Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Statement on 29 States Settling Lawsuit with Meta

 

at 8/26/26 8:31am

Fairplay Executive Director Josh Golin released the following statement today:“This is a watershed moment for the growing movement to protect children from addictive and dangerously designed social media. In addition to a significant financial penalty, the state attorneys general have secured the most significant injunctive relief yet from Meta, including a number of measures to protect young people’s sleep, such as disabling Instagram overnight for minors’ accounts. The settlement also requires disabling addictive and harmful features like displays of like counts and plastic surgery filters and new guardrails to protect children from predatory adults. We also greatly appreciate that Meta will be required to identify both under-13 and under-18 users without infringing on the privacy of adults. We thank the state attorneys general for their historic leadership in fighting for our children’s safety and well-being online. “This settlement also underscores the need for KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. As internal documents have shown over and over, Meta and other social media companies deliberately design their products to addict kids, and that is the root cause of so many mental health difficulties and serious online harms for minors. While it’s gratifying to see state attorneys general take action to hold companies like Meta accountable, we also need our federal government to step in to force these companies to make their products safe for kids by design so that every child on every platform will be protected, both now and in the future. KOSA has robust, bipartisan support from over three-quarters of the US Senate. We call on Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Charles Schumer to bring the bill to the floor for a vote next month.”

— Climate Change Worsening Drought Conditions in Western States

 

at 8/26/26 8:29am

Climate change has reduced snowpack by 36 percent and streamflow by 13 percent across the western United States, and more than half of those impacts have been triggered by emissions from fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers, according to a new report released today by University of California, Merced and Union of Concerned Scientists. Additionally, the report ties one-tenth of the observed groundwater loss in California’s Central Valley directly to emissions from these companies. In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement: “Millions of Americans are experiencing historic water scarcity. We now know that a small number of fossil fuel companies are responsible for a significant portion of this disaster. And they knew full well what they were doing. Already in 1988, companies like Shell were issuing internal reports predicting that climate change—caused by the burning of their fossil fuel products—would create ‘significant changes’ in ‘precipitation patterns’ that ‘would impact on the human environment, future living standards and food supplies’ and could have ‘major social, economic, and political consequences.’ Yet fossil fuel companies lied to the public about this reality for decades, and continue to block the climate action we need to address this crisis. These companies need to face accountability.”

— The Worst of The Worst

 

at 8/26/26 1:21am

Well damn, we sure feel safer knowing ICE pulled 5-year-old Liam Tadeo and his construction worker dad Victor off Austin's streets on their way to a soccer game before Liam could start kindergarten the next day; also that they were held at a family concentration camp, ICE refused to let Liam's mother take him, and both father and son will "self-deport" to not further sully our pristine white shores. Question: How do these sick fucks sleep at night?Thanks to the obscene $200 billion-plus gifted to DHS and ICE by their evil overlords, arrests of undocumented or at least unwanted immigrants surged to nearly 50,000 largely innocent people in July, a 15% spike from a month earlier and the regime's highest monthly arrest total to date. So yes, the sadists are still at it, just more quietly than when a psychotic Noem and Bovino were blasting out histrionic videos of daredevil agents dropping from helicopters onto apartment rooftops to grab terrified families - images reportedly, inexplicably "provoking a lot of ordinary people." Wusses, all. Many recent arrests come during "traffic stops," increasingly with the help of partnering state and local law enforcement lured by "generous financial incentives," especially in Texas and Florida; ICE is also arresting more Haitians whose protections have been stripped away. Among those detained are over 6,200 kids, 10 times more than during Biden's tenure, despite ongoing, fantastical DHS claims they're going after the "worst of the worst" murderers, drug traffickers, sex offenders - and despite ghastly data showing up to 85% of ICE thugs themselves have sex offenses on their records, most against children. New data, like old data, also shows less than a quarter of those arrested have any criminal convictions. Elsewhere, ICE abuses go on apace. A sailor aboard the troubled USS Lincoln said ICE has taken his father, who had a work permit, into custody. “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws,” said a DHS statement "in the same support-our-troops spirit Trump is so famous for." In an interview, the mother, father and sister of Alex Pretti family said no officials have come forward in the last seven months to retract or apologize for the "disgusting" claims of "assassin" and "domestic terrorist" they made about Alex - "We still hear those words about our child,” said his mother Susan - nor have any criminal charges been filed against his killers.Meanwhile, J.D. Vance just came to Maine to spew racist lies, flaunt his "trademark absence of charisma," and claim, "If you bring in millions and millions of illegal aliens and give them houses that ought to go by right to American citizens, it's going to increase the cost of housing for everybody else." He also dismissed ICE's killing of Colombian Johan Durán Guerrero, who had a social security card, two jobs, a wife and a three-year-old daughter. Worried residents, he said, should "have a little bit of perspective" to ensure "that poison stops coming into our country." Troy Jackson called J.D. "a dirtbag": "I mean, he had a life." As to Susan Collins, who declined to regret giving ICE "$70 billion more to pull this shit off": "I’m sick of your ‘concerns.’"And on Aug. 16, brave ICE thugs stopped five-year-old Liam Tadeo - their second small Liam like the bunny-hat-wearing Liam Ramos in Minnesota - and his father Victor Martinez Nieto on their way to play soccer. Without bothering with the nicety of pretending it was a legit traffic stop, they asked Victor, originally from Mexico, if he had legal status. Candidly, he said no; in 2025, he'd been arrested by ICE, "voluntarily" left, then "criminally" reentered the U.S. to (horrors) be with his wife and son. Heart-rending video soon surfaced of Liam crying beside his father and trying to hold one of his hands, cuffed behind him, as Victor tried to console his tearful son, talking to him as they walked. It was the day before Liam was set to start kindergarten.They were both taken to the for-profit Dilley concentration camp, which rights groups have repeatedly accused of medical neglect, poor living conditions and abuse. According to Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, their family's attorney, Victor begged ICE to release Liam to his mother Maria, also not a legal citizen, at home, or another member of the family. ICE refused, though DHS proudly, routinely declaims ICE "will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," like how they also contend Dilley is "retrofitted for families, with access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets...generously funded by the U.S. taxpayer." Instead, they had Victor sign papers in English he didn't fully understand, and booked both father and son.Lincoln-Goldfinch says Maria is "desperate and distraught, separated from her child and worrying about his well-being." Back at their home, "It feels like when you go to someone’s house after a sudden death, and there’s a wake or a gathering. Everybody is just stunned." Maria released a statement: "Liam was supposed to start kindergarten this week. Instead he is (in) detention. He should be in school, playing soccer, and at home with his family." Saturday, CNN aired emotional video of her talking by phone to her five-year-old. “I love you so much and I miss you so much, my love,” she tearfully told Liam in Spanish. “Don’t despair, my love, okay?” Lacking options, Liam timidly responds, "Okay." One furious, horrified online comment: "Anyone!!??!!"This week, Austin's KUT News reported Victor has decided to be deported to Mexico along with his son, rather than risk Liam being separated from him and placed in a dystopian regime's custody as an "unaccompanied migrant child.” Said Lincoln-Goldfinch, "His family did what any family would do: Agree." As Maria reportedly struggles to find a way to re-unite with her family - "My son is only five years old" - Americans fume about "sadistic barbarians harming humanity every single day." "How sick can these people be? I used to think merciless psychopathic villains were only found in movies and fiction," said one. Also, "America has concentration camps. I. Hate. It. Here." and, "That poor little boy, That poor family. I am so tired." Meanwhile, Texas' Dem lawmakers have called for Liam to be released and for Dilley to be shut down. "I just sat with Liam's mother as she found out what it means to have your child held hostage by ICE. It was horrifying," wrote Rep. Greg Casar, who charged Liam's arrest showed Trump uses children “as bait and leverage to fuel his mass deportation machine.” "Liam should be starting kindergarten this week, and instead he's sitting in a trailer prison." Rep. Joaquin Castro said ICE denied his request to visit Liam at Dilley in what he called "shady stuff," and he vowed to return; he also cited human rights violations, privacy concerns, and untenable phone, video call and e-mail strictures: “I’m telling y’all, ICE is getting worse."Because this is ghoul-filled America in 2026, Liam's aunt Patricia Resendiz has begun a Gofundme to help with legal expenses and her sister Maria's household costs, as Victor was the sole provider. "If we manage to get Liam and his dad to go free, Liam will also need psychological support, as the detention has left him traumatized. These funds will be to mitigate all aspects of child detention," she wrote. "The detention of Liam and my brother-in-law was cruel. They are not criminals - they were simply on their way to a soccer match. Liam is a beautiful, intelligent, and big-hearted little boy. My sister is devastated, as are we. Liam was detained right in front of my son, his cousin. My son told me that ICE agents said to Liam, 'You can't escape.'"

— The Teacher Pay Penalty Remained High in 2025

 

at 8/25/26 3:47pm

Teachers earned 25.2 percent less than comparable college graduates in other professions in 2025, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).The relative teacher pay penalty — which is adjusted for education, experience, and demographic characteristics — was a slight improvement from 2024’s record high of 26.9 percent, but still more than four times the 6.1 percent penalty recorded in 1996. In other words, teachers earned on average 74.8 cents on the dollar in 2025 compared with other college graduates — much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996. When broken down by gender, the relative teacher pay penalty was 34.5 percent for men and 20.0 percent for women.Overall, simple inflation-adjusted weekly wages for public school teachers fell 6.2 percent over the last three decades, while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8 percent over the same period. Teachers were paid less than other college graduates in every state, with relative teacher pay gaps ranging from 10.4 percent in Rhode Island to 40.7 percent in Colorado. The teacher pay penalty was at least 25 percent in 25 states.While teachers typically receive better benefits packages than other professionals, this only partially offsets the growing wage penalty that teachers face. After accounting for the difference in benefits, teachers’ total compensation penalty was 14.5 percent in 2025. As the report explains, providing teachers with competitive pay is necessary to retain and attract qualified workers. While there are many important factors impacting teacher retention and recruitment, pay consistently lands near the top of any list. Reversing these trends will require targeted, sustained investment in public education at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also require stronger support for public-sector collective bargaining, which has long been a driver of better pay and job quality for teachers. “The decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. Yet, policymakers have failed to make the needed investments to reverse course. That failure is especially troubling in a country as wealthy as the United States, with more than enough resources for its public schools to be the envy of the world,” said report author Sylvia Allegretto, who is a senior economist at CEPR and research associate at EPI.

— Recreation, Conservation Groups Unite Against Forest Service Travel Rule Rollback

 

at 8/25/26 11:39am

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently launched a process to significantly revise its Travel Management Rule, which guides where motorized vehicles are and are not allowed on almost 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands.The USDA is proposing to flip the U.S. Forest Service’s longstanding approach to travel management on its head, forcing local forests to allow motorized vehicles everywhere except for places that are specifically closed. The current rule requires motorized vehicles to stay on a designated system of roads, trails and areas in national forests and grasslands and is an essential policy for wildlife conservation, balanced recreation, and public safety.This comes directly on the heels of the USDA’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would make 45 million acres of remote backcountry forests available for clearcut logging, road-building and other development, unleashing back-to-back blows to our national forests. Combined, these actions are part of the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rules and safeguards that keep national forests safe, accessible, and managed for everyone.“This is yet another egregious attack in the systematic dismantling of public lands management of our national forests,” said Dan Hartinger, senior director for agency policy at The Wilderness Society. “Travel management provides the basic guardrails that let hikers, hunters, anglers, and riders share the same forest without chaos; removing those guardrails threatens the freedom of all public lands users to safely enjoy our national forests the way they choose. Paired with the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, this destructive agenda sells out future generations’ enjoyment of our forests in order to hand them over for corporate profits.”“The Travel Management Rule creates a framework that balances uses on national forest lands. It draws on local decision-making processes to support all user groups in enjoying public lands while also protecting these places for future generations,” said Anneka Williams, policy director at Winter Wildlands Alliance. “Removing this framework for shared use threatens diverse user experiences on public lands. Coming on the heels of the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, it is clear that this announcement is part of the administration’s broader agenda to dismantle our public lands as we know and love them.”“The Travel Management Rule is why dirtbikers and snowmobilers can share national forests with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s built on local decision-making that ensures no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected,” said Hilary Eisen, federal policy director at Wild Montana. “Just days after doubling down on repealing the Roadless Rule, this announcement makes the administration’s plan obvious: gut the rules requiring the Forest Service to manage our natural resources carefully and listen to the public, then open the gates to industry and extraction. The Roadless rescission already showed that Forest Service leadership doesn’t value public input, science, or expert management. They’ve lost the public’s trust, and should expect the public to hold them accountable.”“The USDA’s announcement to gut the Travel Management Rule and the Roadless Rule in the same week is a one-two punch that together deals a tremendous blow to wildlife,” said Vera Smith, director of national forests and public lands at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Travel Management Rule states simply that motorized vehicles must stay on routes and areas designated locally for that use. The Forest Service issued the rule over 20 years ago to curb damage from unmanaged recreation, reduce user conflict and protect public safety. Rescinding it now is irresponsible and reckless.”“Just after this administration moved to eliminate protections for Roadless Areas, it is now proposing to gut the Travel Management Rule that for 20 years has ensured the Forest Service manages motorized recreation in a manner that minimizes damage, protects other visitors, and responds when vehicle use is harming public land resources,” said Adam Rissien rewilding manager at WildEarth Guardians. “Eliminating those protections will not improve access. It would replace locally developed plans with uncertainty, conflict, and unmanaged use.”“Just days after its proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule, the administration is now attempting to open up our national forests to more off-road vehicle use that will degrade the landscape and disturb wildlife and other land users,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Some places in our national forests are meant for quiet, undisturbed recreation and protecting sensitive wildlife, including endangered species. This rule would open all roads and trails to ORVs by default, meaning areas set aside for hiking, hunting, or horseback riding could soon be fair game to four-wheelers and dirt bikes.”“The Trump Administration’s proposal to fundamentally alter the Travel Management Rule will change for the worse how Utahns experience national forests throughout the state, from the Wasatch Front to redrock country outside Escalante and Moab,” said Laura Peterson, senior attorney at Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “The proposal will place a heavy thumb on the scale to prioritize off-road vehicle use at the expense of all other uses of the national forests, including the protection of wildlife, cultural sites, streams and wild places. This move will not improve access to public lands, but it will make the experience of recreating on public lands worse for all users, including hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers and riders.”“For over two decades the Travel Management Rule has ensured our National Forests are managed to host an array of user groups, while safeguarding the health and future of our public lands,” said Peggie dePasquale, National Forest Wildlands Director at the Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA). “We are now witnessing a troublesome undoing of this effective management tool that the American people, especially here in Wyoming, have come to rely on for sustainable and relied upon access. It is critical that we raise our voices to send a clear message that the proposed revision goes against public interest and is bad news for the future of our natural world.”“The existing travel management planning process allows the public to meaningfully weigh in on where vehicles do and don’t belong in our national forests. Repealing this rule hands that decision to political appointees in Washington, who have decided that every road, trail, and meadow should be open to motorized use, no matter the conflicts with other users or wildlife,” said Center for Western Priorities (CWP) Communications Director Kate Groetzinger. “Repealing this rule is also a recipe for more wildfire in a region that cannot afford it. Putting hot engines deeper into dry forests during longer and hotter fire seasons will increase wildfire risk, and Western communities will pay for it.”Travel management is supported by a diverse group of public lands users. This proposal to revise the Travel Management Rule is out of touch with everyday Americans who use our forested public lands. Motorized groups, recreationalists, sportsmen, conservation organizations, local communities and other public land users nationwide have spoken out in opposition: American Hiking Society, Back Country Horsemen of American, American Trails, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Bureau of Land Management, (7/21/2026).Motorcycle Industry Council, Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (10/27/2025)American Endurance Ride Conference, American Hiking Society, American Horse Council, American Trails, Appalachian Mountain Club, Back Country Horsemen of America, Equine Land Conservation Resource, Move United, North Carolina Horse Council, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Partnership for the National Trails System, Rails to Trails Conservancy, Washington Trials Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Forest Service (6/5/2026).American Motorcyclist Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (12/15/2025).Rural & Agriculture Council of America & United States Cattlemen’s Association, Letter Opposing full repeal of Travel Management Rule & Requesting a robust public process, (6/24/26).Outdoor Alliance & members Access Fund American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Winter Wildlands Alliance, The Mountaineers, American Alpine Club, Colorado Mountain Club, Surfrider Foundation, Runners for Public Lands, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (6/12/26).Off Road Business Association, Inc, United Four Wheel Drive Association, One Voice & United Snowmobile Alliance, Letter Opposing “outright repeal” of Travel Management Rule, (1/26/26).Public Lands Foundation, Position Statement supporting current Travel Management Policy, (4/25).

— Trump’s Renewed Economic War on Iran Risks Blowback

 

at 8/24/26 10:13am

Ryan Costello, Policy Director with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), issued the following statement as the Trump administration moves to intensify its economic pressure campaign against Iran following months of war and instability:“President Trump, the ultimate gambler in geopolitics, is poised to double down on a bad hand on Iran yet again.“We’ve been down the maximum pressure road with Iran many times. What we’ve learned is that President Trump can impose extensive economic pain on Iran, but ordinary Iranians overwhelmingly bear the cost.. The ruling elite in Iran remains largely insulated, while Tehran has repeatedly refused to capitulate to Washington’s demands.. Trump’s gamble is that this time, amid the destruction of war, and with the reinforcement of a blockade, time is on his side and ultimately Iran will be forced to concede defeat.“The pivot back to economic coercion comes with enormous risks the administration appears determined to ignore. After all, it was the United States that waived sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea during the height of the war in March, and again issued a waiver allowing Iran to sell oil freely in June. Now attempting to choke off those same oil sales exposes the contradiction at the heart of Trump’s strategy: Washington needed to relieve economic pressure when the consequences became too costly, yet is now betting that it can reimpose that pressure without suffering the same blowback.“Within the United States, ordinary Americans are paying the price for this deeply unpopular war at the gas pump and in their grocery bills. Trump’s polls have plummeted amid the war - one he said he’d avoid - heading into all-important midterms. Continuing economic warfare risks deeper turmoil in the energy markets and the global economy, which could cascade into a full-blown catastrophe. Moreover, starting a trade war with China risks retaliatory measures that the U.S. economy can ill afford.“Iran has also indicated clearly that it will not tolerate economic warfare and will escalate across the region, if necessary, to target any nation that supports President Trump’s efforts to cripple the Iranian economy. While the President may think economic warfare is less risky than military warfare, ultimately Tehran will view it as a different tactic in the same campaign to crush the country.“None of this appears likely to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Rather, it appears intended to delay and avoid a deal that ends not just the war, but also the maximum pressure campaign that the President has waged since 2018. Oftentimes, admitting you have a problem is necessary in order to stop an addiction. President Trump has proven unable and unwilling to stop his gambling on Iran that risks further undermining U.S. and regional security and the global economy.”

— FTC Must Investigate AI Book Burning

 

at 8/21/26 10:13am

On Friday, Demand Progress Education Fund and a coalition of civil society advocates asked the FTC to investigate AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon for buying books in bulk, scanning them and then destroying the original work—including rare books. In a letter sent to the FTC, the organizations urge the agency to use its authority, including Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, to investigate whether this mass book-destroying practice unfairly prevents competing AI developers and the public from using these resources. Read the Letter Convened by Demand Progress Education Fund, the letter was also signed by the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Media & Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and 14 other organizations.“The secretive and reckless way that major AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon are acting shows that there is real smoke here that the FTC needs to investigate,” said Demand Progress Education Fund Special Advisor Kate Oh. “There is credible reporting that the AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation.”“When a small number of dominant tech companies become the sole custodians of millions of human-authored works in digital form, locked away inside proprietary corporate databases—including works they have caused to exist nowhere else—they convert a shared public resource into a private chokepoint,” stated the letter. “They make themselves the unaccountable gatekeepers of our shared historical and cultural record, with the ability to censor as they see fit. That outcome should concern the FTC because the antimonopoly laws exist not only to protect competition but to prevent any private actor from amassing control incompatible with a free and self-governing society.”

— Be Quiet, Be Quiet: We Are All On the Decoy Plane Now

 

at 8/20/26 8:20pm

Not to alarm, but everything in America - our economy, military, education, environment, health, moral fiber - is being decimated by a petty, fragile, flailing child in a fact-free bubble who just turned our foreign policy over to North Korea because its dictator "has always been nice to me." Otherwise, he's grifting, lying, babbling, losing wars, slathering gold, raving about his vanity projects - "If you're grass, you're very happy" - and posting AI slop with George Washington, who's spinning in his grave. This week, the war in Iran sank deeper into the quagmire it was always doomed to be when the 60-day negotiating period expired with little public comment. Trump shrugged off the lack of new talks because "the situation is so good," then threatened the "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN" against Iran, which said it's working with Oman to monitor shipping through Hormuz Strait, which prompted Trump to threaten to "bomb the shit out of Oman," even though it's supposedly mediating on Iran. Having announced that after "we finish defeating Iran" he wanted to declare the Strait "a territory of the U.S," Trump went online and did just that with his magic Sharpie; Iran, in turn, vowed to "correct the delusions of this delusional individual," and who could blame them. Whiplash City.At home, alas, America will likely continue getting dumber thanks to the moronic regime deleting or altering nearly 400 federal datasets - tracking police misconduct, violence against children, pollution - to wipe out facts they don't like. Of online data released last week from over 60 agencies - environment, education, labor, law enforcement - by far the largest slice is health information, much on substance abuse, mental health, infectious disease, queer and trans people in keeping with the surreal executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." Entirely logically, experts decry the destruction - Facts: who needs 'em? - arguing once these cretins crawl back to their caves "we are not going to have the information we need...We’re erasing our institutional memory for public health.”Speaking of: Just in time for fall, we have "Bobby Jr's Back to School Special: Free Measles!" The folks who won't give out free lunch are instead giving us over a quarter of a million kids entering kindergarten susceptible to measles, which has hit a 36-year high along with an all-time high of vaccine exemptions after rules were loosened - a vax rate so low health experts say it cannot provide herd protection. Just to keep us on our toes, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and chickenpox vax rates are also down, good news for a regime whose only strong point is spreading preventable disease. Dems wrote a letter urging Trump to halt substituting “anti-vaccine ideology for decades of scientific evidence”; good luck to them and us on what besieged health officials deem ongoing "chaos and confusion in vaccination recommendation systems."Meanwhile, as Americans struggle to afford food, gas, health care - 8 million have lost coverage - the mad king is insisting his "REAL Polling Numbers (are) the best they have ever been" - ie: low 20s for Independents, 13% for Black voters, down 27 points for his Latino voters as Dems flip 30 state seats, including where Mar-a-Lago is - and covering everything in gold. Like, everything. One sage: "His super power is the ability to ruin shit you didn’t even know existed." He's spent up to $900 million on vanity pr0jects and $200 million to turn the White House into a brothel-like, gimcrack-packed "Middle Eastern bazaar crossed with an opulent Cracker Barrel" - complete with gold Trump coin glued to the Oval Office door - in a lavish, tacky, Let-Them-Eat-Gold-or-at-least-Home-Depot-plastic-appliques shopping junket with (obviously) our money. He's ordered a "golden fleet" of 15 new "Trump-class" nuclear-powered warships estimated to cost about $275 billion, though he's said he'd rather get 25 ships for $455 billion. He announced the White House was buying 250 giant new Cadillac Escalade SUVs - retail price $90,000 each, over $300,000 for armored version - because, "That’s how we look sharp in those cavalcades." Last month, he spent over $5 million to gaudily gild two 19-foot, 80,000-pound equestrian statues, Arts of War and Arts of Peace, in 23.75-karat gold leaf (though they're bronze and should have been polished), rendering them like "very, very gold" oversized children's trophies next to the austere Lincoln Memorial. "We made them the way they were plus," he moronically bragged, "and everyone’s so proud." We wonder: Is "everyone" in the room with us?As the national debt just hit $40 trillion for the first time - it took nearly 200 years for it to reach $1 trillion in 1981- Trump remains fixated on his feckin' $600 million ballroom - oops, sorry: "military complex" - that no one asked for. After a court blocked construction, he called the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who successfully brought the suit to stop it, “TREASONISTS” who are threatening national security and exposing "top secret military features.” More weirdly, the guy supposedly worried about "national security" just imploded seven decades of careful diplomacy with South Korea - and a 1950s mutual defense treaty the State Department calls "the linchpin for security and stability in the Indo-Pacific” - to punish a longtime democratic ally for declining to join his Iran debacle and instead appease a nuclear-armed dictator.His abrupt move Sunday night to “substantially reduce” joint exercises with South Korea, hours before 18,000 South Korean troops and thousands of Americans were set to kick off their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, was widely panned as "an unforced error" and "another inane, haphazard decision (by) a chaotic administration" - one made, as usual, not jointly with Congress but unilaterally, on social media, based on wildly false, revisionist history. His "reasons": The drills are "costly" (see statues, ballroom, mountain of gold crap), they send a signal that's "inappropriate and hostile" toward a regime that's "unthreatening," and “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect...I understand him, and he understands me." In other words, he is Sally Fields at the 1985 Oscars: "You like me!"Never mind his "unthreatening" North Korea has weapons that reach the US; they're shipping weapons to Putin's forces in Ukraine; and Thursday they shrugged off Trump's paltry olive branch by launching a barrage of missiles, dismissing the "recent measure (of) so-called good faith," and denying Trump's claim his bestie had reached out. Sen. Tim Kaine: "North Korea tests ballistic missiles and Trump decides the problem is with...our ally, South Korea." These are also the guys who killed Otto Warmbler, a 21-year-old U.S. student on a 2016 tour charged with a "hostile act against the state" after allegedly stealing a hotel poster. He was put away after a show trial; when the U.S. got him released 17 months later, he came home blind, deaf, vegetative, howling, with catastrophic brain damage and signs of torture. He died six days later. But sure, Trump and Kim Jong Un "get along GREAT!"Along with America’s rebuff of ally South Korea, the Pentagon just chose to relieve the beleaguered USS Lincoln with the USS Washington, the Navy’s only aircraft carrier in the Asia Pacific. The move leaves no U.S. presence there for the first time since 1944, “vaporizing” U.S. influence in the region and marking “the end of an era” - maybe just as well, given the Navy’s belated admission that last month U.S. destroyer USS Benfold lost power and ran adrift in the South China Sea for four days with no food, water, AC or toilets. Heckuva job, Pete. No wonder the rude mad king lost it Monday when CNN reporter Kristen Holmes did her job and challenged him on the wisdom of said “policies.” "What I'm doing is making things safer," he snarled. Admirably, she persisted. "Quiet! You're very disrespectful, you're a loud boisterous person," he snapped. "Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet."The rancor didn't end there. Holmes also dared to ask about a now-viral speech by Sen. Jon Ossoff, who noted the "crook president" doesn't want "to do the job." Instead, "he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar" - a brief, incendiary reference to "weird stalker-slash-diaper-nurse" Natalie Harp, who Trump calls "sweetie." Trump brushed off Holmes' question with the always bizarre tactic of a grotesquerie tossing puerile insults at better-looking people: Ossoff is "a Pee-wee Herman look-alike." Still, the fragment of discomfiting reality - Ossoff: “Apparently, in the White House, the truth hurts” - in a 30-minute speech sparked a telling torrent of fury from MAGA cultists unaccustomed to hearing it. As a result - and 'cause they're dumb - the meltdown was laughable.The White House declared Ossoff “the biggest cuck loser in politics,” a “feminine theater kid,” a “lightweight.” They also went for Holmes, “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment." “These scumbags are the lowest of the low,” they said. “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed.” (Cue lowest of the low.) Many others chimed in. Ossoff is “a mean-spirited jerk who traffics in slander,” “Who does this and holds their head high? This guy should be ashamed.” Hilariously, some ran with the news the quiet, studious Ossoff, known “for keeping his head down and doing the work,” spent $2,887 on make-up and prep for TV appearances. Laura Ingraham: "Beneath that pancake bronzer and rouge, we have an ambitious man, (the) most dangerous type of politician." America: "Fox ridiculing men who wear makeup is really something to behold."Amidst the eruptions, Trump took to Truth Social, his tawdry security blanket, in a weekend spree of over 40 posts in six hours, most of it AI slopaganda. No more hiding in catering trucks: Here he is triumphant, a svelte Elvis - "President Trump ages in reverse!” - building a “WALL OF STEEL" around Iran's ports in a made-for-TV movie war where, in Nazi typeface, “We are going to win.” Also beware Elizabeth "Pocohontas" Warren, Abdul El-Sayed, and women in hijab who "are coming for your home and your belongings!" Enamored of George Washington, he saves him at Mt. Rushmore, splits a portrait with him, rides beside him on horseback - the bad guy on a black horse - and, before two huge American flags with the wrong number of stripes, consults him, shrunk shorter than Trump, on his feckin' ballroom: "Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas." Consensus: "Psychotic stuff."Dean Blundell cites the screaming dissonance of Trump’s infatuation with a leader of grace and integrity who over time “refused a crown, a palace, a third term, power itself” as he “diligently sought the public welfare.” In He’s No Washington, Blundell helpfully offers “the most humiliating side-by-side in American history.” With no fancy education, Washington had and read one key book of philosophy: A 1702 translation of Seneca’s Morals. Its chapter headings became the moral axioms Washington followed through "a lifetime of deliberate self-discipline," starting at 14 when he copied “110 Rules of Civility” into a notebook "and spent the next 50 years living them." A man who could "command a room by saying less" but naturally "most tremendous in his wrath,“ Washington's composure was "a construction project...He was a volcano that decided, every single day, not to erupt."Blundell describes ”the moral weight of a man who asked nothing for himself.” When he took office, the Senate debated for weeks what to call him - “His Highness the President of the United States," "His High Mightiness“ - but he chose the unfussy ”Mr. President." Same with his residence; the original plan was a European-style palace four times bigger. He twice gave up power at the height of his own, for which King George called him "the greatest man in the world.” His favorite piece of writing was a play about the Roman Stoic senator Cato, who chose death over submission to Julius Caesar’s tyranny. With his army barefoot and freezing at Valley Forge, he had Cato performed for them "to remember what they were freezing for." In his farewell address, he warned of demagogues who would "ride public rage to power." He understood that in America, "the office was supposed to be bigger than the man. Power was never the prize. Character was the prize." Blundell: "Compare and weep."Wednesday, the “visibly incoherent” current president, laser-focused on our most vital issues, led the press on a giddy tour of the work he’s ordered on the White House grounds in a scene like “a lost episode of the 1980s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” He bragged about the driveway’s “flawless granite,” autographed the ornate helipad “he insists he needs” - “It’s very strong stone, it will never break, it will never do— it’s rated million-year plus” - claimed the "military complex will have a drone-proof uh roof, and you’re gonna have on top of the roof, many drones,” and for perhaps the 10th time intoned “grass has a life like humans”: "We put brand new earth on top, so if you’re grass, you’re very happy.” America: "Hey Ma, Grandpa is in the front yard again yelling at people," "What an incredible babbling idiot," "A million years - that's how long his presidency has felt," and, "Fix the country you broke, asshole." Trump moved on to his new flagpoles. "This is a great pole," he said. "I'm very good at flagpoles." - YouTube www.youtube.com

— Reproductive Freedom for All Slams Trump Tapping Heidi Overton as FDA Commissioner Nominee

 

at 8/19/26 12:00pm

Today, news outlets reported that Donald Trump plans to nominate White House Domestic Policy Deputy Director Dr. Heidi Overton — an anti-abortion extremist who celebrated the Supreme Court overturning the right to abortion — to serve as his Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner. The FDA plays a critical role in safeguarding the health of people across the country, including by making science-based decisions about medication abortion, birth control, and other essential reproductive healthcare.Overton has an extensive anti-abortion record. She celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “huge victory,” and has advocated for the politicization of government agencies to help advance a nationwide anti-abortion agenda. She previously worked at America First Policy Institute, an extreme conservative think tank made up of former Trump administration officials, where she authored a brief pushing disinformation about the safety of medication abortion and calling for additional, medically unnecessary restrictions on access to mifepristone.Overton’s nomination comes as the FDA rushes to advance a politically motivated, sham “study” of mifepristone, and remains under close scrutiny from anti-abortion groups and leaders who relentlessly demand that the agency takes decisive action to restrict access to medication abortion care.Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju released the following statement:“Donald Trump is trying to put an anti-abortion extremist in charge of any agency that could seriously undermine reproductive healthcare—including the agency that could roll back access to mifepristone nationwide. Heidi Overton celebrated the fall of Roe, spread junk science about medication abortion, and openly called for remaking the FDA to serve a political agenda instead of the health of the country. Her nomination is another alarming step in Trump’s plan to weaponize every part of the federal government to restrict abortion nationwide.”If confirmed, Overton would succeed Martin Makary, who resigned as FDA Commissioner in May. Initial reports of Makary’s departure from the FDA emerged just after a meeting between White House staff and anti-abortion groups, who expressed frustration the FDA has not sufficiently wielded its power to ban mifepristone outright. Anti-abortion groups then shifted their demands to acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, who called anti-abortion leaders within hours of being appointed and said that accelerating the review was his top priority.

— The Sears Home Reimagined: A Plan to Deliver 500,000 Affordable, Move-In Ready Starter Homes to Working Families

 

at 8/19/26 10:15am

More than a century ago, American families could flip through a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, pick out a house, and have nearly everything they needed to build it delivered to them at an affordable price. Tens of thousands of Sears homes are still standing today – a testament to an era when a starter home could be both attainable and built to last. Today, as more Americans are priced out of the housing market, Groundwork Collaborative released a new proposal to revive the Sears home model for the 21st century.The Modern Sears Home: Resurrecting the Affordable American Starter Home for a New Generation, authored by Groundwork’s Noah Ball-Burack, Emily DiVito, and Alex Jacquez, outlines a federal initiative to deliver, over eight years, 500,000 high-quality factory-built homes directly to American families across the country for under $215,000. Today, the national median home price hovers above $400,000, and the starter home – what used to be the first rung on the ladder to economic security – is all but extinct. In some communities, starter homes can cost $1 million or more, putting homeownership further out of reach for many families. The Modern Sears Home Program would deploy the federal government’s purchasing power, land access, and ability to finance and site homes at scale to bring the cost of new, high-quality homes within reach. Furthermore, by guaranteeing demand for hundreds of thousands of factory-built homes, the program would also give private manufacturing firms the certainty they need to expand production, lower production costs, and increase housing supply. By bringing affordable homes directly to communities where the private market has fallen short, the Modern Sears Home Program could expand homeownership in rural areas and open the door for families who have historically been shut out of the housing market. The idea has vast public support. New polling shows that three in four voters support the Modern Sears Home Program and the proposal enjoys broad support across party lines, including 80% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 74% of Republicans. Additionally, 69% of voters, including majorities across party lines, say the program would make homeownership feel more attainable. By some estimates, Sears sold more than 70,000 catalog kit homes during the 20th century, many of which are still standing today in states like Ohio, Illinois, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Groundwork’s Senior Advisor for Economic Policy, Emily DiVito, shared the following: “For too many families, homeownership has gone from a milestone to a mirage. Decades of under-building have left us with an affordable housing shortage that’s pricing people out of their communities. Policymakers must pursue creative, tangible, and lasting solutions that bring homeownership back into reach. The Modern Sears Home program does just that.”Lindsay Owens, President and CEO of Groundwork, reacted:“I grew up in a Sears Home, and I know the comfort and stability these houses offer the families who live in them. That’s something far too many families can’t count on anymore, as Wall Street and corporate landlords squeeze every last penny out of homeowners and renters alike. Reviving the promise of a Sears home is a chance to make quality and affordable housing the rule, rather than the exception.”In the paper, the authors write:“Sears offered these homes for profit. The federal government – with greater resources, lower borrowing costs, and unmatched power to scale – can do it better...[with] the kind of public ambition that once sent 30,000-piece home kits rattling on rail cars across the country to families who otherwise thought homeownership a distant aspiration...The Modern Sears Home program is that ambition made actionable.”

— Trump Continues Quid Pro Quo Shakedown to Force Constitution of Gas Pipeline, Public Citizen Argues in Filing

 

at 8/18/26 9:36am

In an update to its formal filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Public Citizen today blasted the Trump administration’s arbitrary, capricious and exploitative campaign to build the Constitution Pipeline, calling the project contrary to the public interest. The filing comes days after the Trump administration enforced the annulment of a fourth New York offshore wind project, which included a payment of $1.2 billion of taxpayer money to the company to terminate the project. RWE U.S. Offshore, the company that had previously been set to develop the New York Bight offshore wind project, agreed to end the project because the company stated that it “determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the U.S. for the foreseeable future,” according to a release from the company. “Based upon President Donald J. Trump’s unambiguous statements, his administration is forcing an end to New York offshore wind energy projects in an effort to coerce the state’s Governor to support the Constitution pipeline,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “Trump’s coercive quid pro quo campaign is an arbitrary, capricious and exploitative attempt to strongarm unnecessary fossil fuel infrastructure by using taxpayers money to pay off the wind industry. Trump’s entire endeavor to build this pipeline is a massive and unnecessary waste of money.” The filing today is an update to FERC, expounding on Public Citizen’s initial filing in June, challenging a petition by Oklahoma-based Williams Companies for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to construct and operate Constitution Pipeline. On June 9, on a trip to New York to attend the NBA finals, Trump said that because New York’s governor “broke” a deal to support the Constitution gas pipeline, he would move forward with canceling the wind projects, saying: “so I guess we’re withdrawing those windmills.” The Trump administration has now stopped two New York offshore wind projects since that threat. Public Citizen’s filing warns that FERC’s inaction to investigate this unlawful shakedown violates the public interest and threatens electric grid resource adequacy.

— New Poll: Voters Oppose Integrating Israeli Military into Pentagon

 

at 8/18/26 8:31am

On Tuesday, Demand Progress and IMEU Policy Project released a poll, first reported in Zeteo, showing that a clear majority of voters oppose a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, known as Section 219, that would further integrate the Israeli military and Israeli military companies into the Pentagon—giving them special access to U.S. military systems, sensitive technologies and defense supply chains. The military authorization bill, which includes Section 219, was passed by the House in July and awaits a vote in the Senate.Read the Full Poll ResultsThe online poll of 1,217 U.S. likely voters nationwide was conducted by Data for Progress from August 3 to 7, 2026. The poll found that:61 percent of voters oppose a military authorization bill that would deepen the integration of Israeli weapons companies into the Pentagon at a level higher than any other country—this includes 78 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of independents52 percent of voters agreed with members of Congress who voted in July to cut $3.3 billion in taxpayer funding for weapons to the Israeli military—this includes 60 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents51 percent of voters believe that Israel benefits more from the relationship between the U.S. and Israel—this includes 58 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independentsA plurality of voters, 49 percent, believe President Donald Trump is providing too much support to the Israeli government, compared to only 33 percent who said the president is giving Israel the right amount of support and just eight percent who say he’s giving Israel too little support“This poll is a flashing red warning sign for any member of Congress who supports the defense authorization bill. A clear majority of voters do not support further integrating the Israeli military and Israeli military companies into the Pentagon, which the NDAA is set to do,” said Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian. “It’s time for Congress to listen to the American people for once, and not the same voices who always want to cut Israel a blank check.”“Israel is a nation committing genocide that just dragged the American people into a disastrous war that is still hitting our pocketbooks. It is the height of absurdity that Congress is even considering a proposal to become more entangled with the Israeli military and use our tax dollars to subsidize their weapons companies,” said IMEU Policy Project Executive Director Margaret DeReus. “Senators take an oath to do what is best for the American people above all; to uphold that oath, they must scrap this ridiculous proposal.”

— Texas Families Urge U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Challenge to Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Public School Classrooms

 

at 8/17/26 12:17pm

More than two dozen Texas families are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their challenge to a state law that requires public schools to post a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The request, filed today, urges the court to protect students’ and parents’ religious freedom by blocking Texas Senate Bill 10, ensuring that families — not politicians — have the right to decide what role religion plays in their lives.The Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha'i, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families challenging the Texas law attend 22 school districts across the state and are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. Today’s petition seeks review of lower court rulings in two separate but similar cases: Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District.Under S.B. 10, Texas public schools must permanently display a state-mandated version of the Ten Commandments, drawn from the Protestant King James Bible, in a “conspicuous” place in each classroom, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The families challenging S.B. 10 object to the law because the displays will pressure children to conform to the state’s favored religious beliefs and interfere with parents’ right to guide their children’s religious instruction.Today’s Supreme Court filing, a joint petition for a writ of certiorari in both cases, follows an April decision by the en banc U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowing the state-selected version of the Ten Commandments to go up in the plaintiffs’ classrooms. By a narrowly decided vote, the 5th Circuit ruled that S.B. 10 does not violate either the Establishment or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment — despite a 1980 Supreme Court case striking down a nearly identical Kentucky law.“As a rabbi and parent, forcing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments on children in every classroom is particularly upsetting,” said plaintiff Rabbi Joshua Fixler (he/him) of Houston. “I am not only worried about my own kids, but I’m deeply concerned about all the children in my congregation. These displays put children in the position of having to defend themselves and their families’ religious beliefs against a government mandate that makes them feel different and separate from their classmates.”“Texas politicians shouldn’t have a seat at the table in deciding how our children receive their religious education. That decision belongs to our family,” said plaintiffs Rebekah (she/her) and Ted Lowe (he/him), an Austin-based interfaith couple who are raising their children in the Christian and Jewish traditions. “This law puts one version of religious beliefs above all others in our public schools and sends a message to our children that what we teach them about religion at home is somehow wrong.”“By requiring displays of religious doctrine in every classroom, the state is interfering with our family’s decisions about how our children engage with religion,” said plaintiff Nichole Manning (she/her), a Dallas-area atheist who is raising her children in a nonreligious tradition that gives them the space and autonomy to develop their own beliefs about religion. “As a parent, I intentionally choose to have my children attend public school because I prefer an educational environment without any religious affiliation. In a diverse public school environment, all students should be treated with equal respect, regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.”“The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” said Chloe Kempf (she/her), staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion. Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities — not politicians — get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives. Texas students deserve public schools that welcome them for who they are, respect their religious or nonreligious backgrounds, and give them the high-quality education they need to build their futures.”“Fifty years ago, the ACLU won a Supreme Court victory against a nearly identical Kentucky law — and we aim to do it again,” said Cecillia Wang (she/her), national legal director of the ACLU. “In our country, no legislature can force its preferred scripture on public school students and families.”“Families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide how, if, and when children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser (she/her), president and CEO of Americans United. “We urge the Supreme Court to make clear that these Ten Commandments mandates violate students’ and families’ religious freedom as promised by the U.S. Constitution. With ever more states attempting to force one version of religion into public school classrooms, our nation must recommit to our foundational promise of church-state separation, the lynchpin of religious liberty.”“This case concerns decisions about personal belief and religious instruction, and whether under our Constitution they remain with families and faith communities or are commandeered by the state,” said Jon Youngwood (he/him), global co-chair of the Litigation Department at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. “The First Amendment has long protected the freedom of individuals to determine for themselves how they engage with spirituality and religion. Those protections are especially important in the public-school setting.”“The First Commandment, dictating which god must be worshipped, is the antithesis of our First Amendment,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor (she/her), co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “It is not the government’s role to daily expose young children to a coercive display of one religion’s set of religious edicts in our public schools. Our public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize.”The Lowe and Fixler families share more about how they will be impacted by these Ten Commandments displays and why they oppose them in newly released, heartfelt videos that can be viewed here; transcripts are available here.Access the U.S. Supreme Court certiorari filing here: https://www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/2026/08/10C-SCOTUS-Petition.pdf

— President Trump’s Billionaire Boy’s Club

 

at 8/17/26 10:34am

A new investigation by Public Citizen reveals that 57 individuals within the Trump administration, excluding President Trump, are individually worth as much as $100 million, eight of whom are billionaires. The analysis underscores the growing economic divide between the average American worker, who earns $65,000 a year, and the politically-connected individuals who hold the power to address the economic strain facing the general populace. Of the 57 ultra-wealthy individuals identified, 31 have personal assets exceeding $100 million, while the remainder have assets reaching $100 million. Forty of them are running federal agencies and institutions, including the Department of Commerce, Treasure and Education, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, NASA, Social Security Administration and Office of Personnel Management. The other 17 are serving as U.S. ambassadors.The concentration of wealth is striking compared with previous administrations: Donald Trump: 57 individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including eight billionaires, excluding Trump.Joe Biden: Five individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including two individuals whose assets reached $1 billion or more.George W. Bush: Five individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including one billionaire.Barack Obama: Three individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including one billionaire. “It is deeply concerning to see people with extraordinary wealth controlling the levers of power in our government,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “The Trump administration is putting an unprecedented number of multi-millionaires and billionaires in charge of institutions that are supposed to serve all Americans. When the people holding the reins of government are drawn overwhelmingly from the ranks of the ultra-rich, it leads to misplaced incentives and corruption, and begs the question whose interests they are truly serving.”“The breadth and depth of the economic divide we quantified in this report, identifying 57 ultra-millionaires in key positions in our government and leading at least ten critical federal agencies, should be deeply troubling to anyone concerned about the welfare of our democracy,” said Douglas Pasternak, Public Citizen researcher. “These individuals have sweeping financial conflicts and are more likely to govern based on their own personal monetary interests than the vital interests of the American public.” Public Citizen’s analysis comes amid growing concerns about the influence of wealthy donors and corporate interests in the Trump administration and the corruption that this is contributing to. While financial success should not disqualify anyone from public service, the unprecedented concentration of extreme wealth among administration officials warrants scrutiny. This is especially true when wealthy political supporters are rewarded with positions overseeing institutions responsible for regulating markets, distributing public resources, and protecting the public interest.Read more about Trump’s wealthy administration here.

— Revolving Door Project Condemns Trump’s Corrupt Crypto and Prediction Market Roundtable

 

at 8/17/26 8:10am

Ahead of the White House’s planned cryptocurrency and prediction markets roundtable on Wednesday, The Revolving Door Project released the following statement: “Donald Trump is not content with the billions of dollars in corrupt crypto wealth he has amassed since winning the 2024 election. On Wednesday, he’ll turn the White House into a hub for his crypto and prediction markets cronies to lean on independent agencies and a gridlocked Congress for a more permissive regulatory environment for these predatory corporations. The event will serve as a reminder to Congress of crypto’s deep ties to the president, and of their willingness to spend unprecedented sums in campaign efforts. But the fusion of Trump and crypto’s interests should not dictate federal law, especially when voters are broadly disgusted by the corrupting influence of these industries.” said RDP senior researcher Henry Burke. RDP assistant director Timi Iwayemi added, “The cryptocurrency industry is eager to establish a financial system where scams and money laundering flourish. Their prediction market partners envision a society where gambling is venerated as a legitimate investment strategy. Their well-heeled political operation might have brought them significant influence in Washington, but it has come at a cost. Trump’s blatant corruption has eroded public trust, and prediction markets have jeopardized the legitimacy of our markets. This should be a tough pill for lawmakers to swallow. Wednesday’s meeting is a last-ditch effort to bring Congress onside and hand a victory to two of the most brazenly corrupt entities in the country: Trump and the crypto industry. But regulators and legislators should not be cowed. As recent election results have shown, crypto’s millions can only go so far, and voters are tired of their attempts to buy our democracy.” The Revolving Door Project has been tracking Trump’s corruption closely, as well as the efforts by the crypto and prediction market industries to purchase influence in Washington. Below is a sample of relevant work on the topic:Who’s in Crypto’s Corner?Prediction Markets Are Learning From The Addiction IndustryCrypto Bill Offers Potentially Huge Tax Benefits To Trump FamilyWhy Are Any Democrats Supporting a Bill That Was Championed by the Crypto Industry?RDP Condemns the Blockchain Association’s Deceitful Letter From “Law Enforcement Officials”Trump’s ability to set crypto rules makes $TRUMP coin even more problematicWe Can’t Count on Trump’s SEC to Tell Us If He Is Manipulating the MarketSean Patrick Maloney’s Vanishing Ethics PledgeHow Crypto Is Buying DC One Revolver At A Time

— SEND ME (But Then Bring Me Feckin' Home Again)

 

at 8/14/26 11:00pm

Stormy times at sea, as U.S. ships endure months-long, record-setting deployments for a war nobody wanted that still has no clear objective, reason for being or end in sight and their thousands of hapless burned-out sailors endure bad food, water, plumbing and morale so low some are leaping overboard, or trying to, to end it all. Blame oblivious messianic Nazi clown Kegseth and fellow zealots who lured the faithful and gullible in and then abandoned them - a sordid regime hallmark.On land, of course, things aren't much better these days. In short inept order, Trump has trashed the economy, deporting or terrorizing away over a million brown-skinned workers for the latest dismal jobs report; ordered toxic, nonsensical changes to longtime vaccine policies based on debunked theories, what "some people say," and the fever dream of a lethal "vaccination thing" the size of a soda bottle poured into "a little child's body"; spent over $900 million of our money on vanity construction projects in D.C nobody authorized or asked for; and invested $20 million on gloves for already abusive ICE thugs to give painful electric shocks to "non-compliant" victims in "a recipe for harm to the public" and what could possibly go wrong.Meanwhile, the Iran debacle lurches on. The Pentagon is frantically shifting money from equipment, training and missile defense funds to pay for it, oil reserves and munitions stockpiles have shrunk to record lows, our 122% debt-to-Gross-Domestic-Product ratio means U.S. debt is now greater than the value of everything we produce in a year, "including The Odyssey," and Pete Kegsbreath shrugs it off with an inane, "It takes money to kill bad guys." He's so desperate to get his obscene $1.5 trillion, $3.18 billion a day - the biggest defense budget increase since World War II - he hijacked a ceremony renaming Joint Base Charleston to Joint Base Lindsey Graham by urging Congress give it to him 'cause there'd be "no greater tribute" to the guy who never met a war he didn't like.A partisan hack, he's failed at...everything. He sabotaged his own agenda by blowing off half the Senate, locking Dems out of classified briefings on defense spending in a move even GOPers decried. He kowtowed to Grifters 'R Us by appointing to a tech advisory body handling billions in defense contracts two bros with ties to Don Jr.'s venture capital gig, various wingnuts and others "here to raid the cupboards." Required to give Congress 2025 (pre-Iran) data on civilian harm after gutting programs to mitigate or even track it, he declared no civilian casualties in boat strikes that killed over 220 "narcoterrorists" and Yemen actions that killed hundreds more, in a report officials called "sickening," "a fucking joke," and "a total whitewash."Wildly out of his Planet-Fox-depth, he "helped" craft a military, political and moral fiasco in Iran that has left an equally clueless Private Bonespurs reportedly on the brink of "giving up" on a war that's yielded no nuclear deal and left an ever-more powerful Iran in charge of the vital Hormuz Strait, planning to charge tolls, and demanding $300 billion in reconstruction funds. Heckuva job, or what Dan Rather calls "one of the most catastrophic failures by a president in American history." Plus, Iran hardliners are saying they won't negotiate with the U.S. again until the current moron is gone. And he's so scared he just snuck out of Turkey hiding in a catering truck, prompting a barrage of brutal memes and toons. Sure, Donnie, nobody's laughing at America anymore.Still, because an all-time low number of young Americans are inexplicably showing interest in military service, Christofascist Pete has turned to Jesus for more bodies, arguing the war in Iran is actually "part of God’s divine plan." (Also, so are Coke bottles that read ""Jesus is Lord," or they did until the Muslims took over.) Queasily merging Trump's botched "excursion" with a messianic Christian battle to bring the return of Jesus Christ, Pentagon social media accounts are running multiple, melodramatic ads featuring "warfighters" doing gallant warfighting things alongside the message "SEND ME." Hastily cribbed from Isaiah 6:8, it's when God asks the prophet Isaiah, “Whom shall I send?” and Isaiah replies, “Here am I. Send me.” In many Christian traditions, the passage means willingly accepting God’s call to serve as one sees fit. In evangelical culture, says one historian, it's often a standalone text" used to render that mission divine. What they skip: the following description of a judgment on cities "without inhabitant" and a land "utterly desolate," the devastation falling on "the nation doing the sending." Asked to clarify the message here, a Pentagon spokesperson demurred: "Nothing to offer you on this." Never mind the inevitable uproar if a Muslim cleric cited the Quran before killing 170 schoolgirls and threatening nuclear annihilation, or the fact "blatant Bible-thumping" implying a religious war confirms longtime Iranian agit-prop the U.S., aka "Great Satan," is waging war on Islam.The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was already “inundated” by calls from soldiers complaining about zealot commanders invoking the rhetoric of Christian Zionist messianism; one declared Trump "anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark His return to Earth." The calls, says MRFF president and veteran Mikey Weinstein, "have one damn thing in freaking common - the unrestricted euphoria of commanders (who see) Biblically-sanctioned war as an undeniable sign (of) Christian End Times." Now it's gotten worse: The messaging is more hysterical, and thousands of sailors, stuck on record-long deployments, are more desperate to escape what have become "their floating nightmares."This week, reports surfaced of a growing but unknown number of sailors jumping overboard in apparent suicide attempts after months of isolation, rotten food, broken plumbing, no mail, a dubious mission and morale, writes Jonathan Larson, "lower than Trump’s approval ratings" thanks to the longest, most ill-planned deployment in history. "Deployments have been extended repeatedly under the command of Hegseth and Trump," he notes, "who, in their defense, are to running history’s largest military as a water buffalo is to knitting." Since Nov. 21, 2025, he adds, 5,000 sailors have been on the USS Abraham Lincoln ship, "supporting U.S. operations against Iran, whatever those might be at the moment for whatever reason we’re going with today."He goes on, "Deployment, was supposed to end in May, much like the war was supposed to end in weeks. That can happen when you're fighting a war your commander in chief says isn’t a war, for reasons that shift like the tides, that he already won, and that made pretty much everything worse for the entire world." The USS Lincoln sailors have been at sea for almost nine months, including 250 record-setting days without touching land. There've been two stops: Guam where most had to stay aboard, and Oman where those allowed off had to stay inside a compound. Most deployments run 6 to 7 months, "roughly how long human beings can operate in a floating industrial city working (on) a flight deck actively trying to kill them before they start to come apart."It's not the first ship stranded by "leaders" endlessly extending a deployment because they didn't bother planning to rotate in a relief ship like a real military. Earlier, the USS Gerald R. Ford spent 326 days at sea, Venezuela to iran, famously suffering plumbing breakdowns - once, 205 over four days - from sewage overwhelming pipes. In April, food complaints also began surfacing, with sailors or their relatives posting images of half-empty meal trays, gross slabs of gray "meat," and "meals" of two tortillas and a half-cup of rice. Hegseth, with time only for lethality, called them fake news. Others called bullshit: "Half a cup of rice and 2 tortillas on a $13 million warship while $600 million in gold trim goes up where the East Wing used to be. Tally the score, America."On the Lincoln, sailors and families say conditions are akin to ICE detention: Broken toilets, contaminated drinking water, long periods without hot water for (moldy) showers, no fresh produce 'cause it can't survive the trip, no milk in months, some frozen meat that's still often rotten, basic supplies like soap and toothpaste running out, mail so disrupted care packages get lost in transit for months (if relatives can afford gas to go to the post office). Now come reports of at least six sailors, possibly more, going over the rail "just for relief." Parents say they worry their kids will "die on that ship," that they and their shipmates "think constantly about going over the side"; one woman's husband wrote he hopes "he doesn't wake up tomorrow."Last week, after enough reports of friends pulling friends back from the edge the ship's loudspeaker began asking people to stop trying to jump, about 200 relatives organized two town halls in San Diego to ask Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and other officials, Are you going to bring our people home before or after somebody dies? The meetings were tense and tearful. The wife of a sailor who jumped, and spent an hour in the water before being put on medical leave, said the Navy didn't tell her for four days: "It was handled very poorly - they’re just trying to cover this up." A woman whose husband, a 13-year veteran who tried to jump, said now he's scared he'll get a dishonorable discharge, ruining his career, from the people who put him there, and, "That is not fair."A high school senior whose mom is there wondered if she'd be home for the year’s milestones; she said it’s been hard to connect the past few months and when they do, “She’s definitely down. It sucks.” A father whose son is aboard said he always sounds exhausted. “I don’t want to worry this deployment will get the best of my son," he said. “That would be an unbearable burden on my heart.” Many said it's getting harder to feel proud of the service of relatives afraid they're killing innocent civilians; the first person to admit that drew applause from the crowd. Asked about the meetings, Hegseth, who's crowed about "death and destruction from the sky all day long,” dismissed those and other concerns: "We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment."Joining Cao at the town hall was Vice Admiral Joseph Cahill, who reportedly told relatives of the long-suffering sailors, “I cannot even tell you how proud we are of them." He also said counselors and chaplains were available to help meet their loved ones' "spiritual needs," though one observer noted Hegseth has largely replaced them with "Christofascist proselytizers and ravenous, bloodthirsty, unthinking, religious berserkers whose approach appeared to be controversial among people at (the) meeting currently married to some of Hegseth's aspirational berserkers." Families were told USS Theodore Roosevelt would soon relieve the Lincoln; new reports say USS George Washington will, but no of course the Pentagon isn't confused, why do you ask?Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to Hegseth and Cao expressing his "serious concerns" about conditions and demanding "a formal accounting," including answers to multiple questions, by August 27. He reflects a broad consensus the Pentagon is "burning through people like they’re disposable" as morale at sea is "cratering." "This is what the abuse of active-duty personnel looks like when it’s policy instead of scandal," writes Dean Blundell. "Mission planning is supposed to include the humans executing the mission. When your operational tempo requires denying reality in April, ignoring the warnings in July, and managing suicide attempts by loudspeaker in August, you don’t have a strategy. You have a slow-motion command failure."Still Hegseth, who "treats every question about his conduct as an enemy operation," keeps pushing back on bad food and self-harm reports that have “completely misrepresented” things. His latest retort came during a manic, jittery Panama visit - "The Internet Wants Him to Take a Drug Test" - where he welcomed Colombia’s new right-wing president to a new "Counter-Cartel Coalition" that rebrands the drug economy as a terrorist enterprise. Its very statesman-like motto: "We do bad things to bad people." Now, he brags, he's "putting cartels on notice like ISIS" to "execute ruthlessly" blah blah and if you think boat strikes are war crimes just withdraw from the ICC, "the institutional equivalent of unscrewing the smoke detector because it keeps going off." What an asshole.In a Friday speech in New York, meanwhile, Private Bonespurs blathered "after we finish defeating Iran, pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States." (Iran disagreed.) He also said it's ok to be paying more for gas because "we're doing a great service to the world." Earlier, he randomly ordered the Navy to replace, for old time's sake, the electromagnetic systems carriers use to launch fighter jets with 50's-era steam-powered catapults he always liked,. Mark Kelly: He "should stick to ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit.” Then he was asked if he agreed the burned-out sailors' deployment on the USS Lincoln was too long. "No, no, no," said Mr. Empathy. "Not nearly long enough." In response, many people reportedly flocked to him, saying 'thank you, sir,' with tears in their eyes. Then he went back to sticking gold gimcracks on "his" house.Update: It seems sailors' families are some pissed at the "frustrating, false and careless" responses of Trump/Kegsbreath to legit concerns about the well-being of loved ones stuck in never-ending deployments on the Lincoln. No wonder, given each detail that emerges paints a bleaker picture. They describe "emaciated" sailors losing 20-30 pounds - "If they're losing weight, that means you're starving them" - undrinkable water, and such poor mental health support the one "deployment resilience counselor" quit months ago, a visiting Navy official told them "we can simply exercise our brains to make ourselves happy,” and the only psychiatrist has a five-week wait "unless you do like three of our shipmates and jump off the ship or take 27 sleeping pills." One sailor: "Keep praying for us." His mom: "My son signed up to serve his country. But why isn’t his country serving him?"

— Progressives Win Pair of Victories at DNC Meeting;  Committee Approves Resolutions for Abolishing ICE  And Affirming Law That Could Bar Military Aid to Israel

 

at 8/13/26 12:51pm

The Democratic National Committee today greenlighted resolutions that call for abolishing ICE and implementing “full and consistent enforcement” of two federal statutes known as the Leahy law. The author of the law, former Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), has stated that it applies to Israel, as critics have long asserted.Both resolutions were submitted by Michele Johnson, a DNC member from Louisiana, who spoke for them before the Thursday vote at the DNC’s Resolutions Committee meeting. Approval of the resolutions by the full DNC is expected at a closing session of the meeting in Austin on Saturday.One resolution puts the DNC on record that it “urges Democratic members of Congress to craft legislation abolishing ICE and enacting immigration reform that provides pathways to citizenship, protects workers, and ensures dignity for all impacted people.” The resolution also “urges Democratic members of Congress to pursue civil and criminal accountability for any federal agent, attorney, or official who lied under oath, misrepresented evidence, or gave false testimony regarding DHS conduct, and to remove qualified immunity and other protections shielding DHS and ICE personnel and subcontractorswho have injured protesters or journalists, fired into moving vehicles, or caused deaths in custody, whether of detained individuals, U.S. citizens, or immigrants regardless of nationality or documentation status.”Johnson’s other resolution states that “the Democratic National Committee reaffirms its support for the full, consistent, and impartial enforcement of the Leahy Laws with respect to every recipient of United States security assistance, in every region of the world, without exception.” It adds that the DNC “calls for strengthened vetting capacity, clear remediation standards, and regular public reporting on theimplementation of the Leahy Laws by the Department of State and the Department of Defense,” and that the DNC “encourages Democratic members of Congress to conduct robust oversight of Leahy Law implementation and to support legislative measures that close documented enforcement gaps.”Beginning early Thursday, before the vote on the resolutions, a mobile electronic billboard sponsored by RootsAction – saying “HEY DNC, UPHOLD THE LEAHY LAWS. SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS!” – circled the hotel where the DNC is meeting.Sam Rosenthal, RootAction’s political director, was among the activists who attended the Resolutions Committee meeting. “These were twin victories for human rights, at home and abroad,” he said. “Approval of the resolutions for abolishing ICE and upholding the Leahy law point the way for the Democratic Party to move in directions consistent with what voters want. Getting sufficient turnout from the party’s base at election time will require a change in the approach of the party’s national leadership so that it is clearly responsive to the views of Democrats nationwide.”

— Governments must tax Big Oil's profits as UN tax treaty talks advance

 

at 8/13/26 6:11am

As droughts and wildfires damage economies, 350.org called on governments to push for a global tax treaty that can make big oil and gas corporations pay for mounting climate costs.This week in New York, governments wrapped up negotiations for the UN Tax Convention with some governments strongly pushing for a global tax system aligned with the Paris Agreement and other environmental treaties, which can hold big polluters accountable for climate damage. Campaigners called on governments to support a global tax on fossil fuel profits to raise critically needed funds to help communities and countries hit hardest by climate disasters and ensure a fast, fair shift to renewable energy. Revenues can also be directly channeled to households struggling to pay bills or put food on the table due to spikes in energy and food prices. While tax treaty negotiations took a step in the right direction, several rich countries tried to halt progress by sidelining positions that push for stronger environmental taxation and taxing rights for developing countries. Set to be finalized in 2027, the UN Tax Treaty talks will resume in December, with the inclusion of a “polluters pay” principle on the table. If adopted, a legally binding mechanism can be set up to collect a global tax on the profits of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, which posted more than $90 billion dollars in profits in the second quarter of 2026 alone. Lisa Rose, Campaigner at 350.org, said:"Big Oil’s staggering second quarter earnings prove that the money we need for solutions exists, it’s just in the wrong hands. As droughts and heatwaves drain public budgets and push up the cost of living, countries need these funds now to protect people from extreme heat and rising bills. The momentum for permanently taxing fossil fuel profits is here. Our leaders must not squander this chance to put that wealth where it belongs – into building a safer and more livable planet, not a hotter and more destructive one.” Josh Bayly, Director of Sustainability at Consumers International, said:"Affordability stands out as the top consumer concern worldwide. Spiking energy and food prices have turned essential daily activities like cooking a meal or using the air conditioner into a dilemma for ordinary households. Globally, consumer trust in fossil fuel companies is low, and the outstanding profits they just posted only deepens this distrust. The UN Tax Convention gives governments a real chance to make the energy system fairer: tax excess profits to ease the burden on consumers.” Notes to the Editor: Analysis by Eurodad and the Global Alliance for Tax Justice estimates that a 20% surtax on profits of the world's 100 largest oil and gas companies could have generated more than $1.08 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

— Working Families Feel the Heat of Trump’s Recklessness with Consumer Prices on the Rise in July

 

at 8/12/26 7:58am

Today’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report shows prices rose 0.1% in July and are up 3.4% over the past year. July’s price increase reverses the disinflation seen in June, which was built on a short-lived ceasefire that quickly unraveled. Nearly six months into his war with Iran, the president has failed to swiftly end the conflict and recently said he does not “think about Americans’ financial situation” when negotiating an end to the war he started. Meanwhile, oil prices are back on the rise, gas is back above $4.00 a gallon, and Trump’s latest tariffs on 99% of imports are now in effect. As the war drags on and Trump’s tariffs work their way to store shelves, prices are poised to reaccelerate in the months ahead. This price squeeze is happening at the same time that workers are struggling to find jobs. The economy lost 23,000 jobs last month, while wages failed to keep pace with prices. Prices are up, jobs are down, and working families are bearing the brunt of it all.Groundwork’s Senior Vice President of Policy and Advocacy, Alex Jacquez, released the following statement:“Prices started climbing again in July and Trump’s catastrophic mismanagement of our economy means more spikes in the months ahead. The president said it himself: he is only ‘semi-negotiating’ an end to the war, all while slapping new tariffs on 99% of our imported goods. Trump is not serious about bringing much needed relief to working families who are weary of higher prices at the pump and on the shelves, and who are pessimistic about an economy that is bleeding jobs.” To speak to a Groundwork expert about this month’s CPI reading, email press@groundworkcollaborative.org. BACKGROUNDTrump’s war is keeping gas prices high, while families face higher electricity prices to keep cool. Energy prices are 14.7% higher than one year ago, with gasoline up 24.6%. Airfares rose 2.2% in July as jet fuel prices climbed, and are up 25.5% over the past year. Prices at the pump have climbed above $4.00 per gallon since the collapse of Trump’s ceasefire, and remain 35% above their pre-war level, turning routine trips to work, school, the grocery store, and the doctor’s office into a bigger strain on household budgets. The average household has paid an extra $634 in gas and diesel expenses because of Trump’s war. Keeping the lights and AC on this summer has cost families more. Electricity prices are 4.2% higher than one year ago. The average family will spend $792 on their summer cooling bills, up 10.5% from last year. This comes at a time when one in six households is already behind on utility bills. Paychecks are losing ground to higher prices. Wages rose just 3.2% over the past year in July – the slowest pace since 2021 – while prices rose 3.4% over the same period. Real private-sector wages fell 0.4% over the past year in the second quarter of 2026, and the savings rate has dropped to 2.7%, the lowest since 2022. Workers’ purchasing power has weakened, and the cushion they lean on during hard times is at risk of disappearing. Families continue to face higher prices at the grocery store. Trump’s war with Iran is increasing the cost of moving food across the country. Diesel prices are up 46% since the war began, raising transportation costs throughout the food supply chain, particularly for fresh and refrigerated products that depend heavily on trucking. Those higher costs are passed along to shoppers at the grocery store, where prices for fresh fruits are up 2.2%, baby food 0.7%, and milk 0.5% in July alone. Trump’s tariffs are also showing up in the grocery store. Prices for primarily imported foods such as coffee and seafood increased 10.3% and 7%, respectively, over the past year. Food prices remain a major source of financial strain for families. A new McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility report found that 90% of respondents cited groceries and food prices as a top concern. Trump’s tariffs are making everyday household goods more expensive. Prices for tariff-exposed goods continued to rise in July. Dishes and flatware are up 10.4% over the past year, cookware and tableware up 6.4%, sporting goods up 4.3%, and apparel up 3.9%. Today’s CPI report captures only one week of Trump’s newest tariffs on 99% of imports, and does not yet show much of the impact of Trump’s new pharmaceutical tariffs, which began to take effect July 31. Executives are telling investors that tariffs have led to price increases this year, and more price increases may be on the horizon. Whirlpool, a manufacturer of home appliances, told investors it had raised prices twice this year in response to tariffs. Newell Brands, the owner of famous brands like Rubbermaid, Sharpie, and CrockPot, said tariffs would add $127 million to its costs this year, and that previous price increases “don’t come anywhere close” to covering the added costs, signaling the company could raise prices again.

— Two Different America's (Sic)

 

at 8/10/26 6:26pm

Hoo boy. With the approach of what bleakly promises to be "the super-Islamophobic midterms," the Bigot-In-Chief is letting his racist freak flag fly by attacking Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, whose smarts, strength, hotness, accomplished wife and Michigan win clearly terrify him. Cue charges of "communist," "man of hate," and, probs soon, AI slop featuring suicide vests. Meanwhile, El-Sayed, a far sharper tool in the shed, has embraced the charge they represent "(two) America’s": The ads write themselves. Planet MAGA, of course, is already so delusional Trump just boasted of his "Great Poll Numbers," which now sit at rock-bottom lows of 38% to 33%. For a bunch of hacks led by a fragile narcissist who's never seen a scapegoat he didn't relish, the fantastical goes hand-in-stubby-hand with the fear-mongering: vandals in the Reflecting Pool, domestic terrorists at No Kings, migrant caravans, lunatic Bolsheviks, weird names or just brown-or-black skinned success, more terrifying to many of these losers than any threat of extremism. Enter, in peril, the high-achieving epidemiologist, health official, author and "Muslim boogeyman" El-Sayed. “Expect them to throw the whole bigoted kitchen sink at El-Sayed," says Mehdi Hasan. "This will be the anti-Zohran Mamdani campaign on anti-Muslim steroids."Unsurprisingly, it began in earnest the minute the good doctor won Michigan's against-the-odds primary against establishment Dem Haley Stevens. He'll face off against GOP Rep. and racist ijiot Mike Rogers, who of course has rushed to call the U.S.-born-and-bred El-Sayed "anti-American" and - pulling the same juvenile "Barack Hussein Obama" crap to undermine his legitimacy - to use his full, scary, def-not-in-Kansas-anymore name Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. But Abdulrahman, who doesn't suffer fools gladly, has brutally pushed back. "With a name like mine, I never thought running for office would be possible," he said at a campaign event. But if "Mike" wants to focus on his 11-letter (a lot!) first name, he just wanted to remind him, "If you don’t know how to say it, keep the name out of your damn mouth.”In moronic lockstep, MAGA's bigots, brown shirts and zealots have followed suit with "cartoonishly Islamophobic attacks." They use his full name and say he's a "socialist," which they can't define but anyway he isn't. Anti-trans goon Nancy Mace charges, “Every single Muslim holding public office (is) a Trojan Horse and a threat to national security and our republic," and woe is us when "our granddaughters are wearing burkas to school." Vapid scumbag JD calls him a "crazy" guy who doesn't want Trump's rip-off, oligarch-run "prosperous economy" and flings "personal insults" at Vance's family, though hours later Trump attacked El-Sayed's wife, who is U.S.-born and thus not an alleged Einstein Visa immigrant third wife who somehow after 30 years here can still barely speak English. Maybe it was an Epstein Visa?As usual, Trump has eagerly led the racist, vulgar charge. Along with a communist man of hate, he's also called El-Sayed a "jihadist" from a rigged, "strictly Third World" state who's "full of shit." It turns out El-Sayed is also "the absolute best at casually burning Trump to the fucking ground": Asked about the barb, El-Sayed snapped back, “At least I don’t let mine go in the middle of the Oval Office." And as with another smart, quick, non-white guy who's way above his pay grade and lives rent-free in his wee puerile mind, he likes to sneeringly recite, often stumbling, the full, scary name of a guy who this time actually would be the first Muslim U.S. senator. Presumably, the ketchup really hit the White House walls last weekend when El-Sayed said he'd had "a really good conversation" with Obama about "what we need to do to win."Above all, the bigot for all seasons pivots to the trope of anyone Arabic - El-Sayed's parents immigrated from Egypt - being anti-Semitic. "He doesn't love Jewish people," babbles Trump. "He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart." In fact, El-Sayed has plainly, repeatedly said he opposes not Jews but Israel's genocidal policies, AIPAC and the dark U.S. money that abets both: "I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for all people." That call for equality under the law has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, notes Peter Beinart; cognizant of history. he also warns that a political party or ideology willing to be "nakedly bigoted" toward any group of people, in this case Muslims, in order to maintain power would, if the politics were to shift, "do the same thing to Jews in a heartbeat."Obviously, such subtlety is beyond the dim-witted likes of Trump and his MAGA zombies, who alone could look at Dr. El-Sayed and his (one) wife Dr. Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist whose parents emigrated here from India, and see a threat. Both are U.S.-born-and- raised doctors with undergrad degrees from University of Michigan, where they met, and advanced degrees from Columbia and Oxford. In his book Healing Politics, El-Sayed offers a rigorous framework for understanding systemic medical and political failure, and building conditions for lasting healing. He also calls Jukaku his “rock" and praises the "quiet confidence" that led her to work with people confronting pain. "I struggled to learn who I was,” he wrote of their earlier selves. “Sarah did not. She danced with her emotions. I wrestled with mine." The couple has two daughters.No wonder, then, a needy, hollow rapist, con-man, bully and aspiring tinpot dictator, routinely raking in billions while kids go hungry and stuffed into a cheap tux for his fellow billionaire felons, posted a photo of himself with his tacky, mail-order, call-girl wife in a tight dress with "redacted Epstein files written all over it" - both smirking, "We're richer and be better than you and just ignore our vile name appearing in those pedo files thousands of times" - alongside the other couple, warmly smiling after a pancake breakfast in a diner, El Sayed in a t-shirt, Jukaku in a hijab so she must be a terrorist (though Trump, suspect, is wearing a cat.) The caption for the side-by-side pics, which only the spectacularly tone-deaf Trump could remotely imagine as a mic-drop: "Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s (sic).” Umm. Sure.Kudos to El-Sayed, prince among men, who didn't even stoop to pick the low-hanging fruit of Trump's "grammatical shitbaggery" - one comment: "What a maroon" - emblematic of a proudly semi-literate GOP somehow come to power in our debased America without understanding how apostrophes work. Instead, El-Sayed went for the meat of the matter. "Yeah, he's right," he told CNN. Swiftly, he embraced the campaign-ready concept of two Americas: "Trump's vision, the one you're living in right now (in) which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you...Or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, and want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that family is going to have the good things."Those "good things" - health care, good jobs, clean air and water, a relatively level playing field to replace gross inequality, a country where people can live peaceably together "with their sisters and brothers" - are what he and his wife want for their kids, and he wisely gauges most of the rest of us do too. And no, he says, rebutting GOP charges, it's not "radical" to believe people should be able to afford groceries, have health care, partake in free elections. Also, he and his wife actually "like each other," he adds; as to the couple in the "very different" America, "From what I've heard, it's a bit of a rocky road." As mid-terms loom. “They are going to try to paint me as a certain thing, (but) America is a lot bigger than (these) very small people make it out to be," he says. "They all think we won't step up and fight...We fight for each other." @abdulelsayed They all think we won't step up and fight... They think they're the biggest, baddest bully on the playground... That they're going to show up and we're going to run away...

— PEER and Allies Push Back on FCC’s Approval of Reflect Orbital’s Plan to Light Up the Night

 

at 8/10/26 11:21am

PEER, DarkSky International, the American Bird Conservancy, and Environment America — represented by Earthjustice — filed a formal Application for Review asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reverse its Space Bureau’s approval of Reflect Orbital Inc.’s Earendil-1 satellite.Earendil-1 is a commercial satellite that will reflect sunlight back to Earth at night.The Space Bureau granted Reflect Orbital’s application on July 9, 2026, finding it served the public interest and fell outside the environmental review requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — the federal law requiring agencies to study the environmental effects of major actions on the United States before granting approval. Selling Sunlight After Dark Reflect Orbital’s business model is to sell sunlight at night for uses such as replacing streetlights, extending outdoor work hours, and powering solar arrays. To do this, Earendil-1 will unfold a mirror roughly a tenth of an acre wide at 600–650 km altitude and steer reflected sunlight to chosen spots on the ground. A single Earendil-1 satellite is expected to project a beam roughly 5 km (over 3 miles) wide as it sweeps the ground, with scattered light extending further still.Although Reflect Orbital’s FCC application covers only this one satellite, the company has called this a “crucial testbed” for a much larger operation, with publicly stated plans to scale up to 50,000 satellites by 2035. Why This is a Problem In March, PEER and other groups filed comments with the FCC opposing Reflect Orbital’s original application for approval. In last week’s Application for Review, the groups say the Bureau didn’t adequately address a number of issues, including: Eye damage — a DarkSky technical report found the reflected light could be intense enough to injure eyes faster than a person could blink or look away.Astronomy disruption — the American Astronomical Society warned that even one pass could saturate telescope detectors and cost extended observing time; roughly 80% of astronomers surveyed in 2025 expected satellite constellations like this one to affect their work.Aviation and road safety — the Air Line Pilots Association, representing over 80,000 pilots, said Reflect Orbital’s own safety analysis was inadequate to address glare risk to aircraft.Wildlife harm — roughly a third of vertebrates and most invertebrates are light-sensitive at night; the scientific record links artificial light to disrupted migration and breeding, threatening species already protected under the Endangered Species Act.Human health — nighttime light suppresses melatonin and disrupts circadian rhythms, with peer-reviewed research tying this to elevated risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers. An Environmental Review is Necessary Our main request is for the FCC to reverse the Space Bureau’s order and require a full, lawful environmental review — an Environmental Assessment or Impact Statement — before Earendil-1 is authorized to operate at all.At a minimum, we argue, the FCC needs to place 16 binding conditions as part of its approval, including: an independent scattered-light and sky-brightness analysis; exclusions over national parks, wildlife refuges, and other protected or ecologically sensitive lands; blackout periods during peak bird migration and after midnight; a requirement to get sign-off from affected state, local, and Tribal governments; independent, third-party verifications of the actual beam; and the requirement of a full environmental review before any commercial scale constellation could move forward. Part of a Bigger Fight Over What’s Allowed in Low Orbit This filing Application for Review is one piece of a broader push by DarkSky, PEER, and allied groups to get federal regulators to properly review the wave of low-Earth orbit projects before the FCC — including proposals for orbiting data centers.As companies make plans to launch more than a million data centers into space, the FCC must conduct a thorough review of the risks and impacts of these projects to ensure they are not causing irreparable environmental harm to the United States, and if they are, place conditions on these projects to minimize these harms.With the space rush on, we must not fall blindly into accepting everything the industry and government tells us. Rather, we must continue to act to make sure federal agencies consider all the risks and impacts of these satellite proposals as part of the approval process.The Application for Review and mitigations annex are now part of the FCC’s public record (ICFS File No. SAT-LOA-20250701-00129). There’s no set timeline for a ruling from the full Commission.

As of 8/26/26 10:34am. Last new 8/26/26 9:56am.