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Common Dreams
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[l] at 8/7/26 11:26am
Today, Senator Bill Cassidy, announced that he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:“This is an appalling outcome for the rule of law. Todd Blanche is Donald Trump’s lawyer. He is committed to lawfare and Donald Trump’s political vendettas, not rule of law defense and the American people. He should not become our permanent attorney general. We are disgusted by those who are allowing his confirmation to continue.”
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[l] at 8/6/26 1:07pm
Today Republicans failed to move their disastrous Farm Bill, the Agricultural Act of 2026, out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. A fierce movement of advocates built enough pressure to keep poison pills, like the Save Our Bacon Act, out of the Committee’s debate on the bill.Instead of serving everyday people, this Farm Bill was designed to funnel more taxpayer dollars to corporate factory farm expansion, maintain devastating nutrition assistance cuts, and weaken fundamental conservation investments. The bill: Fails to address the devastating impacts of the H.R. 1 cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), leaving millions of people vulnerable to food insecurity and hunger. Expands support for dirty factory farm gas projects and factory farm infrastructure through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) despite documented project failures and loan defaults.Guts the budget authority for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program and cuts $500 million from the Conservation Stewardship program, two of the nation’s most oversubscribed conservation programs, stripping critical funding without ensuring sustainable farmers will have access to replacement conservation support. Ignores the devastating impact of the Monsanto Co. v. Durnell Supreme Court decision, which effectively handed pesticide corporations a liability shield and closed the courthouse doors for tens of thousands of sick and suffering Americans. In a shocking moment of bipartisanship, seventeen members of the Senate Agriculture Committee voted to include an amendment authorizing Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling for beef. In response, Food & Water Watch’s Food Policy Director Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:“A Farm Bill that fails to protect farmers from corporate consolidation, invest in real climate solutions and ensure healthy, affordable food for all is not a solution – it’s just more of the same. Senate Democrats were smart to reject this deeply flawed Republican bill. They must continue to do so in September.“After years of skyrocketing food prices, family farm decimation and worsening climate impacts, Congress should use this opportunity to create a new Farm Bill that builds a resilient food system – not double-down on the same corporate model that created these problems in the first place. We need a fair Farm Bill, not one that continues to prioritize agribusiness profits over farmers, workers, consumers and the planet.”
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[l] at 8/6/26 12:51pm
A child hunger crisis is unfolding in plain sight: it’s very likely that more than 1.5 million children nationwide have lost food assistance in the wake of unprecedented SNAP cuts in last year’s Republican reconciliation law. While the farm bill considered by the Senate Agriculture Committee today would take a step in the right direction in addressing some of the fallout from the SNAP cuts enacted last year, it doesn’t do enough for people losing the help they need to afford groceries, and it makes even deeper future cuts to SNAP. Protecting families in the short term shouldn’t take food off families’ plates in the future. Congress must improve this proposal and pass bipartisan legislation this year that addresses the current crisis without making deeper SNAP cuts down the road.The stakes are high: more than 4.5 million people across the country have already lost food assistance since the reconciliation law’s cuts were enacted last July. That’s the steepest decline in SNAP participation in nearly three decades. The SNAP cuts are already causing children far more harm than most expected, despite Republican claims during last year’s debate that they would be protected. Across the U.S., these cuts are taking away food assistance from eligible families. And without SNAP, these families are skipping meals and choosing between buying groceries and paying for other essentials like rent.A main culprit of this crisis is the provision — set to take effect in about a year in all but a handful of states — that requires most states to pay between 5 and 15 percent of SNAP costs for the first time in the program’s history, shifting billions of dollars of costs onto states. The too-hasty implementation and dramatic financial implications are leading states to create access barriers to basic food assistance in an effort to lower their error rate. Notably, wrongly turning away an eligible household does not count as an error, while providing somewhat more or less in benefits to a family eligible for SNAP does.Without a delay to this cost shift, states will have to make hard budgeting decisions in their upcoming legislative sessions, which start in January. States that are unable or unwilling to pay their share of SNAP costs will have to drop out of the program entirely, ending SNAP for children, seniors, parents, workers, veterans, and people with disabilities alike.States on a bipartisan basis have said they need more time to bring down their error rates — and some have acknowledged that ending SNAP in their state is a potential option.States on a bipartisan basis have said they need more time to bring down their error rates — and some have acknowledged that ending SNAP in their state is a potential option.The impact of this massive cost shift has already caused millions of people to lose the food assistance they need to feed their families. Even more people will lose SNAP once states must begin paying billions of dollars in benefit costs for the first time. Without federal action, SNAP may soon no longer exist as a nationwide program available to people in all 50 states.The farm bill proposed by Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Boozman includes a one-year delay in the cost shift, to October 1, 2028. While the original proposal failed to give states more time to lower their costs by reducing errors, the committee adopted an amendment to give states an additional year to see error rate reductions resulting from their intensive work to lower their error rates and reduce their costs, an additional step in the right direction.The amendment also provides additional funding for emergency food providers, a positive development and a recognition that the Republican reconciliation law is driving up emergency food needs. But more funding for emergency food is not a substitute for ensuring that SNAP is available and accessible for the families who need it.Here’s how the proposal falls short of what people across the U.S. need to afford groceries, despite its improvements.First, it would cut SNAP deeper in future years to pay for the one-year cost shift delay, even as Republicans press for billions of dollars in additional farm relief without offsetting savings. It actually raises the amount some states will have to pay in SNAP benefits in the future, increasing the risk that some states will opt out of participating in SNAP. Addressing this unfolding crisis shouldn’t lead to even deeper food assistance cuts in the future.Second, it provides only a one-year delay in a provision where too-hasty implementation is causing millions of children to lose food assistance. A longer pause that gives states more time to lower their error rates and prepare for the new costs would let states reassess their steps to lower error rates and undo unwarranted access barriers that are taking food assistance away from eligible people who need it. Congress already gave some states a two-year delay in paying the cost shift — those with the highest error rates — and the Boozman farm bill preserves that preferential treatment. All states need more than just one additional year to responsibly reduce their errors and budget for these new costs.Third, the proposal fails to delay the imminent 50 percent cut to federal funding for SNAP administrative costs, which takes effect in less than two months on October 1. Some states have already failed to backfill for this federal funding cut, which will force them to try to improve their SNAP programs’ accuracy with fewer resources. That will raise the risk of more staffing shortages, backlogs, and people waiting months without benefits. Delaying this cut to administrative funding is critical to restoring food assistance for eligible families who are losing food assistance solely because they can’t get through on overloaded phone lines, and because understaffed states can’t keep up with additional red tape. It’s also important for accomplishing what policymakers say they want: improved program administration and fewer payment errors.When Congress returns this fall, policymakers must work on a bipartisan basis to advance legislation that addresses the unfolding crisis without making deeper cuts to food assistance in later years. Recognizing the current hunger crisis and the need to delay the cost shift for all states is an important first step, but Congress can do better. Children and families deserve more.
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[l] at 8/6/26 11:39am
Today, Dēmos is releasing its 2026 Policy Agenda, Power Policies: How to Get and Keep People Power in the United States, which centers on nine reforms addressing the intertwined crises of economic inequality and democratic erosion. The agenda not only offers a governing roadmap for advocates looking to radically improve people’s material conditions, but also establishes a clear vision for what comes after power shifts. At a moment where wealth and political power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, policies that tackle both the immediate and the structural, long-term causes of this are imperative to reshape Americans’ lives and sustain progress. Dēmos has worked at the intersection of economic justice and democracy reform for more than 25 years, and that knowledge – and ties to frontline organizations across the country – uniquely positioned the organization’s policy experts to create a package of long-term solutions. "For too long, public debate has centered on short term wins, but the more important question is what happens after power shifts," said Taifa Smith Butler, President of Dēmos. “History shows that periods of political upheaval can also create opportunities for transformative change. Previous generations have used these moments to advance civil rights, expand democracy, and build economic security. This agenda is our contribution to building a bold vision for the future that endures.”The nine policies outlined in the agenda look at change from two different lenses. First, a recommendation of three populist policies, aimed to swiftly and resolutely improve material conditions in the here and now. Then, the agenda lays out six structural solutions to change the systems that govern political and economic power so that everyday people, especially Black and brown people, have more power, and can keep it. The policies, when moved on collectively, offer a new blueprint for navigating this current landscape and delivers public institutions that are more accountable, a democracy that is more representative, and an economy that delivers mobility and security for all. “We wanted to be bold in our thinking to address the struggles of everyday people, and craft solutions as large as the problems we aim to address. These policies have the potential to change the material conditions of the multiracial working class, putting money in their pockets and time at their disposal,” said Alix Gould-Werth, Chief of Programs and Strategy at Dēmos. “When circumstances shift in this manner, when we disrupt the avenues by which corporations and the ultra-wealthy have a stranglehold on our resources, the economic and political power of Black and brown communities will grow."As debates over the country's future continue, Dēmos hopes this agenda will serve as a resource for leaders committed to advancing bold, people-centered policies that build a multiracial democracy that not only survives today's challenges but endures for generations to come.The full report is available here.
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[l] at 8/6/26 9:51am
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines to eliminate the 39 percent national television-ownership cap, a statute that the agency lacks the legal authority to repeal. Free Press and allies plan to appeal this unlawful decision in court.Congress enshrined the national ownership cap in federal law; it prohibits a single company from owning TV stations that reach more than 39 percent of the national broadcast audience. The FCC does not have the power to get rid of this limit, but Chairman Brendan Carr decided to move ahead. His motivation is to remove a significant legal hurdle to further broadcast consolidation — specifically involving media conglomerates that are friendly to President Donald Trump and his far-right agenda.In March, the FCC unlawfully granted a waiver of this same rule for broadcast giant Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna, allowing it to far exceed the national limit on station ownership. That merger would give Nexstar access to 80 percent of U.S. households over the nation’s broadcast airwaves. Although the companies rushed to close the transaction on the basis of the FCC’s unauthorized waiver, federal courts in California halted the transaction in light of the antitrust lawsuits both from state attorneys general and private parties.Free Press has argued, alongside allies in press-freedom, labor, civil-liberties and consumer groups, that eliminating the cap would reduce competition, diminish viewpoint diversity, weaken local news and benefit only the nation’s largest station owners.Free Press Vice President of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood said:“After his legally dubious maneuvers to waive the national cap for Nexstar’s takeover of Tegna, Carr is doubling down, seeking to overturn a vital media-ownership limit he has no actual authority to eliminate. His goal is to spur more media consolidation involving companies Donald Trump views as ideological allies and corporate cronies.“Changing this limit requires congressional action, but Carr doesn’t care. He’ll do whatever it takes to clear the way for Trump-aligned billionaires to swallow up stations wherever and whenever they please. The result would be just one or two dominant broadcasters in every market, deep job cuts for journalists, and an influx of bargain-basement content disguised as local news. This spells disaster for the local communities that broadcasters are supposed to serve.“Free Press and allies sued the Carr FCC for the unlawful procedural tricks it used to waive this ownership limit in the Nexstar-Tegna merger, and we intend to take the agency to court over today’s unlawful power grab too.”
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[l] at 8/6/26 9:50am
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), today reintroduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act — legislation that would guarantee at least two weeks of paid vacation to every full-time worker in America.Joining Sanders as cosponsors are Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) introduced companion legislation along with 86 members of the House of Representatives.“It is beyond unacceptable that in the year 2026, the United States remains the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid vacation time to workers. This legislation would put an end to that international embarrassment,” Sanders said. “We hear a lot of talk about family values in America, but let’s be clear: When a husband, wife, and kids, during the course of an entire year, are unable to spend any time together on vacation, that is not a family value. That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for. It’s not a radical idea to require companies in America to provide at least two weeks of paid vacation to their workers. What’s radical is that millions of Americans are not only working longer hours for lower wages, but that they do not receive a single paid vacation day. That should not be happening in the United States of America, the richest country in the history of the world.”“Every worker in America deserves the chance to rest, recharge, and spend time with the people they love without worrying about missing a paycheck,” Magaziner said. “I’m grateful to Senator Sanders for leading this fight in the Senate. It is time that we deliver this basic fairness to hardworking Americans.”While millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, the U.S. remains the only major economy in the world to not guarantee some type of paid vacation time to its people. Today in Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Australia and many countries in Europe, workers are guaranteed at least 10 days of paid vacation. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden and France, paid vacation benefits are even stronger.Meanwhile, nearly one in four workers in America — or more than 33 million workers nationwide — receive no paid vacation time at all. At the same time, almost 40% of workers report being on the job at least 45 hours a week and the average full-time worker in the U.S. now reports working 43 hours a week. Moreover, more than nine million Americans work multiple jobs, with more than five million working a second part-time job on top of a full-time job.If passed, the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act would ensure that: Every worker in America has the right to accrue at least one hour of paid annual leave for every 25 hours worked.Full-time workers will earn at least two weeks of paid annual leave per year, to be used for any reason, at their standard rate of pay.Workers are protected against discrimination for exercising their right to take annual paid leave. A recent poll found 79% of Americans support the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act. The American people’s support for the legal right to paid time off is nearly universal. According to a recent poll conducted by the RAND Corporation, 90% of Americans support legislation that would require employers to offer earned time off.The Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act is endorsed by United Auto Workers (UAW), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM Union), National Education Association (NEA), National Nurses United (NNU), Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR)-SEIU, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation (SMART) Union, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), United Steelworkers (USW), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), A Better Balance, National Partnership for Women & Families, United for Respect, Equal Rights Advocates, Family Values @ Work, MomsRising, National Employment Law Project (NELP), Paid Leave for All, Workplace Fairness, The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and Indivisible.Read the text here.Read a fact sheet here.
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[l] at 8/5/26 10:21pm
Wowza, rare glimmer of good news. We take a moment to honor the stunning Michigan victory of Abdul El-Sayed, who was outspent 12-1 by his opponent's millions from establishment Dems, Zionist PACS and corporations and still managed to win even though he is a progressive Muslim who calls genocide genocide and wants Medicare for all in a Trump state that isn't communist New York. Ha. What millions in dark money buys you these days: "Sweet fuck all, as it turns out."El-Sayed's inspiring win came against a candidate, Haley Stevens, who was bankrolled by over $60 million from party leaders and outside money from a murky nesting doll of super-PACS and shell corporations but whose campaign still had the audacity to bill her as “the grassroots choice of Michigan working families.” Total spending on the race in a key swing state was about $80 million, most from fat cats, making it "the fattest cat in the history of primaries." El-Sayed reportedly got about $4.6 million in outside money; Stevens and Netanyahu got about $60 million, the plurality of it from AIPAC's United Democracy Project (sic) super PAC - the most they've dumped into a single race, making it what observers call AIPAC's biggest defeat. From I Fucking Love Australia: AIPAC shoved 30 million dollars up Michigan's arse, and Michigan shat it straight back out."Born in Detroit in 1984, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed was raised by his father Mohamed, an Egyptian immigrant, and his stepmother Jackie, whose Michigan roots go back to the 1800s. After graduating from the University of Michigan Phi Beta Kappa, he earned an MD from Columbia and a doctorate in public health from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, worked as an epidemiologist and became the youngest health official in a major American city when he was appointed Director of Detroit's Health Department, gutted rwhen it was privatized during the city’s bankruptcy, at age 30. Rebuilding it, he went after corporate polluters, stripped lead out of schools, starting offering free glasses to kids in need, expanded Narcan access, and spearheaded a program cancelling up to $700 million in medical debt for 300,000 state residents.Faced with that resume, AIPAC spent their millions on an ad blitz that managed not to mention any of his policies, or even Israel, though he won the first-ever political endorsement from Jewish Voice For Peace. Instead, they focused on the issues that really matter: They attacked El-Sayed for criticizing the Obamas, allegedly helping Trump win, and sitting for an interview with a streamer they don’t like, Hasan Piker. If he wins the general election against the GOP's carpetbagging empty suit Mike Rogers, he'd become the first Muslim in the Senate. His longtime message to Dems: Stop compromising, ban ICE, end sending arms to Israel, Medicare for All, no more forever wars, get dark money out of politics. On election night, at a podium reading, "MIchigan Is Not For Sale," he celebrated "the movement we were able to inspire," and "the idea that we could take our government back."El-Sayed's victory, while slimmer than predicted, was seen as pivotal; noted Bernie Sanders, "This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class.” And the candidate the establishment called "unelectable" won with the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, "the beating heart of Michigan labor." His win was the biggest but not the only news out of Michigan: Sunrise Movement co-founder and data center opponent William Lawrence also took the primary for Michigan’s 7th Congressional district. They join progressive wins elsewhere: Zohran Mamdani in New York. Katie Wilson in Seattle. Three Mamdani-backed candidates in New York primaries, two against longtime incumbents. Melat Kiros in Colorado. Troy Jackson in Maine. It's still a long tough road ahead. But take heart from spineless ghoul Mike Johnson: “The insurgent left is on the rise."
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[l] at 8/4/26 10:46am
Today, in a partisan split, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General on Tuesday, setting the stage for a floor vote to confirm him to the post.In response, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement:“There is a single barrier left to the confirmation of Trump crony Todd Blanche: the Senate floor.“Senators must urgently do the right thing and block Blanche. The consequences of inaction here are crystal clear. If we make Todd Blanche America’s lawyer at the head of the Justice Department, we are accepting a man who has been tasked with implementing Donald Trump’s revenge agenda.“A man placed by Trump in this role only because the previous head of the DOJ wasn’t implementing his corrupt personal prosecutions fast enough.“A man who rubberstamped the corrupt IRS deal that Trump made with himself to shield all the Trumps and their businesses, not only from enforcement of any taxes they may have dodged or any fines or payments they may owe to American taxpayers, but from ‘any and all’ related consequences for violating any federal criminal or civil law.“A man who led the Epstein cover-up. Who was dismissive and negligent toward trafficking victims despite the nation’s intense outrage at Epstein’s crimes and in the face of these women’s ongoing advocacy to make clear how his horrific actions have impacted their lives. “And it doesn’t stop there., A vote for Blanche is also literally a blank check to give money to January 6th insurrectionists or other cronies, whether through a revived slush fund or directly from the Judgement Fund. We have seen him act in this manner as recently as last week, when he facilitated a 7-figure settlement for a pardoned abortion clinic protester.“We know exactly what type of Attorney General Mr. Blanche will be: Corrupt, toadying, and focused on one goal: defense of Donald J. Trump. It is a matter of morality, Senators of both parties must stand in his way and block his confirmation on the floor.”
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[l] at 8/4/26 10:11am
Today, Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary voted to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination to be U.S. Attorney General to the full Senate.Stand Up America’s Managing Director of Policy & Political Affairs, Brett Edkins, issued the following statement on Blanche’s confirmation:“Every Senate Judiciary Republican just endorsed Todd Blanche’s extreme agenda for the Department of Justice: politically motivated prosecutions of the president’s perceived enemies, defending and giving taxpayer-funded settlements to January 6th insurrectionists, burying the Epstein files, and shielding Trump and his family from the IRS.“Now it’s up to the full Senate. Are there still Republicans willing to stand up to the president—willing to say they’re against weaponizing the Justice Department, against shielding Trump and his family from accountability, and against protecting predators in the Epstein files? The Senate doesn’t need unanimous courage to block Blanche—it needs a few Republicans willing to put country over party.”
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[l] at 8/3/26 11:51am
More than 35 groups today called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to withdraw its proposal to rescind its 2024 climate disclosure rule. The 2024 rule, which is currently stayed in litigation, requires large public companies to disclose climate-related financial risk information to investors, including Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Led by Chair Paul Atkins, the SEC’s proposal ignores the reality of climate change as a growing source of financial risk for public companies and investors, as well as overwhelming investor demand for this more comparable, reliable climate disclosure. If finalized, the proposal would undermine transparency in capital markets to protect companies with high climate-related financial risks, the groups maintain.“The proposal reflects the desire of Paul Atkins’s SEC to ignore growing financial risks from climate change and to deprive investors of essential information,” said Elyse Schupak, climate policy advocate for Public Citizen. “For polluting industries that seek to downplay their role driving the climate crisis and their exposure to related risks, finalizing the proposed rule would be a victory. The SEC should withdraw this proposal as it contradicts the Commission’s responsibility to facilitate transparency for investors and promote well functioning capital markets.” “The 2024 climate disclosure rule set the SEC record for most comments ever collected on a regulation, and investors showed up nearly unanimously in support,” said Alex Martin, climate finance policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. “This move is another in a long string of recent SEC actions to empower corporations over investors, and reflects this administration’s far-reaching attempts to deny the reality of climate change. If finalized, this proposal will hurt workers saving for retirement by depriving people of information needed to assess companies’ financial risks due to climate change — and by endangering other critical disclosures as well.”
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[l] at 8/3/26 9:42am
As communities across the world endure record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires and rising living costs, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies have confirmed another blockbuster quarter of profits. The Make Polluters Pay coalition says the timing exposes the true cost of delaying the end of the fossil fuel era, and is calling on governments meeting in New York this month to seize a historic opportunity to make the polluters pay.This summer’s extreme weather has spared no continent. Wildfires are tearing through Spain and France, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. In the United States, a series of heat domes pushed temperatures past 100°F (38°C), and smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires produced some of the world’s worst urban air quality across North America. India endured pre-monsoon temperatures above 48°C earlier this year, while torrential rain left hundreds dead in several countries in Africa since March.Scientists estimate that emissions from just five fossil fuel corporations – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – were sufficient to cause around one in four of the heatwaves recorded globally between 2000 and 2023. Those same five companies are now announcing another blockbuster quarter of fossil fuel profits. TotalEnergies has reported adjusted net income of $5.4 billion for the second quarter of 2026, Shell profit hit $9.84bn in the three months to June, more than double compared with the same period last year. Exxon clocked $14.5 billion in profits this quarter; Chevron, $12.1 billion. BP is expected to announce comparable astronomical profits on the 4th of August. That’s over USD $40 billion in profits by just 4 large oil companies, which is more than the entire GDP of over 100 countries, reaped in rewards while the rest of the world is left dealing with climate and energy chaos. The price spikes are driven in large part by volatility in oil prices during the war in Iran.The results land as governments prepare to resume negotiations on a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation in New York this month. A mandatory surtax on highly polluting industries is gaining support as part of that process, alongside measures to prevent jurisdiction-shopping and anchor taxing rights in real economic activity. Analysis by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice and partners estimates that aton the profits of the world’s 100 largest oil and gas companies could have generated more than US$1 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. The Make Polluters Pay coalition says governments meeting in New York should seize the moment to get behind it.To mark the moment, campaigners inflated a giant barrel of oil outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, calling on the UK government to back a permanent stronger taxex on fossil fuel profits and support a strong outcome at the UN tax talks.David Hillman, Stamp out Poverty, said“Big Oil has spent fifty years profiting from pollution while the rest of us pay the price in heatwaves, in wildfires, in energy bills we can barely afford. That’s why we’re bringing a giant oil barrel to the doorstep of Parliament: to make sure politicians can’t look away. Governments have a real chance this month, at the UN tax talks in New York, to finally make the polluters pay. They should take it.”Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, said:“From Bordeaux to Phoenix to Mumbai, families are living through the cost of climate delay, while the companies most responsible bank blockbuster bonanzas. That is not a coincidence; it is a business model. Governments meeting in New York this month have a genuine opportunity to change it. Calls are growing across the political spectrum for a proper global profits tax, so the industry that helped cause these disasters pays towards the recovery, the solutions and the protection people need. It’s simple fairness: those who caused the damage and profited from it should pay to fix it.”Tyrone Scott, Head of Campaigns, War on Want “While people struggle with soaring bills and communities across the world lose homes, livelihoods and lives to climate disasters, fossil fuel corporations are banking another quarter of enormous profits. This is wealth extracted from people and the planet. The UK Government must stop protecting polluters and start making them pay through permanent taxes on fossil fuel profits, a wealth tax on the super-rich and by backing a strong UN Tax Convention that ends corporate tax avoidance. Those who have profited most from the climate crisis must fund the transition and the repair.”The Make Polluters Pay coalition is calling on governments worldwide to introduce permanent, higher taxes on oil and gas profits, to fund emergency response, recovery and long-term resilience for communities on the frontline of the crisis, and to back a strong, binding outcome at this month’s UN tax convention talks.
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[l] at 8/3/26 9:26am
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General on Tuesday, after Blanche’s Department of Justice (DOJ) reached an agreement with Republican Senator John Cornyn with a stated goal of rescinding the corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund intended to pay Trump’s cronies and January 6th rioters and limiting his new tax immunity.In response to the news, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement:“The late-night deal reached between the DOJ and the Republican Senators who had been objecting to the Blanche nomination is clearly a face-saving exercise to try to get the Senators to ‘yes’ on that nomination, not real limitations on pro-Trump cronyism. President Trump gets to keep tax immunity for himself, his sons and the Trump Organization, potentially saving the President millions in taxes owed to the American people. “And on the slush fund itself, Trump has not waived his rights under the scheme that called on Blanche to establish the fund, and nothing prevents Blanche from simply reestablishing it if the Senate confirms him.“In addition, nothing in what Blanche sent out prevents the DOJ from settling lawsuits brought by the January 6th rioters and other Trump cronies, and paying them out of the general fund. We saw a staggering seven-figure deal in that vein just last week. “And if the inadequate deal on the slush fund and Trump tax immunity wasn’t enough to stop this unfit nominee, his horrifying lack of empathy and ineptitude when it comes to the Epstein files and the way he has engaged with the victims should disqualify him instantly. “Whatever happens at the committee vote on Tuesday, there is still time to keep Trump’s fixer from becoming AG, to keep the DOJ from becoming solely a Trump revenge agency, and Senators must do the right thing and block Blanche before it is too late.”
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[l] at 8/1/26 8:36pm
More than 50 years after the murder of Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, the last man convicted of killing him has been tracked down and brought to justice. In 1973, a day after Pinochet's coup, Jara was seized, tortured, his hands broken to silence what was deemed music "more powerful than a thousand machine guns." Today, in a world tilting right, he remains an icon of resistance. Manifiesto: “A song has meaning/ When it beats in the veins/ Of a man who will die singing.”On Sept. 11, 1973, troops under brutal, U.S.- backed General Augusto Pinochet bombed and stormed the presidential palace in Santiago to depose Salvador Allende, a Chilean physician who'd become the first democratically elected Marxist head of state in Latin America. Barricaded inside the palace, Allende gave a final speech defending Chilean democracy. "My words do not have bitterness but disappointment.," he said. "May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath." He thanked the country's workers, farmers, miners, women, intellectuals, students for their heartfelt loyalty to "a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice." "I will always be next to you," he said. "My sacrifice will not be in vain. History is ours." Then he shot himself under the chin with an assault rifle.A Marxist activist and singer hugely popular with Allende supporters, Jara had re-written the 1969 song Venceremos - composed by Sergio Ortega with original text by Claudio Iturra - as an anthem for Allende’s 1970 Popular Unity election campaign. Born to a poor farm family, Jara was mestizo, a mix of Indigenous Mapuche and Spanish heritage. He once said his first memory was hearing his mother sing folk songs as she worked in their garden or kitchen; after she died when he was 15, Jara went to seminary school but eventually decided against the priesthood. After military service, he studied theater and music at university, then turned to writing songs that merged tender folk music with political themes - rural working-class stories, brutal evictions of squatters: "We began to create a new kind of song. It was music that was born out of necessity." In September 1973, widely recognizable, he was seized by soldiers the day after the coup and taken to Estadio Chile, a Santiago stadium now named for him, where about 5,000 people were being held. For four days, he was beaten, tortured, humiliated. An officer threw a cigarette on the ground and made him crawl for it; others played Russian Roulette with him; eventually, they broke both his hands before parading him through the stadium; later, through split lips, he sang a final Venceremos - "We Will Prevail." On his last day, said a fellow detainee, he found a pen and notebook and scribbled one more song, or harsh poem, Estadio Chile, later smuggled out. Two hours later, he was killed, his body dumped near a cemetery. His body had 44 bullet wounds 56 broken bones, including a shattered skull. He was 40 years old.The Pinochet dictatorship went on to kill or disappear over 3,000 people, and detain and torture up to 40,000 during its brutal 17-year reign. It ended in 1990 through a constitutional process wherein voters rejected extending its rule and elected a civilian president. After years of legal efforts to hold Pinochet accountable, in 1998 a Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for his human rights abuses; he was detained in the U.K during a medical visit after the House of Lords ruled he did not have immunity, but Britain ultimately released him back to Chile in 2000 for health reasons. There, Chilean judges pushed their Supreme Court to strip him of immunity to face trial for murders and kidnappings tied to military death squads, but he died under house arrest of a heart attack in 2006, age 91, having never been formally tried or convicted for his crimes. Victor Jara, one of the regime's most beloved and recognizable victims, swiftly became an enduring international symbol of resistance after the deadly, public silencing of his music. In 2003, Estadio Chile was renamed Estadio Víctor Jara; in 2009, Victor’s body was reburied in a public funeral attended by thousands of mourners; today, an annual 1,000 Guitars event held in his honor at that stadium also draws thousands. Still, the moral arc of the universe moved slowly. Over time, Chilean courts convicted hundreds of military officers and secret police for human rights abuses, but it was not until 2018 that eight retired officers were charged with Jara's murder, and that of Allende's director of prisons Littré Quiroga Carvajal. In August 2023, after five years of appeals and 50 years of evading justice, Chile's Supreme Court convicted them all in a unanimous decision.The Court sentenced the eight, several in absentia, to 15 years and a day for the murders of both men, and 10 years and a day for their kidnappings, for a total of 25 years. A ninth was given eight years for concealing the crimes. The Court also dismissed all their appeals for annulment, and ordered the state to pay large reparations to the families of both men. Of those sentenced, 86-year-old Gen. Hernán Chacón killed himself moments after police arrived to arrest him at his home in a wealthy district of Santiago. Another, Pedro Barrientos, had fled Chile for the US in 1989; he was extradited back in 2023 after he was arrested in the US during a traffic stop. During his trial, one former soldier testified Barrientos liked to brandish his pistol in a crowd and declare, “I killed Víctor Jara with this!"Five others have been in jail since then. Only one, Nelson Haase Mazzei, had remained missing since he failed to appear in court in 2018. A retired colonel, Haase Mazzei joined the Chilean army’s notorious Tejas Verde brigade in 1972 and was part of Pinochet’s brutal secret police; he worked closely with its head, Manuel Contreras, sentenced to over 500 years in jail for crimes against humanity before his 2015 death. Last weekend, in likely the final act of a too-long quest for justice, Chilean police announced they'd arrested Haase Mazzei, now 80, in rural Puyehue, south of Santiago. A judge ordered his immediate imprisonment to start his 25 year sentence; one article noted, "Impunity Takes Another Hit." Another said his defense lawyer has requested his transfer to Punta Peuco, a ritzy jail already housing many of the Pinochet era's murderers.Through the Víctor Jara Foundation, started by Victor's widow Joan, a British dancer and activist who died in 2023 at 96, their daughter Amanda said she welcomes the news of Haase's arrest but, "Half a century after the murders, it is difficult to see this as justice." Still, Jara's songs live on from when Allende, after he won the presidency, spoke before a banner reading, "You can’t have a revolution without songs." "They were on the radio and television," said Joan in 1975. “The song movement was a tremendous weapon." Since then, music has continued fighting the fear authoritarianism depends on, transforming "political grievance into a shared language of survival" - Miriam Makeba, Mikis Theodorakis, Pussy Riot, America's Woody Guthrie to Dylan to Bad Bunny, who launched his 2026 tour in Chile with Jara's song, dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, The Right to Live in Peace.In 2020, James Dean Bradfield, lead vocalist and guitarist for the Welsh alt-rock band Manic Street Preachers, released Even in Exile, a concept album dedicated to Jara's life and work, along with a three-part podcast. Bradfield discovered Jara as a teen, taken aback by a tenderness he didn't associate with "one of the only truly Marxist musicians. The truth...floats to you like a dream.” He learned more about Jara from poet Patrick Jones, whose brother is Bradfield’s bandmate; Jones had found two compilations of Jara songs in a thrift shop, became "obsessed" and wrote dozens of poems about Jara that, shared with Bradfield, became the album's songs. For Jones, the story of Jara's life and death is "a warning from history" that deeply . resonates with today's rise of the right: "Power is always afraid of those who stand up and say, 'There’s another way.'"For the album, Bradfield wanted songs that span Jara's life, from his rural childhood to his final hours. He was moved by his singing of Venceremos near the end - "He died defiantly, but with grace" - yet felt, "If you just focus on his death, you ignore the journey." Above all, he wanted to highlight Jara's daunting courage and conviction throughout his life, a "naked truth" that rendered him what Phil Ochs called, when he met Jara in 1971, "the real thing." For Bradfield, it reminded him of the Preachers' 1998 song, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. He also deliberately chose to include Jara's final Estadio Chile - "How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying” - which he calls "an anthem that became a prophecy." Of Jara's life and work, he hears "the echo time and time again. I wanted to show here’s an echo that doesn’t die." - YouTube www.youtube.com - YouTube www.youtube.com
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[l] at 8/1/26 7:30am
The University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) will host a press conference on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, ahead of a landmark public hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The hearing -- "United States: Freedom of Expression and the Right to Peaceful Assembly" -- marks the first time the Commission has held a thematic hearing focused specifically on this issue in the United States. It is also the only hearing focused on the United States during the Commission's current session. “For years, the Commission has heard testimony about attacks on protesters carried out by some of the region’s most repressive dictatorships. Now, it is the United States that will be called to answer for these abuses,” said James Cavallaro, ex-President of the IACHR.The Commission will hear directly from victims, their attorneys, and experts on excessive force used by the United States to suppress freedom of expression and peaceful assembly during immigration-related protests. The United States government is expected to participate and respond to testimonies by petitioners and questions from Commissioners. The hearing will take place on August 4, 2026, from 4:00–5:30 p.m. EDT at IACHR Headquarters, 1889 F Street NW, Washington, DC.WHAT: Press Conference on IACHR Hearing on Excessive Use of Force by U.S. AgentsWHEN: Tuesday, August 4, 2026, 2:00–3:30 p.m. EDTWHERE: Regus, 1500 K Street NW, Room MR-239, Washington, DC 20005Virtual Participation link hereRSVP here.WHO: Speakers include: James Cavallaro, Executive Director, University Network for Human Rights; former Commissioner (2014–2017) and President (2016–2017) of the IACHRAntonio Romanucci, civil rights attorney representing the family of Renée Good and former counsel to the family of George FloydRev. David Black, witness struck in the head with a pepper-ball projectile by federal agents while protesting outside the Broadview Detention Facility in ChicagoLocke Bowman, attorney for Rev. David BlackSusan Akram, Director, International Human Rights Clinic, Boston University Naureen Shah, Director of Government Affairs, Equality Division at the ACLU
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[l] at 8/1/26 7:27am
Today, Families USA, along with hundreds of other consumer, patient, community, and health stakeholder groups submitted comments by today’s deadline to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding CMS’s interim final rule to implement work reporting requirements. Our comments warned of the impacts on Medicaid and the millions of people who rely on the program for health coverage. In response, Families USA Executive Director Anthony Wright issued the following statement: “Just over one year ago, Congressional Republicans passed the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history, and now the administration is making a bad budget bill worse with additional restrictive regulations. Our comments submitted today spotlight how these Administration rules are unworkable and unlawful, and how they undermine these key public coverage programs. The regulations are a tragic way to mark this week’s 61st anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid — pillars of our health care system that millions have relied on for generations.“In a health care system that is already overstretched, inordinately expensive, and wildly complex and confusing, these new paperwork requirements will push patients off coverage – not because they aren’t working or not eligible, but because of bureaucratic burdens. While many in Congress promised they would protect the vulnerable and medically frail from these paperwork burdens, the new requirements to get such an exemption are now exponentially more burdensome for both patients and providers.“By tacking on “capacity to work” to the definition of medically frail and phasing out self-attestation, CMS has handed states an unwise and unworkable program without the resources or structure to implement it.“The requirement that a patient doesn’t just need to have cancer or another condition but must produce the equivalent of a doctor’s note with a finding that the conditions leave them unable to work—is nowhere in the underlying statute, and unworkable.“CMS has designed a program akin to determinations made by the Social Security Administration for determining eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI's disability-determination system took decades and billions of dollars to build, relying on a nationwide network of trained adjudicators, detailed federal medical criteria, and safeguards like compassionate allowances for the most serious conditions and multi-year redetermination periods. Such a rule would require setting up, in mere months, a regulatory structure bigger and more complicated than Social Security’s disability determination system, which after 50 years of maturity costs $4.6 billion a year to administer for 7.4 million recipients. For comparison, the budget bill provides less than 5% of that amount, $200 million, to implement.“CMS is asking states to replicate that system from scratch, for a Medicaid population several times larger, in a matter of months, with almost no federal guidance, no clinical standards for providers, and none of SSI's basic protections. Families USA estimates the added administrative cost of these work-capacity assessments alone could exceed $4.8 billion a year — on top of the billions states are already spending to stand up work-reporting systems.“It took the federal government fifty years and billions of dollars to build a disability determination system that still leaves people waiting seven months for an answer. CMS expects states to build something similar for Medicaid in under six months, with no playbook, no dedicated staff, and none of the safeguards that make SSI even marginally workable. The people who will pay for that gap aren't bureaucrats — they're cancer patients, people in mental health crises, and people with disabilities who will lose coverage while paperwork catches up to their diagnosis.“The implementation deadline of January 1 is looming large, and we hope that over these next few months, CMS takes a long hard look at the thousands of comments it has received from patients and health care providers impacted by the agency’s rash and burdensome new requirements.”Families USA has also joined the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), Community Catalyst, First Focus Campaign for Children, and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), in another statement opposing this final rule. Read the full partner statement.
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[l] at 7/30/26 3:27pm
On Wednesday, Free Press called out Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for engaging in a political crusade against broadcaster ABC that not only violates free speech rights but distorts and weaponizes existing agency rules and procedures in service of a censorial president. In a filing in the FCC docket regarding early license reviews of eight ABC affiliated and owned stations, Free Press called the proceeding “an arbitrary and capricious abuse of power, ordered by Brendan Carr to exact the revenge Donald Trump demands against ABC for exercising its First Amendment rights.” In June, Free Press stated in a similar filing on the contents of the show The View that the agency’s proceeding against ABC stations “never should have been opened.” It condemned the politicized campaign from the White House and FCC to silence the voices of people who disagree with or challenge the president and his views. Chairman Carr has insisted that this bogus proceeding is an investigation into allegations that Disney engaged in “invidious discrimination.” But the agency has not identified any specific allegations of discrimination by Disney, ABC or its local stations, reads Free Press latest filing. “That Chairman Carr is willing to place Disney’s entire local broadcasting operation in jeopardy without a single specific allegation of unlawful behavior is further evidence of the corruption that undergirds this proceeding and Carr’s reign at the Commission,” Free Press adds. Matt Wood, Free Press’ vice president of policy and coauthor of the filing, said: “The only just ending to Carr’s circus, and the only way for him to stop trampling the First Amendment freedoms he swore to uphold, is to to close this proceeding now and rescind the trumped-up charges that started it. “The ridiculous notion expressed by the Trump FCC is that this extraordinary proceeding allows the FCC to conduct an ongoing investigation into Disney’s supposed violations of agency rules. But there’s absolutely nothing about the process of early renewal that would aid that supposed investigation. That inquiry is just a rotten fig leaf to provide cover for Brendan Carr using the FCC’s investigatory powers to harass, intimidate, and punish ABC for its speech. “If the FCC were acting in good faith, it would have conducted and completed a full and fair investigation of Disney’s compliance with existing rules and the law first. But giving Disney due process under the law and respecting its First Amendment rights would not deliver Donald Trump the revenge he seeks, hence the existence of this corrupt, arbitrary and capricious early renewal proceeding. “Even if Disney had engaged in some kind of discrimination, there’s no reason and no precedent for threatening its broadcast licenses over such behavior. The partisan nature of this whole endeavor couldn’t be clearer. Brendan Carr says not a word about a conservative broadcaster like Sinclair, approving its acquisition of more stations even as that company settles employment discrimination suits with the Trump EEOC. Yet for ABC, Carr’s embarrassing himself again by concocting this utterly shameful censorship campaign on behalf of a petty president. “This kind of capricious law enforcement has no place in a legitimate democracy. The law and U.S. Constitution do not permit Brendan Carr and the FCC to violate Disney’s and the public’s rights because the President’s ego demands it. In its haste to please Trump, the agency has chilled the speech of every licensee, and placed Disney in a lose-lose situation. Even if the FCC does nothing following this pleading cycle, the order for an early license renewal will continue to be a threat to Disney’s licenses, and will undoubtedly alter how broadcasters exercise their First Amendment-protected right to free speech and freedom of the press. “At some level, Carr must know that his claims against ABC are bogus. But legal and statutory integrity aren’t the point with this chairman. Carr is more than happy to browbeat and jawbone broadcasters into silence though his claims have zero legal merit.”
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[l] at 7/30/26 3:25pm
In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee postponing its vote on Trump's unqualified personal lawyer Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, MoveOn Political Action Chief Communications Officer Joel Payne released the following statement:“Todd Blanche’s nomination is stalled because his record is corrupt and indefensible. He has spent his career proving that there is no legal principle he will not bend and no institution he will not compromise in service of Donald Trump. His blind loyalty, willingness to use the justice system to protect the president, and role in a sweetheart settlement benefiting Trump make him completely unfit to serve as attorney general.“Senate Republicans may be trying to put some distance between themselves and this toxic nomination, but moving the vote does not change the facts. Blanche is still Trump’s fixer, still disqualified, and still a threat to the rule of law. The Senate should stop dragging this out and kill the nomination.”MoveOn continues to mobilize its millions of members and run digital ads to put pressure on Congress to reject Blanche’s nomination.
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[l] at 7/30/26 3:21pm
Five nonprofit organizations working to build a more just food system filed suit today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to challenge unlawful terms and conditions that USDA is imposing on new grants. These terms and conditions substantially restrict grantees’ speech and programming in support of diversity and equity, bar using grant funding on whatever the administration says is “promoting gender ideology,” and limit grantees’ work in support of immigrants. The plaintiffs - Agroecology Commons, Oregon Farm Corps, Syracuse-Onondaga Food Systems Alliance (SOFSA), Third Sector New England, and the Washington Farmland Trust - are represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, Earthjustice, and FarmSTAND. The new terms and conditions require USDA grantees to agree that they will not promote “unlawful DEI” or “gender ideology,” or use grant funding to create “incentives for illegal immigration by demonstrating the availability of public benefits.” The terms even attempt to control the grantees’ work and speech unrelated to the grant, demanding they not “operate any programs that advance or promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” These terms put the plaintiffs in this case in a high-stakes bind: They either must agree to substantial restrictions on their speech and programing, or they must give up on the critical federal funding that has allowed them to effectively serve their communities. If the Trump Administration deems them to have violated the terms and conditions – despite the vagueness and otherwise unlawfulness of the terms – they will lose future payments of the grant. The new terms threaten civil and criminal liability for making supposed false claims. These terms have already forced the plaintiff organizations to substantially reorient their work. Two of the plaintiffs have decided that they cannot accept any funds from USDA unless the court blocks these terms and conditions from being applied to them, as they fear serious consequences if the Trump Administration decides that they are not complying with grant terms. The effects of that decision are substantial: Plaintiff Washington Farmland Trust, for instance, will have to decline $676,000 in funding that could be going to critical support for farmers unless the court blocks these terms and conditions from being applied to them. “Farmers need land in order to grow and raise our food. Washington Farmland Trust's Farm to Farmer program helps farmers access the land, resources, and capital they need to be successful,” said Melissa Campbell, Executive Director of Washington Farmland Trust. “This grant would have allowed us to grow the infrastructure of this critical program to serve more farmers. Instead, we’re faced with the impossible choice of pulling back from our mission-critical work or losing out on catalytic funding that would help us better serve our communities. If the court blocks the USDA's problematic terms, farmers will be able to receive the essential support they need to continue to grow food for us all.” “Organizations like the plaintiffs do essential work to fight hunger, protect the environment, and ensure that communities across the country have access to healthy, local food,” said Stephanie Garlock, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “They should not have to choose between continuing that work and submitting to the Trump Administration's ideological speech code on issues of public policy." “The First Amendment rights of these plaintiffs are at stake in this case, and so is the future of critical work to build a fair food system that works for everyone,” said David Muraskin, Managing Director of Litigation at FarmSTAND. “The court must block these unlawful, unprecedented terms and conditions. If it doesn’t, the Trump Administration’s enforcement of them will force USDA grantees to abandon important work in support of the next generation of farmers, for fear of serious consequences for violating the new terms.” “USDA’s new terms and conditions for grants are yet another example of this administration’s unlawful politicization of programs designed by Congress to support farmers and rural communities,” said Carrie Apfel, Deputy Managing Attorney of the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice. “USDA should stop claiming to help farmers when instead it is undermining the very food and farming communities these programs were created to serve. This sort of illegal gamesmanship should not be tolerated.”
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[l] at 7/30/26 12:00am
Killing The Messenger Dept: Somehow going still lower, Republicans - aka "you absolute fucking pieces of shit" - just hauled Dr. Anthony Fauci into a Senate hearing to charge the guy who saved three million lives with "sabotaging" a dog heartworm pill, wanting to be a megalomanic "sun god," destroying "Americans' trust in their government" and probs being "responsible for this entire pandemic." In response, Fauci, "the man they cannot forgive for being right," declined to answer any of their "questions." Wednesday's Stalinist circus shitshow trial from a GOP so desperately bogged down they've resorted to, "Ok, but remember the pandemic?" - and forget the Epstein files - offered dismal proof they're still mindlessly bowdlerizing science and using Fauci - a Cornell-trained, 85-year-old immunologist and infectious disease specialist who spent over 50 years in public service - as its main punching bag. Fauci, who evil bridge troll Steve Bannon once said should be beheaded, served almost 40 years as head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) under 7 presidents. Reagan hired him, George H. W. Bush cited him when asked to name someone he admired, George W. gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom and asked him to design a wildly successful AIDS relief PEPFAR that saved 25 million lives, most poor people in Africa. In the 1980s, HIV/AIDS was one of multiple public health crises largely afflicting marginalized populations, along with Ebola and a first coronavirus, that Fauci confronted with grace and courage. "AIDS arrived attached to a despised population," notes one observer. "Fauci did not look away." He redirected research toward what was then deemed a plague "when it was neither safe nor popular," and when furious, screaming, ill AIDS activists stormed his office, he invited them in, listened to them, decided they were at least partly right and expedited clinical trials so patients could get quicker access to experimental drugs. Fierce AIDS activist Larry Kramer, who once called Fauci "an incompetent murderer," years later called him "the only true and great hero" among government officials of the time.This week's hearing, called and convened under subpoena by rabid gadfly and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, was billed as an investigation into the origins of COVID, a legit scientific question that to some extent remains unresolved. For years, MAGA has chosen to blame an accidental "lab leak" from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, and Paul has devoted much of his otherwise less-than-memorable political career to arguing, according to that theory, that Dr. Fauci “could be responsible for this entire pandemic” - because NIH once provided the Institute with a sub-grant. Most virologists and other health experts say it was more likely caused by the occasional "spillover event" of a virus jumping from an infected animal to a human, arguing the “preponderance” of evidence points to that natural origin.Public health officials have stepped up to protest the government's “vilification and harassment" of American scientists,” and a group of 155 scientists wrote an open letter dismissing bizarre MAGA charges against Fauci - he covered up the origins of his own research, bribed or others to join him, holds patents on vaccines, is working with bad actors to suppress the awful truth - as "baseless...No credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges." Still, Paul's office spent last weekend dumping over 1,100 pages of Fauci’s private “diary” online; after blowback, they took them down, made redactions and reposted them. Inadvertently or no, they left in Fauci's various descriptions of Trump as “rambling,” “crazy,” “bumbling,” “incompetent,” “an idiot” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent.”In a somber preamble, Fauci noted over the decades he has testified before Congress, willingly and under oath, hundreds of times. But because he "has spent years playing Twister with these sinuous assholes (and) he knows it doesn’t matter what the spinner says," he went on, "Though it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government," following counsel's advice he would invoke the Fifth and "refrain from answering your questions." He also blasted Paul's "unhinged obsession" with him. Then, dozens of times over the infuriating hours, he intoned, "I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.“ Later, an expert noted his carefully neutral body language during the ordeal: "He is refusing to participate in the confrontation beyond what is legally required.”Paul - the only senator to vote against $8.3 billion in emergency spending during COVID, and the first senator to get it - grew agitated by Fauci's calm stream of refusals. He threatened him with "repercussions" and with a charge of contempt. Heatedly refusing to allow any of Fauci's attorneys to join him - "The attorneys were not recognized," he snarled - at one point he called on security to escort out of the hearing room one lawyer after he attempted to speak with Fauci. "This is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered - for a lawyer not recognizing the rules," he said. "Security, please remove him from the room.” The attorney gently patted Fauci on the shoulder and turned to leave on his own; a guard sheepishly trailed after him. In the audience, Laura Ingraham and other MAGA-ites applauded, because they have no shame and never will. Rand and other Republicans tried to claim Fauci had no right to take the Fifth because Biden issued him a preemptive pardon that eliminated that privilege, an ongoing debate in some legal circles. What is not debated though Repubs tried to argue otherwise: Invoking the Fifth Amendment is not a confession of guilt, but a foundational right against self-incrimination as long as there exists a valid threat of prosecution. Most pointedly, the Fifth does not represent guilt but "the ordinary caution" of any citizen who is dragged before a hostile panel by a vindictive chairman vowing for years to put him behind bars, and who "understands this hearing was "never a search for information but a search for a crime - of having stood in public and told a frightened country the truth, while a president lied to it."Public health experts now say roughly 40% of America's million-plus COVID deaths, representing hundreds of thousands of lives, could have been prevented under more effective federal policies. But because they were caused by an idiotic malignant narcissist tragically unable to admit he's ever fucked up - or to allow anyone around him to admit it - the lies keep spewing. Last year the White House published a paper on the lab-leak theory as a rationale to defund the NIH, justify cutting over a billion dollars in state and local health funding, and gut cancer and Alzheimers research; now, citing that lame lie and dreaded diversity, they're trying to put the entire $1 trillion federal grant apparatus under the control of political appointees. This week, in honor of Paul's hearing, Trump wrote Dr. Fauci’s ideas were "CRAZY." On Wednesday, MAGA dutifully jumped in. Cowardly slimebag Josh Hawley, who fist-pumped then ran away from the mob who smeared shit on the Capitol walls, said Fauci had no right to invoke the Fifth, "This is about contempt for this body and the American people," and, yuge pot/kettle, the good doctor was a lying megalomaniac who "wanted to be the sun god." Bernie Moreno demanded Fauci apologize for his crimes and sneered, "Who the fuck did you think you were?" Roger Marshall, an alleged doctor, said vaccine lies "made Americans not trust their government," though unvaxxed MAGA died at twice the rate of Dems. Ron Johnson called a vaccine that saved millions of lives "an experimental gene therapy, and accused Fauci of lying in his own diary, eliciting the day's only smile from him.Later, a frustrated Paul told reporters he would hold Fauci in contempt, though it's not up to him. Besides, notes Tom Wellborn, the spectacle wasn't really about answers to questions; it was about a mob of willfully ignorant quacks and losers finding an imaginary villain. "Fauci was the man on the screen," he writes. "He absorbed the rage that had nowhere else to go." Above all, Fauci was hated, not for lying, but for "telling the truth to people who did not want to hear it." He "stood between the American public and a president who wanted the problem to vanish before an election," who suggested insane things - Ivermectin, disinfectant, lights - as Fauci carefully contradicted him, "trying to keep his job long enough to keep being useful." Fauci wasn't a saint, Wellborn writes, and he wasn't right about everything. But he was "right about the things that mattered most" - it was airborne, masks and distance helped. He "told the truth as the science understood it at the time, and when the science changed, as science does, he changed the guidance, and his enemies have spent years calling those updates lies." Meanwhile, "he saved lives, and they were on the other side." Most vital: To remember "that in the summer of 2026, a man who had given his entire adult life to keeping other people alive was hauled before a hostile Senate by a colleague nursing a personal vendetta... and which of the two men in that room had spent his life saving strangers, and which spent his trying to jail the person who did.""As some day it may happen/that a victim must be found" - Gilbert and Sullivan's I've Got A Little List
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[l] at 7/29/26 2:06pm
Protesters today climbed into an ancient cottonwood tree in Arizona’s San Rafael Valley to stop the Trump administration from cutting it down for construction of two parallel 30-foot-tall border walls.The action comes after Department of Homeland Security contractors cut down three neighboring Fremont cottonwoods estimated to be 200 to 250 years old.“Destroying these ancient cottonwoods is a death sentence for an entire ecosystem,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These magnificent cottonwoods survived centuries, nourishing wildlife through floods and drought, only to be bulldozed for the Trump administration’s disastrous border wall. The San Rafael Valley is one of the most biologically rich landscapes in North America. It’s both a refuge and crucial corridor for jaguars, ocelots, black bears, pronghorn and hundreds of bird species.”Today’s action is believed to be the first tree sit aimed at stopping U.S. border wall construction.The three cottonwoods cut down earlier this week stood along a rare stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border where mature trees once formed a transboundary canopy. The trees provided nesting habitat, shade and shelter within an increasingly scarce riparian ecosystem that supports hundreds of animal species. One protester was arrested Monday while trying to protect those trees and nesting migratory birds.Federal officials said preconstruction surveys would be conducted during Arizona’s active nesting season, but observers at the site reported that no surveys for nesting migratory birds were completed before the trees were destroyed.The area also contains prehistoric archaeological sites that preserve evidence of thousands of years of Indigenous presence in the borderlands. Ongoing construction threatens cultural resources that would be permanently lost if disturbed.The Department of Homeland Security is constructing the border wall under authorities that waive dozens of the nation’s cornerstone environmental and cultural resource protection laws, allowing construction to proceed without reviews normally required under laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.In a letter sent today to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Center called for an immediate halt to construction in the Lochiel area. The letter urged the agencies to conduct comprehensive biological and cultural resource surveys, consult with Tribes with ancestral and cultural connections to the San Rafael Valley, protect the remaining ancient cottonwoods, and assess the ecological and cultural resources at risk.Videos and photos for media use are available here. Cottonwood tree destruction for border wall construction in Lochiel, Arizona. Credit: John Kurc. Image is available for media use.
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[l] at 7/29/26 2:02pm
Today, the Federal Reserve held the federal funds rate steady at 3.50% to 3.75%, its fifth straight meeting without a move. For working families, this means no relief on mortgages, credit cards, or car loans. Although inflation briefly cooled in June, that temporary relief was driven by cheaper gas during a ceasefire that Trump derailed. Since then, gas prices have again crossed $4 per gallon and Trump’s new tariffs have increased the risk that inflation will accelerate. Despite mounting signs of labor market weakness, the Fed’s decision today signals they believe that the inflation Trump reignited is not done yet.Groundwork’s Chief Economist Breyon Williams shared his reaction:“The president’s reckless economic policies have done irreparable harm to working families’ budgets. Inflation remains elevated, with no immediate relief in sight for Americans. Even Trump’s hand-picked Fed chair, Wall Street sweetheart Kevin Warsh, knows the president’s actions are driving up prices for consumers and creating an influx of uncertainty for the economy. Today’s decision to hold rates steady is a reflection of a stalled labor market and persistent inflation.”To speak with Breyon or any of Groundwork’s experts about Warsh’s first meeting, reply to this email or reach out to press@groundworkcollaborative.org.BACKGROUNDInflation remains above the Federal Reserve's target, and the latest energy price shock has yet to show up in the data. Tomorrow's Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report is expected to show prices increased 3.7% in June from a year ago, and largely reflects inflation before Trump dismantled his own ceasefire. Since then, gas prices have climbed back above $4 per gallon, creating renewed inflationary pressure that will not show up in tomorrow’s report. The San Francisco Fed warned this month that inflation remains "elevated and uncertain," citing renewed volatility in energy markets and accelerating core inflation. Trump is determined to keep prices high using tariffs. After the Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s Section 232 tariffs, the administration fell back on temporary Section 122 tariffs, which expired last week. Instead of giving working families some relief, the administration immediately imposed new Section 301 tariffs to keep taxing everyday goods that consumers buy. And more tariffs are already on the horizon: Trump has signed an additional 50% tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods, scheduled to take effect next month, and a 100% tariff on patented drugs are planned in 2028. Businesses’ costs are still climbing. The latest wholesale inflation data suggest businesses are still contending with persistent cost pressures that have yet to fully reach consumers. Wholesale inflation rose 5.5% in June from a year ago. The Federal Reserve's July Beige Book found that contacts in 9 of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts reported price increases, with businesses repeatedly citing higher energy costs from the conflict in the Middle East and tariffs as key drivers. The Federal Reserve meets amid growing evidence that the labor market is losing momentum. The job market is frozen. Hiring has stalled and layoffs sit near historic lows, a labor market environment that leaves workers feeling stuck and job seekers feeling shut out. Recent job gains were sluggish, with employers adding just 57,000 jobs in June. Payroll gains in April and May were revised down by a combined 74,000 jobs. More Americans are leaving the workforce. A total of 720,000 people exited the labor force in June, pushing participation to its lowest level since March 2021. Workers are spending longer searching for jobs, and millions of Americans still cannot find full-time work. More than one in four unemployed Americans (27.3%) have been out of work for at least six months, up from 23.3% one year ago. About 4.7 million Americans are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs, pushing the broad U-6 unemployment rate, which captures workers who are unemployed, marginally attached, and part-time but want full-time jobs, to 7.9%. The economy is expected to grow at a slower pace, with AI investment propping up the headline numbers. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model estimates the economy grew at a 1.6% annualized rate in the second quarter, well below the 2.1% pace recorded in 2025. Much of the expected growth reflects continued investment in AI infrastructure and data centers rather than broad-based strength across the economy.

As of 8/9/26 11:22am. Last new 8/7/26 11:07pm.

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