading, criminal gangs are taking over. This is the language of authoritarianism all over the world. What is the only recourse to violent mobs and agitators? Using all the force of the state."

As images emerge from social media of brown restaurant workers, likely soon to be abducted, helping wash out the eyes of sheriffs' deputies hit by tear gas - and as TACO man memorably, pathetically falls - the Marines are pointlessly sent to add to the fear and lies. Remember, notes Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council, "In order to build a mass deportation machine to round up and deport 4% of the entire goddamn population, you must first build the police state." As it accrues, it behooves us to maintain calm and clarity on what is and isn't real threat. From Connor Simon last month after ICE raided his Pennsylvania pizzeria: "It’s really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25 years is a gangster and terrorist, and the person who shows up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armor come to take him away is somehow the good guy.”

— (@)

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

“American corporations that engage in criminal bribery schemes abroad will no longer be prosecuted. That’s the bottom line of the new Trump policy on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This gift from the Trump administration to corrupt multinational corporations would be an outrage at any time, but it is particularly heinous that these authoritarians are simultaneously legalizing corporate crime while cheering the use of unrestrained excessive force against immigrants and protestors in Los Angeles.

“Like the Trump DOJ’s abandonment of Boeing’s prosecution for breaching the deal to clean up its act after the deadly 737 Max crashes, this retreat from enforcing laws against corporate crime is a perversion of justice that further concentrates the administration’s power to corruptly reward insiders and punish perceived enemies.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Originally placed in the courthouse lobby last year by Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Bullard, the monument was later moved to the lawn immediately outside the Courthouse entrance. While Bullard claimed that the original display was funded by private donations, the lawsuit alleges that he used public dollars to relocate the monument to its current outdoor location, where it is unavoidable for anyone who enters or passes by the courthouse. The monument enumerates a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments.

“With today’s lawsuit, Jefferson County taxpayers are standing up for the fundamental constitutional principle that the government must remain neutral when it comes to matters of faith,” notes Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Erecting a Ten Commandments monument on public property, whether in the courthouse lobby or just outside the entryway, blatantly violates Illinois law.”

“This Ten Commandments monument represents an intrusion of civil authority into matters of faith,” explains lead plaintiff Pastor Lynn Neal. “As a minister, I object to my government co-opting my religious beliefs for improper political purposes, usurping my role as a religious leader by promoting an officially preferred version of the Ten Commandments and presenting it outside of its biblical context.”

“This monument is particularly problematic for me as a Catholic, because it includes a prohibition on using religious iconography, even though depictions of the crucifixion are commonplace in my faith,” said plaintiff Roberta Shallenberger. “Historically, the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments has been used by some to condemn Catholic religious practice, and showcasing this version on official government property appears to perpetuate and endorse that anti-Catholic bias.”

“Everyone should be made to feel welcome in Jefferson County, including the nonreligious,” said plaintiff Roberta Evans. “The Ten Commandments monument in front of the courthouse accomplishes the opposite, and turns the Commandments into a political statement that cheapens their value.”

Plaintiff Calvin McClintock added: “Jefferson County government officials used the people’s money, time, resources, and land to promote a particular religious message, at the exclusion of others. Government officials have no business endorsing any religion.”

Filed in Illinois’ 2nd Judicial Circuit as a Petition for Writ of Mandamus, the lawsuit comes after the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners voted to retain the monument on county property, ignoring warnings from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the county’s own attorney that the display raised serious legal concerns.

Heather L. Weaver, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “The separation of church and state guarantees that we all have the right to decide, for ourselves, which religious beliefs, if any, people should follow. By sending the message that Jefferson County favors some faiths over others, the Ten Commandments monument intrudes on deeply personal matters. We’ll see Jefferson County in court.”

“In Illinois, we do not permit local politicians to use the power and authority of their office to promote their religious views,” added Kevin Fee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois. “Our organization has always worked to ensure that everyone’s religious freedom is respected. This monument – which must be removed immediately – attempts to undermine that freedom for many residents. We are pleased to represent these clients in seeking fairness in Jefferson County.”

A copy of the petition filed today is available here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"This is what people have feared."

That was how American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick responded on social media Monday to reporting that a man impersonating a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent zip-tied a woman working as a cashier at a cash-only auto repair shop in Philadelphia and stole around $1,000 on Sunday afternoon.

The incident comes as Republican U.S. President Donald Trump tries to deliver on his campaign promise of mass deportations, sparking protests, including in Los Angeles, where Trump has deployed Marines and federalized the California National Guard—a move the state's Democratic governor and attorney general are challenging in court.

"Expect many, many more stories like this. The Trump administration is a criminal enterprise, emboldening street crimes and white collar crimes."

"He kept saying he is immigration officer," the 50-year-old cashier in Philadelphia, a legal U.S. resident who is from the Dominican Republic, told Fox 29's Steve Keeley. Showing the journalist her bruises, she said that the man tied her arms behind her back, and "every time I tried to turn around to look at his face, he twisted me around roughly."

Although the shop is next to the Philadelphia Police 15th District, it took over two hours before the victim could connect with law enforcement. Police said in a Tuesday statement that the man, who escaped in a white Ford cargo van with red dashes around the middle, remains at large.

Police released surveillance photos of the van and the man, described as a white male in a "black baseball cap with U.S. flag on the front, black sunglasses, black long sleeve shirt, wearing gloves, black tactical vest with 'Security Enforcement Agent,' and dark green cargo pants."

— (@)

In response to Keeley's social media posts about the robbery, journalist Ryan Grim said early Tuesday that "this type of crime is now possible because ICE agents insist on going around like masked thugs."

Author and Philadelphia native Robert A. Karl warned: "Expect many, many more stories like this. The Trump administration is a criminal enterprise, emboldening street crimes and white collar crimes."

The social media account of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota's Senate District 45 similarly said: "Any criminal can now put on a mask, say he is from ICE, and conduct any crime (including kidnapping and rape) and people are expected to just stand aside? Actual law enforcement DOES NOT conceal their identity and act like street thugs while doing their job. This must stop!"

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Let’s be clear: Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in California is not about the protests there, ICE, or immigration. It is about using extremely dubious legal authority to expand his never-ending grasp for more power and his effort to move this country toward authoritarianism. This is a president who has usurped the constitutional responsibilities of Congress; threatened to impeach judges who rule against his policies; sued media that criticize him; extorted money from law firms that have represented his opponents; and is withholding funds from universities for teaching courses he doesn’t like.

In our federalist form of government, it is the governor of a state who deploys the National Guard — not the president of the United States. It is absurd and laughable for the Trump administration to argue that they needed to mobilize the National Guard because of a threat from a “foreign invasion” or “rebellion” against the United States. This is just another example of Trump wanting more power for himself and ignoring the law. All Americans – Democrats, Republicans, independents – must stand together against this gross abuse of power.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Trump politicizing and weaponizing the National Guard makes us all less safe and less free. His threat to deploy the Marines into the streets of an American city is an illegal and authoritarian escalation.

“Trump’s threats have nothing to do with keeping people safe—it’s about political theater. He’s scapegoating immigrants to distract from the GOP’s real agenda: ripping health care away from millions to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich.

“We will not be intimidated. Progressives are standing up to this administration, including by conducting lawful oversight at ICE detention centers in Los Angeles and across the country. We stand with Angelenos, and we stand with immigrant families everywhere. The President must return command of the National Guard to Governor Newsom.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This is not law and order—it’s tyranny,” said Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese. “When power is concentrated in the hands of a corrupt few, and dissent is met with armed repression, democracy itself is under siege. We must call this what it is: a threat to the republic.”

Our Revolution stands with the people of Los Angeles and with communities nationwide who are rising up for justice and democracy. We urge every elected official, candidate, and organization that claims to defend democracy to speak out and act decisively against this authoritarian power grab.

In response to the Administration’s dangerous deployment of armed forces against civilians, Our Revolution is urging its 8 million+ members to demand Congress act now to stop this authoritarian power grab—circulating a petition calling on lawmakers to block the military escalation.

The line between military and civilian government is one of the most critical protections in a functioning democracy. Trump’s use of armed troops against U.S. communities is a blatant abuse of power. Congress must act.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“Auchincloss and Thompson are living in a bubble where they can call for ‘Abundance’ to be the policy agenda of the Democratic Party but also dismiss evidence showing why that would be a bad idea. They attacked us because our poll popped this bubble with hard, objective data showing that populism resonates with voters far more than the ‘Abundance’ message.

Demand Progress has a long, documented history of vocally calling for the breakup of Big Tech behemoths and supporting policies that will end their monopolies. Rep. Auchincloss’s laughable claim that we’re ‘in the pocket of Big Tech’ exposes his own insecurities about being on stage at an event financed by Big Tech billionaires.

Thompson’s transparent attempt to muddy the waters by saying ‘people are these really complex things’ also exposes his own game of hand-waiving away any criticism of ‘Abundance.’ Our poll shows with hard, clear data that voters’ opinions are not complicated—they just overwhelmingly support populism over ‘Abundance.’ In fact, we specifically tested hybrid messaging, which confirmed the ‘Abundance’ platform comes with a clear political cost.

The data is clear. ‘Abundance’ is a losing argument and all the insults and hand-waiving from Auchincloss and Thompson are just signs that they know they’re pushing something voters don't want.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Between discontinuing Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage for coverage for small businesses owners, family caregivers, and millions of Americans, and kicking 7.8 million Americans off of Medicaid, the Republican tax scam will make basic necessities like food and healthcare more expensive for most Americans in order to pay for tax cuts for themselves, their wealthy donors, and giant corporations.

In April, a dozen congressional Republicans vowed to preserve Medicaid, saying:

“We cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”

They voted for the bill and its cuts to Medicaid anyways. Now, millions of Americans are staring down cuts to their healthcare while six of those congressional Republicans stand to personally benefit from passing the tax scam.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As the country tumbles into fascism, we are consoled by tee vee host, sexual predator, inept alcoholic, definitely-not-gay serious person and Defense Secretary Whisky Pete Hegseth taking on the big issues of the day and hewing to his obsession with "warrior ethos" by ordering the Navy to strip the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from a U.S. Navy Ship - with a pointed, delectable twist of performative cruelty, during Pride Month yet. Whew: One less gay ship to worry about.

According to reports from Military.com and CBS, the scandal-plagued, staggeringly petty leader of the world's largest military force sent a memo to Navy Secretary John Phelan, the official with actual ship-naming power, ordering him to rename the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk, a civilian-crewed ship typically used for transport and resupply vs. a military-crewed USS, United States Ship. In a statement, Phelan said Hegseth "is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos," never mind that five-time-deferred Private Bonespurs obviously knows zilch about the "warrior culture" except in his fever dreams. But sure: Go lethality!

It turns out Harvey Milk was far more a warrior than either TACO Man or Pete Kegsbreath. Part of a family with a history of naval service, Harvey served in the Korean War from 1951 to 1955 as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship; he was forced to resign and accept an “other than honorable” discharge due to his homosexuality. He continued battling bigotry for the rest of his life: He became one of the country's first openly gay elected officials when he won a seat on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977, and had become an icon of the gay rights movement before he was assassinated at 48 after years of facing off against threats. "If a bullet should enter my brain," he once said, "let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

In 2009, President Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, after a group of LGBTQ veterans spent years lobbying for it, the USNS Harvey Milk was christened; Obama's Navy Secretary Ray Mabus called the action not just the honoring of a veteran and gay hero but "the righting of a wrong." Harvey's ship is part of a class of oilers recognizing the late "Conscience of Congress" John Lewis, whose name is on the first one; they all aim to honor "great people that represented the best ideals of our country," now threatened:- RFK, Earl Warren, Sojourner Truth. Recommended future ones: Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, Lucy Stone, Cesar Chavez and Medgar Evers.

Any of these righteous warriors could be targeted next by a white nationalist man-child intent on foisting MAGA's bigotry on the rest of the country by eliminating the evils of diversity, aka "that DEI woke shit," from pulling books about gender or racial equality off military shelves to trashing/firing women officers to restoring Confederate names to military bases 'cause they were cancelled by libs except now he's cancelling gay icons, who are evidently worse. One critic calls Hegseth's "rampage" to eliminate anyone from U.S. history who is not a heterosexual White man "an affront to the LGBTQ community and decency itself...There have been gay members of the military since there was the first military, and to ignore or erase that is just bigoted and small-minded."

Stuart Milk, Harvey's nephew and chair of the Harvey Milk Foundation, decries the loss to members of the military of "a reminder that no barriers of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity (will) restrain their human spirit.” Nancy Pelosi calls the offense to "our Harvey" a "shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American dream...His spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos...It is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.” It's also petty, mean and dumb: Doesn't he have anything more important to do than change the names of boats, like maybe stop all those $40 million planes from falling into the ocean?

On Reddit, people raged against Pete's hateful, manly-man, "bigoted punk" fascism: "What an asshole. What a snowflake. What a fucking thin-skinned loser. Ain't no hate quite like Christian love. Grandstanding and performative bullshit. History will not be kind to you." Projection is mulled: "At some point it's just gay to think about gay stuff all the time. Pete’s totally not gay." Questions arise: "Doesn't Pete know it's bad luck to change the name of ships? Are ships manufactured gay out of the factory, or do they choose to be gay after experimenting in ship college?" New names are offered: USS Jack Daniels, Tom of Finland, Stonewall Inn. Also: "Finally our long national nightmare is over," "What a fearless warfighter - he really showed that warship who's boss," and on our current timeline, "Too much, too stupid."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

Finally. This week the "worst ultra-billionaire on earth," higher than any of his SpaceX rockets ever got, lurched to the end of his rampage through humane governance, leaving in his feckless, malignant wake unparalleled devastation - agencies ravaged, services gutted, a multitude of jobs and the expertise behind them lost, 300,000 people around the world, two-thirds children - 103 an hour - consigned to early death. "We’ll miss you,” said no one ever. Fuck that guy.

Musk's reign of terror as a moronically named "Special Government Employee" - did he get stickers? - heading a made-up "Department of Breaking Shit You Don’t Understand" officially, suitably wrapped up in a surreal farewell scene at a gaudily tricked-out Oval Office where, still grovelling, he declared the once-somber, now-trashy landmark site "finally has the majesty it deserves." Sporting a black eye, black "Dogefather" tshirt and wildly hallucinatory air, he thanked his dark overlord for "the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending" while his dementia-ridden boss praised him as "a friend and adviser," with coincidentally deep pockets, whose "service to America is without comparison in modern history," which you can take alotta different ways. "This isn't the end of DOGE, it's more the beginning," said Musk. "It's a way of life," also of needless, barbaric, untimely death.

Trump nodded along sagely before babbling, "Elon gave an incredible service," which isn't a thing. "He’s done a lot of things," he added helpfully. "He's a very good person." He's also perhaps the most despised person on the planet, except maybe for Bibi, which is why Trump evidently cut him loose well before mid-terms. "We have to get a lot of votes," he blurted at one point. "We can't be cutting - we need a lot of support." Of course now so does Musk's floundering business empire, probably because in his private and public efforts he applied the same toxic move-fast-and-break-things attributes - ignorance, arrogance, entitlement, carelessness, a sociopathic lack of empathy his addled mind deems "weakness" - with the same disastrous effects. It's thus unsurprising his short brutal tenure at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has met with "deservedly vicious reviews."

"Elon Musk's Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death," declared The New York Times. "Go, Elon, and Never Darken Our Doors Again," intoned the appalled American Prospect, which noted, "It's hard to think of any other unelected official who has done so much harm (in) such a short period of time." They went on, "Musk is one of the most malevolent people ever to hold a position of influence in American politics. His actions, without exaggeration, have devastated the health and security of American society and directly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people all over the world, with millions more to follow given the course that he has set." The Daily Show's Leslie Jones offered a more succinct and profane, but similarly themed take on the catastrophic debris left behind by the pernicious likes of Musk et al: "I can't believe America may be ended by these fucking loser incels."

Many skeptics warn Musk's much-touted departure is in fact a "fake retreat," with his "mess of half-realized plans" and over-stated, badly executed "achievements" simply taken up by an army of about 50 young, unvetted DOGE tech bros and flunkies who like their boss don't know how things work, aren't interested in learning and don't care how many people they hurt. Embedded by executive order in agencies across the government and digging in "like an autonomous termite machine," they're just as intent on mining data, cutting services, greenlighting corporate abuses and otherwise wreaking havoc. "Musk's departure obscures but does not actually change the continuity of DOGE's staff and mission to destroy everything that protects the public from the depredations of the most rapacious oligarchs," said one oversight expert "DOGE is still hungry. We've still got to feed the fucking dog."

Of course Musk failed to achieve anything close to his blithe goal of cutting $2 trillion from an allegedly bloated budget. in what experts call "arson of a public asset," estimates of his actual savings by cutting from all the wrong places range from $100 billion to $2 billion, one-thirty-fifth of 1% of the federal budget, "otherwise known as budget dust." Either way, his cuts to vital, profitable agencies like the IRS and National Parks will simultaneously cost taxpayers about $135 billion in lost revenue and rehiring/ re-training costs. A(nother) rich white guy with zero accountability, Musk played the victim, whining about "the banal evil of bureaucracy" and becoming "a bogeyman"; he declined to mention the obscene $170 billion more he's raked in after attacking offices investigating his dodgy businesses, scoring $38 billion in government contracts, and pressing countries to buy Starlink.

Meanwhile, he did incalculable damage. At home, he destroyed thousands of jobs, billions in contracts, mountains of institutional knowledge, especially in science, health care, childhood cancer research. He hobbled Social Security, the National Weather Service, disease mitigation, veterans' services, homelessness programs, the U.S. Institute of Peace, now plagued with rats and roaches. He did the Seig Heil, CPAC Chainsaw, fake savings tracker, White House Tesla mini-mall, cheesehead trying to buy a judge, what-five-things-did-you-do-this-week claptrap. He did lots of drugs - ecstasy, mushrooms, LSD, cocaine, Ambien, Adderall, so much ketamine he's now reportedly incontinent. He famously brought his 5-yrear-old son to the Oval office, where X wiped oblivious boogers on the Resolute Desk, an apt, gross, sublime metaphor for what his heedless father has left us all with.

He also killed many, many people, aka "pioneered new methods of increasing death tolls in emerging markets." Of his multiple crimes and acts of malfeasance, Musk's mindless shuttering of USAid, and the carnage it swiftly caused, is by far the worst. Even the backstory is repulsive: His infamous February post, defining a vile legacy, bragging, "We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper." He could have “gone to some great parties," smirked the white supremacist ghoul, but instead he shredded a global agency that has fed and cared for millions of poor, sick, starving, marginalized people, especially children, around the world, particularly in Africa, thus abruptly cutting off almost 85% of live-saving funding because he breezily denounced it as "a radical-left political psy-op” - MAGA-ese for keeping alive thousands of at-risk babies starving, caught in war-torn countries, born with HIV.

Just one example: Simply halting PEPFAR, a landmark, George W. Bush-era program that has saved over 26 million lives by giving mothers a "miracle" anti-HIV drug that costs less than 12 cents a day, has already killed an estimated 54,500 adults and 5,800 children; about 1,500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since January 21, and many more will follow. Fact-aversive MAGA denies this: Marco Rubio just told Congress, "No children are dying on my watch...No one has died because of USAid" - a claim called "ludicrous" by many critics. They include Nicholas Kristof, who wrote of one victim of hundreds of thousands. Evan Anzoo was an orphan born with H.I.V. in South Sudan who America kept alive with antiretroviral HIV drugs for five years; soon after a too-rich, blitzed-out, witless white supremacist blocked access to his medication, Evan died of an opportunistic infection.

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald said of Tom and Daisy, "They were careless people...They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness...and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Now erratic Space Nazi Musk, "a poisonous human being" and "an evil piece of garbage," is purportedly, partly moving on while food rots in warehouses in hungry countries around the world and once-manageable diseases rage out of control. "In government," says one bitter advocate, "it’s much easier to tear things down than it is to build things up." Still, at DOGE, "tasked with getting rid of unnecessary bullshit within the government," things are looking up. "We’ve been searching everywhere to find bloated, unnecessary, overrated, overpaid, unwanted, heinous waste to get rid of," reports The Shovel: "Turns out he was running the place." And truly, fuck that guy.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

DOGE isn’t going anywhere, according to the Trump administration’s own officials. Russell Vought seems to be the new boss in town, but he and Musk’s visions have been aligned from the start. Musk endorsed Vought’s view of the unconstitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act and said that DOGE would work “closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed all the way back in November.

In response to Musk’s departure from DOGE, Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser released the following statement: “There is no daylight between Elon Musk and Russ Vought on the aim of greenlighting corporate abuse, as anyone can see from their joint destruction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. DOGE’s Musk-tied staffers have already burrowed into the government, and having a new boss who has coordinated extensively with Musk isn’t likely to change their actual actions much at all. Musk’s departure obscures but does not actually change the continuity of DOGE’s staff and mission to destroy everything that protects the public from the depredations of the most rapacious oligarchs.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In response to the news, Ben Cushing, director of the Sustainable Finance campaign at the Sierra Club, issued the following statement:

“Climate change is a growing threat to workers’ retirement security. Dismantling safeguards for responsible investing is a dangerous disservice to the millions of Americans saving for the future. Retirement plan managers should be empowered to consider all relevant financial risks — including those stemming from the climate crisis — not be forced to ignore them. This is yet another example of political interference by Republicans that puts ideology and special interests ahead of evidence, weakening investor protections at a time when stronger guardrails are urgently needed. As federal officials roll back protections for private retirement plans, state and local leaders must affirm that public pension funds should proactively address climate and sustainability risks.”

BACKGROUND

In March 2023, the Sierra Club applauded former President Biden for issuing his first presidential veto to reject an attempt by House and Senate Republicans to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to undo the rule.

In February 2023, the Sierra Club joined dozens of investors, workers, and advocacy groups in sending a series of letters to House and Senate lawmakers opposing Republican attempts to circumvent the DOL rule.

In November 2022, the Sierra Club applauded the DOL for restoring the rule, saying the decision “lays the groundwork for future rulemakings that establish affirmative duties of retirement fund fiduciaries to manage climate and other systemic risks.”

In December 2021, during the DOL public comment period, the Sierra Club joined the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and a dozen advocacy groups in showcasing support for the proposed rule.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

These outfits – which have long worked together to dox, smear, and harrass their political opponents – have recently gained unprecedented influence and access as the Trump administration wages a campaign to deport students and academics in retaliation for speaking out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. All of the known cases of students and scholars persecuted by ICE because of their political views on Palestine – Mr. Khalil, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Momodou Taal, and Efe Ercelik – were first targeted by the anti-Palestinian groups.

“For years, these anti-Palestinian doxxing groups have served as agents of repression, weaponizing inflammatory rhetoric and conflating criticism of Israel with hate speech in order to chill activism for Palestinian rights,” said Ayla Kadah, an attorney and Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Now, evidence seems to point to the Trump administration colluding with them as they escalate their crusade to target noncitizens for detention and deportation, with Mahmoud Khalil serving as their latest target. Mahmoud deserves answers, and so does the public.”

Canary Mission, an anonymous, secretly funded doxxing site, posted a profile of Khalil in January, and later that month, Betar USA – an affiliate of Betar, an openly racist ultrazionist movement – included him on its now-removed “deport list” and posted on X that ICE was “aware of his home address and whereabouts.” Betar said it had shared names and information with Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Rubio. On March 7th, the day before Khalil’s arrest, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus – whose advisory board includes Shai Davidai, a Columbia professor suspended last year for harassing staff – called for his deportation in a post on X and tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

These groups claimed Mr. Khalil was in the country on a student visa, when, in fact, he is a legal permanent resident and green card holder married to a U.S. citizen. Tellingly, federal agents had the same misinformation when they arrested him, wrongly stating that his student visa had been revoked.

The FOIA request seeks all records of communications between ICE, the DOJ, the DOS, and DHS and the anti-Palestinian groups: Canary Mission, Betar, Documenting Jew Hatred On Campus, Columbia Alumni for Israel, Middle East Forum, Shirion Collective, Capital Research Center, and CAMERA. The FOIA also seeks any communications that the agencies have had with individuals that are reported to have targeted, doxxed, and called for or sought to facilitate the deportation of Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students.

The request was submitted by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is part of the legal team representing Mr. Khalil in his case challenging the constitutionality of his arrest. In that case, he is also represented by Dratel & Lewis, CLEAR, Van Der Hout LLP, Washington Square Legal Services, the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the ACLU of Louisiana, and the ACLU of New Jersey.

For more information, please see the case page.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Lethal climate disasters are the foreseeable, and foreseen, consequences of specific actions by fossil fuel corporations, CEOs, and boards of directors. They caused the climate crisis and deceived the public about the dangerousness of their products in order to block and delay solutions that could prevent heat deaths like Juliana’s. These fossil fuel actors should be held accountable to the victims of their lethal conduct, and this wrongful death suit provides a compelling new approach for climate victims moving forward.

“Wrongful death suits provide private remedies. But Big Oil companies have wronged the public, too, which is why this suit may also help lay the groundwork for another approach to climate accountability: criminal homicide prosecutions. The purpose of criminal law enforcement is to deter future crimes, promote public safety, punish wrongdoers, and encourage the convicted to pursue less harmful practices. All of these public safety goals apply to Big Oil’s continuing contributions to climate change, and prosecutors across the country should take note of this new wrongful death suit and carefully consider how the climate effects their constituents are experiencing fit the criminal laws they are charged with enforcing.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

For nearly 50 years the National Environmental Policy Act has required federal agencies to analyze the potential environmental harms of a proposed project, engage with communities that could be affected and disclose those potential harms to the public before approval. It also gave the public legal recourse to sue federal agencies if they overlooked important environmental harms.

Today's ruling relieves federal agencies of the obligation to review all foreseeable environmental harms and grants them more leeway to decide what potential environmental harms to analyze, despite what communities may think is important. It tells agencies that they can ignore certain foreseeable impacts just because they are too remote in time or space. And even if the agency makes the wrong call about how to draw that line, the court has now said that the agency gets deference.

“Today’s decision undermines decades of legal precedent that told federal agencies to look before they leap when approving projects that could harm communities and the environment,” said Earthjustice Senior Vice President of Program Sam Sankar. “The Trump administration will treat this decision as an invitation to ignore environmental concerns as it tries to promote fossil fuels, kill off renewable energy, and destroy sensible pollution regulations.”

The case concerned a Utah industry coalition and a Utah railway company that asked the Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court decision tossing out the approval of an 88-mile oil railway. The railway’s purpose is to transport waxy crude oil from the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah through the Colorado Rockies to Gulf Coast refineries.

“This disastrous decision to undermine our nation’s bedrock environmental law means our air and water will be more polluted, the climate and extinction crises will intensify, and people will be less healthy. It guarantees that bureaucrats can put their heads in the sand and ignore the harm federal projects will cause to ecosystems, wildlife and the climate,” said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “What it doesn’t guarantee is the ill-conceived Uinta Basin Railway’s construction. The last thing we need is another climate bomb on wheels that the communities along its proposed route say they don't want. We’ve been fighting this project for years, and we’ll keep fighting to make sure this railway is never built.”

The ruling means the federal agency responsible for approving the railway can ignore the risks of increased oil extraction in the Basin and the potential harm from refining to Gulf communities in Texas and Louisiana. Even if these harms are inevitable, communities and courts have no power to compel the agency to consider them.

Today’s decision comes amid broader confusion surrounding how government agencies will assess future projects. In February the Trump administration rescinded NEPA regulations dating to the Carter era, setting the process for project approvals back half a century.

Additionally, the Trump administration — with help from Elon Musk’s so-called Department for Government Efficiency — has gutted the agencies responsible for analyzing the harm industry projects could cause to the environment and communities.

“The appeals court had ruled that the federal agency that approved the railway failed in its obligations to consider the regional consequences of massively increased oil extraction on the Uinta Basin, the increased air pollution for the communities in Texas and Louisiana where the oil would be refined, and the global climate consequences,” said Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “The Supreme Court’s ruling will allow all these consequences to unfold without meaningful restraint. This court has made a name for itself making rulings that mock science and common sense and fail to protect the common good. This unfortunate ruling fits that same pattern.”

“This decision is terrible news for the entire Colorado River Basin,” said John Weisheit, conservation director at Living Rivers. “To avoid the pending collapse of the Colorado River, we have to immediately reduce water consumption by 25% and cut carbon emissions by 50% by the end of this decade. Our federal decision-makers must deny any project that counters these objectives. The Uinta Basin Railway unquestionably falls into that category and should never see the light of day.”

“Regrettably, the Supreme Court has scored one for the oil companies who don’t want you to look too closely at the harm their product will do to Black and Brown communities in Cancer Alley,” said Nathaniel Shoaff, Sierra Club senior attorney. “Our bedrock environmental laws, like NEPA, are meant to ensure people are protected from corporate polluters. Fossil fuel infrastructure projects do not exist in a vacuum and have far-reaching impacts on communities, especially those on the frontlines of climate change or those who face serious health harms from increased pollution. Today’s decision will undoubtedly help the fossil fuel industry, but Sierra Club will not stop fighting projects that will have devastating consequences for people and the planet.”

“The government has an obligation to ‘look before it leaps’ when it comes to major federal actions. At heart, the law says we have to take a hard look at reasonably foreseeable consequences — and that law has recently been under increasing attack as business interests try to sacrifice our country’s irreplaceable natural treasures,” said Katherine Merlin, staff attorney for WildEarth Guardians. “Today’s decision is a devastating loss for our wild places, our wild rivers, and for all of the human and non-human communities that depend on a clean environment and stable climate. This is another step toward returning the U.S. legal system to the early 20th century, when the rampant and heedless destruction of entire ecosystems and species happened without much notice.”

Earthjustice and the Center of Biological Diversity represented Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the Sierra Club, Living Rivers and WildEarth Guardians. Eagle County was represented by Kaplan Kirsch LLP and Willy Jay of Goodwin Procter LLP.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.