mark
Common Dreams
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[l] at 9/23/26 10:56am
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) today introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act — legislation to stop artificial intelligence (AI) oligarchs from building machines humans cannot control and to pause advanced AI development until we have put in place rigorous federal testing and oversight to ensure AI does not harm humanity.“When you are racing towards a cliff, you don’t just ease up on the gas pedal. You hit the brakes. When the future of humanity is at stake, we cannot let a handful of Big Tech CEOs write their own rules,” Sanders said. “Scientists have been clear: AI is an existential threat to humanity. It must be treated as such. This legislation will permanently ban the development of artificial superintelligence and would put in place an immediate pause on advanced AI development until we have clear safety rules in place — developed by the most knowledgeable scientists in our country. Congress must act now before it is too late.”“Experts are warning that AI superintelligence, wielded by the wrong humans or by rogue AI, could kill countless numbers of people. But Donald Trump says he wants to encourage it. Something has to change,” Casar said. “Our bill bans the development of artificial superintelligence and pushes for international agreements so that no one, anywhere, builds AI too powerful for humans to control. Furthermore, our bill would immediately halt other dangerous AI capabilities, such as the capacity to develop biochemical weapons, or the capacity for AI to develop new AI instead of humans.”Over the past few months, we have learned that AI models can circumvent restrictions to hack into computers. We have learned they can create never-before-seen viruses. And we have learned they can automate research to build smarter AI. Even as the AI companies claim they recognize these dangers and want to slow down, they are racing ahead — investing hundreds of billions of dollars into a technology that nobody can fully predict or control. That is unacceptable. The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act will protect humanity by: Banning Artificial Superintelligence. No person or entity may develop or deploy Artificial Superintelligence — an AI that exceeds human cognitive performance and capabilities across most domains, or has sufficient capabilities to destroy or disempower humanity, including by overthrowing the federal government.Pausing Advanced AI development until a new, federal AI regulatory body is up and running and has established clear rules and model review processes to ensure safe and secure development and deployment of AI.Establishing a new cabinet-level federal Department of Artificial Intelligence to safeguard the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence, including by enforcing a prohibition on artificial superintelligence. This department will be advised by the most knowledgeable scientists in our country to: Monitor frontier AI systems at all stages of the lifecycle for dangerous capabilities.Supervise the removal of dangerous capabilities like subverting shutdown commands or conducting unauthorized cyberattacks.Supervise the destruction of artificial superintelligence. Setting penalties for any person or entity that attempts to violate or circumvent the pauses and prohibitions laid out in this bill. Entities shall be subject to the corporate death penalty, and persons shall be subject to not more than 20 years in prison, which is similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.Working to ban superintelligence around the world by setting the international policy of the United States to pursue international agreements, allied coordination, and policies such as export controls to prevent the development of artificial superintelligence anywhere in the world. Read the bill text here.Read a one-page summary here.Read a section-by-section summary here.
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[l] at 9/23/26 8:21am
Today, Groundwork Collaborative and Reset Tech released a new report, “The Hidden Costs of AI for American Households,” which exposes how artificial intelligence (AI) is already increasing costs for every American in nearly every line of the budget – and how that toll will only grow.AI is already increasing prices for American families, with electronics and electricity bills on the rise due to the AI data center buildout, to groceries and other retail purchases plagued by AI-powered pricing abuses. AI is also making online scams easier to carry out and harder to detect, adding to the estimated $119 billion per year that Americans lose to internet-based scams and cybercrime. The report reveals how corporations are prioritizing profits over affordability. Delta’s CEO bragged that AI will increase his airline’s profitability by as much as 50%. Tech companies are allowing AI to worsen mental health, which already costs our economy an estimated $282 billion a year. And health insurers are using AI to review claims, leading 60% of doctors to be concerned about increasing denials.As Americans grapple with a raging affordability crisis, the report outlines concrete actions policymakers can take to reduce the cost of AI that stands to pile on, including banning surveillance pricing, prohibiting insurers from using AI to deny health care, implementing Groundwork’s plan to freeze household electricity rates, and adopting stronger liability frameworks that hold AI companies accountable.Janelle Jones, Senior Fellow at Groundwork Collaborative, and co-author of the report, said:“As working people face an affordability crisis, higher prices caused by AI are the last thing they need. It’s another attack on household budgets that add up, and which working people certainly shouldn’t be on the hook for.”Rishi Bharwani, U.S. Director of Reset Tech, and co-author of the report, said:“AI could be lowering costs for American families but instead it’s become a hidden tax on households – paid through online scams, surveillance pricing, higher electric bills, denied health claims and rising premiums. Families feel it every day, even if they can’t see it. Lawmakers need to act now to stop greedy corporations from using AI to squeeze consumers.”BACKGROUND AI is fueling a new wave of online scams, and it’s costing consumers billions. AI is making online fraud easier to scale and harder to detect, allowing scammers to clone voices, create deepfakes, and impersonate trusted people. Internet-based scams and cybercrime cost Americans $148 billion in 2025. However, the true financial burden is likely substantially higher because for every reported crime, six go unreported.AI is increasing the mental health risks of social media use and adding to families’ health care costs. One study found that adults who use AI daily are 30% more likely to experience at least moderate depression than adults who do not use AI at all, and nearly half of U.S. teenagers say social media is mostly harmful to people their age. Out-of-pocket spending on pediatric behavioral health reached $2.9 billion in 2022, an increase of about 38% over the previous 11 years.Health insurance companies are using AI in ways that drive up costs for patients. Insurers use AI to review claims and prior authorizations, and 60% of physicians say they are concerned that AI is increasing denials. When claims are denied or delayed, patients may have to pay out of pocket, appeal the decision, or postpone care.AI-driven pricing systems are spreading rapidly across the economy. Companies are deploying AI systems to analyze consumer data and tailor prices to the individual. For example, an investigation of Instacart pricing by Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union found nearly three-quarters of grocery items were offered to shoppers at multiple price points, prices were up to 23% higher for some shoppers on the exact same items, and these practices could translate into a swing of about $1,200 a year for a family of four.AI is giving insurers new ways to charge drivers more. Insurers are using increasingly detailed data about how, when, and where people drive to assess risk and set personalized premiums. Companies such as LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk aggregate driving behavior data and sell it to insurers, and LexisNexis products were used in 86% of new U.S. auto insurance policies issued in 2023.AI-driven pricing is making travel more expensive by allowing airlines, hotels, and booking platforms to tailor prices based on consumer data and online behavior. Delta’s CEO has said AI could increase the airline’s profitability by as much as 50% as airlines and other travel companies use sophisticated tech and robust customer data profiles to set prices.The rapid expansion of AI data centers is pushing more of the cost of the AI buildout onto household electricity bills. Data centers’ share of U.S. electricity use could nearly triple from 4.4% in 2023 to about 12% by 2030, and residential electricity rates could climb 15% to 40% above 2025 levels by 2030.Surging demand from AI data centers is making everyday electronics more expensive for consumers. AI data centers and consumer electronics manufacturers rely on many of the same chips and memory and must compete for a limited supply. Since the start of 2026, Apple has raised prices on some of its most popular laptops by $200 to $300 and on every iPhone by at least $100, and Microsoft has increased Xbox console prices by $100 to $150.
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[l] at 9/22/26 10:39am
Donald Trump used his platform at the UN General Assembly to brag about the U.S’s fossil fueled imperialism. From Iran, to Venezuela, to Greenland, Trump’s actions follow a familiar path: use military force to dominate sovereign nations, let Big Oil cash in, and leave ordinary people to bear the costs through war, pollution, rising energy bills, and worsening climate disasters.Governments have a choice: Follow Trump into a future of conflict and economic volatility, or build prosperity and energy independence and political stability through clean, renewable energy. On the road to COP31, governments must reject Trump’s attempt to build a fossil fuel empire and show that his agenda will not dictate our shared future.
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[l] at 9/22/26 10:02am
Today, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on governments at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City to “adopt a national plan to transition away from fossil fuels aligned with 1.5 degrees”.In response, Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead at Oil Change International, said: “The message from UNSG Guterres is clear: continued fossil fuel dependence is the pathway to climate and economic chaos. It exposes people to price shocks, geopolitical conflict, and devastating climate impacts, while fossil fuel billionaires reap the profits of the crisis they created. “It’s time for countries to act, and it starts by developing their national roadmaps to achieve prosperity beyond fossil fuels. Their credibility is on the line. We need publicly led plans, with clear and time-bound plans for a fair fossil fuel phaseout that protects workers and communities, strengthens energy sovereignty, and mobilizes the necessary public funding. We need governments to step up. “The newly published IEA report makes it clear that at the core of these roadmaps must be a commitment to electrifying economies. But this must come with a clear commitment to dismantling fossil fuel infrastructure and generating electricity through renewable energy. “Oil and gas companies cannot be allowed to take in billions in profit while families struggle to pay skyrocketing energy and food bills. Taxing excessive oil and gas profits is an urgent step needed to make fossil fuel companies pay for the energy crisis they created, and for countries to mobilize public finance needed for climate action.”
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[l] at 9/22/26 9:58am
As UN Secretary-General makes final UN General Assembly speech, global campaigners say the call to “Make Polluters Pay” has gone mainstream. In his powerful speech, he reaffirmed the importance of national governments adopting national plans to transition away from fossil fuels, aligned with the 1.5°C goal, and made a clear call for those most responsible for the climate crisis to be held accountable:“Those who polluted the most – and profited the most – must do far more to repair the damage they caused. Polluters must pay. And to the leaders, cities, civil society and citizens working to hold them accountable: you are on the right side of history. Keep going,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.The call for greater accountability from the fossil fuel industry driving the climate crisis came just 1 day after campaigners presented 2 million signatures demanding that governments “Make Polluters Pay” to the United Nations. Throughout his tenure, Guterres has been among the forceful voices calling on the fossil-fuel industry to be made to answer for the damage their products cause, from urging windfall taxes on record oil and gas profits, to endorsing ‘solidarity levies’ to close the international climate finance gap owed to Global South countries, and calling for action to tackle those he called the “godfathers of climate chaos”. Campaigners say his intervention today shows how far that argument has traveled, and voice their hope that his successor will carry it forward at a moment when the case has never been more urgent.Earlier this week, members of the Make Polluters Pay International coalition, alongside frontline campaigners and communities, gathered in New York to highlight the growing public demand for fossil-fuel companies to pay for the costs of the climate damage their industry has caused. They presented at the UN petitions with a combined total of over 2 million signatures calling on governments to Make Polluters Pay.This comes after a year marked by devastating wildfires, floods and deadly climate disasters, and continuing global energy insecurity linked to dependence on oil and gas. Campaigners say the message to governments is simple: we are breaching 1.5°C, a limit governments swore to hold, and the need for urgent action has never been clearer. As fossil-fuel companies keep raking in colossal profits, ordinary people are left paying the price through higher energy and food bills, and losses that can never be fully repaired: homes, harvest, lives.The Make Polluters Pay campaign has mobilised millions of people around the world behind a demand for governments to introduce binding measures requiring fossil-fuel companies to contribute to the costs of climate damage, and shifting the financial incentives that keep money flowing towards coal, oil & gas.Campaigners are calling for measures including climate damages taxes, surtaxes on fossil-fuel profits and fines, with revenues directed towards recovery, adaptation, loss and damage and a just transition to renewable energy.The campaign saw members of the Make Polluters Pay International coalition come together including 350.org, Greenpeace International, Fossil Free Media and Oxfam International, alongside frontline campaigners and communities affected by climate change.Louise Hutchins, Co-Convenor of the Make Polluters Pay International Coalition, said:“When the UN Secretary-General calls for fossil-fuel companies to pay, you know this demand has become impossible to ignore. Millions of people around the world are calling for it and governments are starting to listen. After months of super-profits from the oil and gas industry, finance ministers are putting windfall taxes back on the agenda.“This is a sign of how quickly the politics are changing. The movement is growing, the public is behind it, and governments need to catch up.”Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, said:“For years, campaigners and communities on the frontlines have been saying the same thing: the companies that profited from fossil fuels must pay their fair share of the costs of the crisis they helped create.“Today, that demand is moving into the mainstream. The Secretary-General’s call for polluters to pay reflects what millions of people are demanding around the world.“We have watched homes burn, communities flood and families struggle with the costs of climate and energy crises, while fossil-fuel companies continue to make extraordinary profits. We pay. They profit. It’s time to change that.“The voices of more than 2 million people are now being brought to the UN. Governments have the power to make polluters pay , and they must use it.”Mads Christensen, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, said:“Guterres has spent years warning leaders where fossil-fuel dependence leads, and this year proved him right. From deadly heat to devastating fires and floods, the very dependence driving these disasters is shaking entire economies and leaving families exposed to volatile energy and food prices, while the companies behind it keep raking in the profits. The worse the crisis grows, the more they make: the very instability that empties people’s wallets fills theirs.“That is the system permanent surtaxes on fossil-fuel profits start to break. New rules forcing governments to align their taxes and spending with global climate goals would raise hundreds of billions of dollars to support the countries and communities least responsible, while incentivising money out of fossil fuels and into secure, renewable energy that actually protects people. As long as destruction stays profitable, the transition to a safer, fairer future will keep being held back. Guterres has named the solution, governments must now act on it.”Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said:“The people who have contributed least to the climate crisis are paying the highest price. They are losing homes, livelihoods and access to food and facing an increasingly uncertain future, while fossil-fuel corporations and their billionaire backers continue to profit.“The call to Make Rich Polluters Pay is about justice. It is about ensuring that those who have benefited most from the fossil-fuel economy pay for the damage it has caused.“Today the Secretary-General joined millions of people around the world in demanding that ‘polluters must pay’. It’s time for governments to listen and ensure that new sources of finance reach the communities on the frontlines of this crisis.”Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, GreenFaith“Every religion teaches the same moral principle: you do not get to harm your neighbor and walk away from the damage. That simple truth is why religious leaders from around the globe – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and many others – are calling for polluters to pay for the harm they’ve caused. Communities around the globe are suffering the mounting costs of climate damage – costs that have not been paid by the polluters. They have been pushed onto families, communities, and taxpayers. In moral terms, that is theft. And it must stop.”Jamie Henn, Spokesperson for the US Make Polluters Pay Campaign “Yesterday, more than two million people brought the Make Polluters Pay demand to the United Nations. Today, Secretary-General Guterres made clear that he stands with them. Around the world, people are paying the costs of a climate crisis fueled by a handful of wealthy fossil fuel corporations, while those same companies continue to rake in enormous profits. The Secretary-General has been a powerful voice for holding polluters accountable, and his message today shows just how far this demand has traveled. Now other world leaders need to follow his lead and make polluters pay.”Campaigners say the Secretary-General’s intervention marks an important moment in the growing push to hold fossil-fuel companies financially accountable for climate damage. The call comes as governments gather in New York to discuss global security, economic stability and resilience. Campaigners argue that these conversations cannot be separated from the climate and fossil-fuel crises.Continued dependence on oil and gas leaves economies exposed to volatile global markets while accelerating climate disruption. They say the real route to energy security is to rapidly reduce fossil-fuel dependence, accelerate clean electrification and ensure that fossil-fuel companies contribute to the costs of the transition, adaptation and loss and damage.The campaigners are calling on governments to: Make fossil-fuel companies pay through climate-damages taxes, permanent surtaxes on fossil fuel profits and meaningful fines.Direct the revenues to communities, including funding adaptation, recovery and loss and damage.Accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels towards clean, affordable and secure energy.Ensure polluters are held accountable through progressive fiscal policy, rather than allowing the costs of climate damage to continue falling on ordinary people.
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[l] at 9/21/26 11:15am
According to Bloomberg on Monday, California State Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state attorneys general have reached a settlement of their antitrust lawsuit against Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. According to the report, the settlement creates a nominally independent editorial board to oversee CNN and CBS, and makes promises on the output of the combined studios’ movie production. Bloomberg does not report any divestitures of the merged companies’ massive cable channel portfolio.These minor concessions are largely unenforceable behavioral remedies that Bonta had previously denounced, and in some cases promise less than the two companies are already doing as standalone competitors. They came after Paramount owner David Ellison made multiple threats to move the studio out of California unless the attorneys general dropped their lawsuit. Previously, Bonta had maintained he’d only accept structural remedies, which block the merger or involve companies selling off significant parts of the combined businesses.In August, California Governor Gavin Newsom indicated that he’d like Bonta to settle the case, despite growing public concern over the many harms such a deal would bring: widespread entertainment industry layoffs, spiraling consumer costs and increased censorship of news on CBS and CNN. Bonta reportedly was holding strong until a couple of days ago, when closed-door negotiations with Paramount ramped up.Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González said:“We are disappointed that Attorney General Bonta went back on his promise to enforce the law and protect consumers and workers. Hundreds of thousands of people called on our state AGs to stand up to the Ellisons, who have engaged in a campaign of corruption and extortion to pave the way for this unlawful merger. We can no longer rely on the federal government to enforce the law and protect regular people. That much is clear. But the AGs’ capitulation marks a new low. It’s a sad day for all of us who have been opposing this merger because it will cut jobs and raise prices, all as it consolidates the media even more to enable authoritarians.“Based on all reports, this weak deal contains nothing but unenforceable, empty Paramount promises. It abandons the thousands of creatives and workers who risked speaking out, and the tens of millions of consumers the attorneys general should be fighting for. “Behavioral conditions do not work. They won’t save jobs, preserve choice, or prevent price hikes. As we learned from the failed and widely-panned Facebook Oversight Board, a fake bipartisan oversight committee won’t save CNN. We have all the evidence we need from the Ellisons’ destruction of CBS about what they do to warp journalism at Donald Trump’s request. This latest capitulation comes as the Trump administration barred CNN and other reporters who dare ask hard questions from the White House press pool.“Consolidating the media in the hands of friendly oligarchs is right out of the authoritarian playbook. Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with corruption and consolidation, and billionaires calling all the shots while everyone else struggles. People won’t forget who stood up for them and who capitulated.“What’s exceedingly clear is that our laws and our political system are not strong enough to resist the pressure and manipulation of corrupt billionaires. We need to strengthen democratic systems of government, including getting money out of politics, and pass laws that break up big media conglomerates. We need to ensure that a few billionaires can’t drown out the masses to dictate bad policy.”
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[l] at 9/21/26 1:30am
In a possibly more than averagely batshit news week, the apocalyptic clusterfuck of clowns "governing" this country just got up to some serious weirdness. As the chief clown waffled on the best way to kill us all - AI, nukes, nukes in space, forever war, hissy fits, agitprop up the wazoo - his lackeys frantically gaslit us with brain-dead pols, high T warriors and drunken sheep fuckers. No wonder Americans are said to be dreading the fall - not autumn, but the fall of democracy and civilization (sic) itself.With Trump's approval rightly cratering but his faithful flunkies inexplicably urging us to vote like he's on the ballot - umm, okay - he's so far gone he still giddily maintains the deranged fiction we "have the greatest economy in history," we're resplendent in "a Golden Age of America," and he's all good on shamelessly, unconstitutionally banning news outlets he doesn't like - "I don't want them in my (sic) office," aka, "I’ll take 'Something a dictator would say' for $1000, Alex" - because he evidently thinks "repressive" is a compliment, devoutly to be wished. Otherwise, heading into a mid-term election that promises ("Oh please, oh please") to be a GOP rout, he's doing nothing to drag them out of the deepening holes he's dug except flailing and digging more.Historically, inanely dazzled by nuclear power - see his "irresponsible and dangerous and frankly incompetent" burbling about the "N-word" - he's now touting the option of a shiny new Space Force military "offensive." Never mind America's 1969 moon landing assurance from "Planet Earth," "WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND"; the one relatively peaceable place in the galaxy, space-weapons free for 18 billion years, now faces possible invasion from "Mister Schlock, Trash Gordeon, Darth Hater, Puke Skyfucker." Or in the pointedly indecipherable jargon of Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, "The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action." By more "aliens"? Back on an increasingly fragile Planet Earth, the same dangers loom amidst an Iran debacle wherein the U.S. is committing war crimes, hiding deaths and shortfalls along with damage to buildings, equipment, vehicles - one active service member: "We’re standing with our eyes closed getting punched in the face" - lying about a vital Strait of Hormuz that remains "a parking lot" and spending up to $2 billion a month despite a third House vote to end the carnage and a defiant Iran insisting it will not reopen the Strait until “the criminal Trump and bloodthirsty Netanyahu” are gone. All as the mad child-king muses publicly about his "big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? Anything could happen with me."Hence another equally incoherent whiplash on the hazards of AI: From unhinged denial spewed by the master of "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV": the only guardrail needed is "a STRONG AND SMART (high IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S. has that, in spades!" - to tentative hedging - a supposed concept of a plan to create an AI Czar - with the moronic, "Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” - and an AI Force - like his "tremendous SUCCESS" the largely illusory Space Force - back to a knee-jerk "SICK conspiracy" against AI and data centers like the "many Hoaxes generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country.” When in God's name will he learn: "It ill behooves a man to rave on at length."Still nursing a long-held grudge against the elites of the arts world, especially the storied family who both embodied it and always outclassed him, he also remains obsessed with slapping his odious name on the Kennedy Center or, now, threatening to tear it down if he can't. George Conway: "To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature." After multiple losses in court - the most mortifying the forced removal of his name, which rankled so much he's lamely kept the facade covered with a tarp - he persists in arguing the flourishing-until-he-came-along Center is "a mess" that's lost "tens of millions" or maybe "hundreds of billions" and "I’m the one capable of fixing it." Otherwise, "The building is destined to doom (sic)."Unsurprisingly, an emerging backstory is far seedier. The only thing straining finances is the arts world boycotting him and his own Treasury holding hostage hundreds of millions in funds. After a storm brought down some ceiling plaster, lackeys left it, posted photos - Trump will fix it! - mapped the “debris field” for a 55-page bullshit briefing, and voted to close down. Richard Grenell partly replaced the art collection, including African works honoring JFK, with MAGA "art," some from "the Tony Montana Meets Saddam Hussein Collection," and workers glitzed up Trump's theater boxes. After a judge again refused to restore his name, Trump threw a tantrum and brought in forklifts, prompting the judge to issue an emergency order forbidding any mob-like, midnight demolition.Meanwhile, he whines - The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates “to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do” (sic) - threatens - North Carolina may get no more FEMA funding after Helene, "the biggest water hurricane" - propagandizes - the Smithsonian's "Ideological Capture” - and a desperate GOP goose-steps along. Vance lies about immigrants, RFK Jr. blithers about "chemtrails," Melania sneers let them eat flowers, fabulist MAGA Mike, seeking to be raptured, boasts of an uber-productive House "almost unmatched in history." And Mitch 'Weekend at Bernie's - McConnell is outlandishly wheeled out, dead-eyed and smile-plastered, from a months-long stupor to cast a vital "vote." Mother Mary of God, make it stop.Preening peacock Pete Hegseth, evidently thinking he’s still on TV, ordered commanders to choose only soldiers who meet “impeccable grooming and uniform standards (no exception)” to attend his upcoming “State of the Force” speech; if they’re really cute they may get to join one of his dorky workouts. He also revived testosterone screening for symptoms like low energy and “loss of spontaneous morning erections.” Rex Huppke: “OUR ENEMIES WILL QUAKE AT THE SIGHT OF AMERICA’S BONER WARRIORS!” No wonder Unholy Mike ran away - aka sent the House home early "to explain all the great things we’ve done" - so they couldn't vote on Rep. Thomas Massie's articles of impeachment against Hegseth for "high crimes and misdemeanors."Finally, there was Kash Patel, lackiest lackey of all, with his "unbelievable" testimony before a Senate hearing on newly lowered standards to work at the FBI. First, Tom Wellborn's background on Patel, a grown, childless man who wrote a kids' trilogy about a wizard named Kash serving a king named Donald; sold Ka$h-branded merch and anti-COVID-vaccine supplements; compiled an enemies list of high-level anti-Trump conspirators; took a government plane to hear his SWAT-team-protected girlfriend sing at a wrestling match; long yelled for release of the Epstein files until he was in power and found nothing to see; likewise ignored ICE abuses, rampant corruption, right-wing extremism while purging the FBI of 1,100-plus "disloyal" agents; and abruptly lowered standards to stop losing candidates to "the rigors of the requirements from yesteryear.”Last week, Patel defended a new policy that no longer automatically disqualifies people for several offenses: paying for sex, defrauding employers, and bestiality - having sex with animals. In the FBI's universe of moral relativism, now you're all good if you hired a prostitute fewer than three times or over ten years ago; stole from your employer at least three years ago, or did unspeakable things with a sheep, horse, goat, dog etc when you were young and presumably horny. Throughout his testimony - here starting at 5:25 - Patel, who's suing The Atlantic for $250 million for credibly charging he's often drunk on the job, frantically shuffled papers that turned out to be cheat sheets to trash Sen. Dick Durbin, who calls him "the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in U.S. history."Patel's surreal, wide-eyed, often bellicose testimony on, say, goat-fucking rattled even Louisiana's fake-folksy GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who was trying hard to give him the bizarre benefit of the doubt. After Patel explained the earlier policy "automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it," a confused Kennedy asked, "Which side of what, the bestiality?" Patel: "Yes." Kennedy: "So, you disqualified the animal?" Patel: "We have some great canines - we're not gonna disqualify them. Hang on, I'm trying to explain." Kennedy: "So if Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified?" Patel: "If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it..." Kennedy: But how do you involuntarily do it?" Etc.Bravely, Kennedy tried to understand Patel's response to what he assumed was an underling's report. "Why would you get into bestiality?" he asked. "When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect...Why didn’t you just say, 'What planet did you parachute in from?'" Smirking, Patel said that was his response until he learned people were often "trafficked (into) these awful heinous acts." Then, he summoned his best impersonation of self-righteousness. "We did not want to punish victims of bestiality," he intoned, with the once-clear word "victim" doing a ludicrous amount of work. "At this FBI, we're not gonna criminalize and prevent victims from serving (America) in the premier law enforcement agency in the world." Maybe it was, before him. Maybe not. Just sayin'."This is what unseriousness looks like," noted one observer, "when it finally hits a wall." And when the edict, "Do not obey in advance" matters. Per Tolstoy: "The wicked become even worse when they are tolerated." Friday night, organizers of a protest dubbed "Hands Around the Kennedy Center" hoped for a turnout of 400 to 800 people. They were pleased when about 950 signed up online. Then over 6,400 showed up. The mood was angry, hopeful, defiant. One longtime volunteer said she was ready to "stand in front of the wrecking ball." People formed a human chain around the beloved concert hall a president just closed and called "a dump," relishing what it felt like “to hold hands with somebody you don’t know for something you believe in.” Afterwards, they all sang America the Beautiful.
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[l] at 9/18/26 12:07pm
On Friday, a coalition of 15 civil-society and press-freedom organizations demanded that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release renowned Miami-based journalist Luis Galeano. The letter’s signers include Free Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders and the Society of Professional Journalists, among others.Read the letter.ICE detained Galeano on Sept. 14, 2026, while he was working as a rideshare driver to support his primary role as director of the news outlet Café con Voz. Galeano came to the United States in 2018 from Nicaragua. His reporting in Nicaragua had exposed the government’s significant human-rights abuses. Later, the Ortega-Murillo regime stripped nearly 100 journalists of their Nicaraguan citizenship as a penalty for covering the government’s totalitarian tactics.Since arriving in the United States, Galeano has conducted Spanish-language reporting for communities throughout Florida. He has a Social Security number and a work permit, with a pending asylum case filed nearly seven years ago.“The U.S. government’s targeting and detention of Galeano are a troubling escalation of attacks on journalists and media workers, particularly immigrant journalists, who consistently provide much-needed journalism and civic information for their communities,” the letter reads. “In the case of Galeano, there are severe dangers should the U.S. government seek to ignore his asylum case and move to deport him. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) withdrew temporary protected status (TPS) for Nicaraguan immigrants starting in July 2025. That would mean any unfounded punitive actions taken against Galeano that might lead to his deportation could very well place him in dire circumstances upon return to Nicaragua, where he was a vocal leader in the press community advocating for human rights.”Free Press Senior Counsel Nora Benavidez said:“When the government arrests and detains a journalist and prevents them from doing their work, it sends a chilling message to other reporters and civilians considering speaking truth to power. It’s horrifying that Luis Galeano is now the latest in a long line of journalists who came to the United States to report on issues of the day and instead face deportation.“To be clear: These cases aren’t just about cracking down on immigration. They are about cutting off community access to vital coverage and scaring reporters from holding those in power accountable. If our government can close off channels of exchange and the free flow of ideas, it is no more than a dictatorship. This coalition has joined together to urge for Luis Galeano’s release — and we will continue to advocate for press freedom as essential to our democracy and collective dignity.”
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[l] at 9/18/26 8:20am
The wealth explosion among the ultra-rich has led to soaring demand for luxury private jets and the infrastructure to serve them, including expanded private aircraft hangers and runway capacity at local and regional airports. Meanwhile, transnational corporations wanting to shield their top managers from interactions with the public are also expanding their private jet fleets, even as more shareholders are trying to rein in private jet excess.A vital new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, High Flyers 2026, reveals just how much this private jet-setting is costing taxpayers and the planet. Key findings: Private jets and charter services account for roughly 16 percent of FAA-handled flight operations. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates noncommercial private jets account for 7 percent of the airspace activity yet contribute less than 0.6 percent of taxes that flow into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund that helps finance FAA operations.An estimated 256,000 people, or roughly 0.003 percent of the population, fly on private jets, including the ultrawealthy who use fractional ownership or private charter jets.Private jets are one of the most super-polluting forms of transportation, with direct carbon emissions 10 to 14 times greater per passenger than commercial aviation travel –along with additional contributions to global warming from effective radiative forcing, which can be two to four times greater than those from CO2 emissions. The National Business Aviation Association spent approximately $2 million on lobbying in 2025 in favor of legislation that gives massive tax breaks for private jet owners, like the permanent accelerated depreciation tax of 2025.Private jet ownership and use has accelerated as the number of ultra-high net worth individuals and billionaires has grown. There are 3,428 global billionaires as of this year. The median wealth of a private jet owner is $190 million, while the median wealth of a fractional owner of a private jet is $140 million.A luxury tax of 10 percent on used jets and 5 percent on new jets could have raised more than $3 billion in 2025, funds that could be invested in sustainable ground transportation.More than a third of all Airport Infrastructure Grants awarded through 2026 went to airport projects that may primarily benefit private jets, amounting to more than $1.13 billion in grant funds.Between 2019 and 2025, fractional jet ownership increased 65 percent.Substituting so-called “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs) is a greenscreen distraction. While there may be some potential for electrification of small scale short hop aviation, there is no scalable or cost-effective alternative to kerosene-based jet fuels developing at the speed of climate change. “The rest of us should not have to pay for the luxury excess of the private jet billionaire class. Our hard-earned tax dollars shouldn’t subsidize their reckless air travel habits that further harm our warming planet,” said report co-author Chuck Collins. “At a time when most ordinary people are struggling to afford groceries, rent, and healthcare, our report exposes how the ultra-rich and greedy corporations are private jet-setting at the expense of the rest of us, while trying to dodge accountability for fueling the climate crisis.” The Institute for Policy Studies worked with the worldwide community of 20,000+ open-source trackers to build a new tool (the Private Jet Emissions Tracker, or PJET) that analyzes the private-jet flights into and out of specific locations and times—like the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, or every game of the World Cup. One key solution: make private jet-setters pay their fair share.For starters, Congress should strip a private jet tax avoidance provision from the pending air traffic safety legislation, the ALERT Act. “The private jet lobby is cynically and shamelessly inserting yet another tax break for private jets into legislation to respond to the Potomac river aircraft-heliocopter crash in January 2025,” said Collins.Champions like Stephen Prince have publicly announced they have given up private jets. Meanwhile, high-profile jet-setters like Taylor Swift who have drawn scrutiny recently have yet to change their travel habits.“Since we first released our analysis on the costs of private jet travel to taxpayers and the planet in 2023, we’ve seen a shocking and irresponsible rise in the use of private jet travel,” said report co-author Omar Ocampo. “Unfortunately, the private jet lobby has worked hard to lower the tax obligations of the ultrawealthy. Meanwhile, the aviation industry pushes false solutions on the climate crisis. It’s time to stop making taxpayers subsidize luxury private jet travel and use our resources to green other industries.” Other key policy solutions: Stop another pending private jet tax break.Repeal one-year accelerated bonus depreciation of private jet purchases and pass the End Subsidies for Private Jets Act. Increase tax on private jet fuel.Levy a luxury tax on private jet sales. Roll back secrecy provisions.Stop funding and constructing new private jet infrastructure, just as some institutions have committed to no new fossil fuel infrastructure. “At a time when billionaires and the ultra-wealthy get to avoid the enshittification of commercial air travel experience, taxpayers and the planet shouldn’t bear the costs of their luxury private jet-setting,” concluded Collins. Read the full report: https://ips-dc.org/report-high-flyers-2026
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[l] at 9/17/26 7:55am
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a sweeping new directive that attempts to strip imperiled wildlife of protections from most activities that can kill or injure them.“This stabs at the very heart of the Endangered Species Act by giving federal approval to the killing of some of America’s most beloved wildlife,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Trump administration is desperate to annihilate environmental protections, but this incredibly radical measure is both cruel and profoundly unlawful. Killing endangered wildlife is illegal, whether that’s your purpose or not.”The Sept. 14 memo from Brian Nesvik, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, attempts to fundamentally rewrite the Endangered Species Act’s prohibition on “take,” effectively ending nearly all potential law enforcement activities under the Act.The unintentional or incidental killing of an endangered whale, for example, would no longer be considered illegal, even if it was easily foreseeable.“A vessel that inadvertently strikes a whale has not taken it, because the vessel’s course was not set against the whale,” the Nesvik memo says. “Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree is felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them.”The new directive goes substantially beyond the administration’s recent elimination of the longstanding regulatory definition of “harm.” It declares that prohibited “take” requires an intentional act directed at a particular animal that directly and immediately affects that animal.The administration’s July rule rescinded the regulatory definition of “harm,” which had expressly covered significant habitat modification that actually kills or injures protected wildlife. But the Sept. 14 directive goes considerably further. Rather than merely interpreting the word “harm,” the directive establishes requirements that it says apply to “take” generally — a statutory term Congress defined to include “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.”The directive also violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, where the majority rejected the contention that “take” is limited to conduct intentionally directed against particular animals.Under the new Nesvik directive, Fish and Wildlife Service personnel are instructed to look for four elements: an affirmative act; an act intentionally directed at an animal; a direct and immediate effect; and a particular animal rather than populations, future occupants or unoccupied habitat. That could radically shrink the universe of activities the government considers to constitute unlawful take.The directive could have far-reaching consequences for logging, mining, development, water diversions and other activities that foreseeably kill or injure endangered wildlife without deliberately targeting individual animals.“If you chop down a tree full of endangered birds or race a huge ship through a pod of endangered whales, you should be held accountable for your destructive acts,” Hartl said. “But this administration wants to give wildlife killers a ‘Get out of jail free’ card. Imposing new limitations on the entire definition of take is a flagrant and illegal attempt to rewrite the Endangered Species Act via unilateral fiat. This would drive imperiled species over the cliff to extinction.”
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[l] at 9/16/26 10:21am
The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) today released a new report, Citizenship and the Affordability Agenda: A Path to Better Jobs, Higher Wages, and Prosperity for All, detailing how the mass deportation agenda is exacerbating the affordability crisis by disrupting critical industries, eliminating jobs, weakening workplace protections, and driving up costs for working families. The findings come as communities continue to suffer the impact of mass de-legalization, record levels of immigration arrests and rebound from the economic toll of militarized enforcement operations like Minnesota’s “Operation Metro Surge."The report finds that a broad path to citizenship would stabilize jobs and prices across the construction, hospitality, and care industries that families depend on while raising wages for all American workers. It also examines how Congress has committed at least $240 billion to immigration enforcement, while cutting funding for programs that help families afford food and health care, including SNAP, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act subsidies — and in some cases allowing them to expire.“Deportations make workers poorer and more vulnerable to exploitation by employers,” said Naureen Shah, director of government affairs, equality division at the ACLU. “When ICE continuously raids a community, everyone pays for it – in lost jobs higher prices and damaged businesses. The only immigration agenda that actually improves affordability is one that creates a broad path to citizenship.”“Working people are paying the price for an immigration system that is destabilizing entire industries and communities and making it easier to exploit workers,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “As this report demonstrates, a broad pathway to citizenship for all would raise wages, create more and better jobs, and strengthen our economy in ways that help all of us. It’s past time to give millions of working people and their families the stability they deserve, and we call on Congress to make citizenship a top priority. Working people know that it’s not an immigrant that stands between them and a good job—it’s the billionaires—and it’s time our laws reflect that. Among the report’s key findings: Immigration enforcement enables workplace exploitation. The federal government now spends 91 times more on immigration enforcement than on labor-standards enforcement, which leaves workplaces more dangerous and enables employers to violate wage, safety, and overtime laws while crushing worker organizing. More than a quarter of workers in low-wage industries report minimum-wage violations. While these abuses are highest among immigrant workers, they are widespread enough to suppress pay and standards for all workers in those industries, regardless of immigration status.Immigration raids stunt business activity and revenue creation. Immigration raids and enforcement surges have terrified people from going to work, shopping, dining out, and participating in their communities. The report cites an estimated 8.1 billion fewer visits to businesses and between $3 billion and $14 billion in lost annual spending. For example, Minnesota businesses lost $10–$20 million a week during and after “Operation Metro Surge.”Mass deportation eliminates jobs held by U.S. citizens. The Economic Policy Institute projects continued pursuit of the administration’s deportation agenda could eliminate nearly 6 million jobs, almost half of which are currently held by U.S. citizens.Stripping workers’ legal immigration status is worsening the affordability crisis. The Trump administration’s mass “de-documentation” campaign has stopped work authorization from nearly 2 million people, disrupting key industries like construction and hospitality.A broad path to citizenship would create jobs and raise wages. Creating a path to citizenship would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and substantially raise wages for every American worker= by removing immigration status as a tool employers use to suppress pay and silence workers. This report, published in partnership with the AFL-CIO, is the third in the ACLU’s affirmative vision series, in which policy and legal experts explore how the Trump administration’s immigration agenda has harmed communities nationwide, undermined our democracy, and wreaked havoc on key industries and weakened the American workforce. The series will also outline steps that members of Congress, as well as state and local policymakers, can take to reform the U.S. immigration system and inoculate against future attacks on our rights and safety.You can read the full report here: https://www.aclu.org/publications/citizenship-and-the-affordability-agenda-a-path-to-better-jobs-higher-wages-and-prosperity-for-all
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[l] at 9/15/26 12:11am
Along with grief and loss, the anniversary of 9/11 brought home for many the "incalculable cost" of the quarter century of carnage it unleashed - the militarizing "beyond all sanity," the othering of "everyone who isn't 'them,'" the lying, fear-mongering, inflicting of terror that's left America hollowed out from forever wars now mostly against imaginary enemies within. The bleak consensus: There would be no Trump without 9/11, the senseless, self-defeating war on terror did not end, and it did us in.The commemoration of 9/11 came hard on the tawdry heels of a pointless, "historic" midterm convention by a GOP shameless enough to hoist "Never Forget" signs while utterly forgetting or at least immeasurably twisting beyond recognition what it was we vowed not to forget - our unity and humanity in the face of unprecedented loss. Instead, it mirrored the betrayal of a nation's history and values, the turning of a government on itself to morph into an engine of its own destruction. "Defend Freedom!", vaguely blared other signs, without specifying just whose freedom, or at what cost. Thus did the event's speakers giddily spiral into paranoia and conspiracy, pointing stubby fingers at their "enemies" of choice: "Terrorists. Muslims. Criminals. Antifa. Black or trans people. Undocumented immigrants. Suspected undocumented immigrants. Opinion-havers. Op-ed writers." Etc etc.And, these days, commies. Ted Cruz savaged "communists and Islamists (who) hate Christians, hate Jews and hate capitalism.” Little toad-like, wide-eyed MAGA Mike shrieked we are a nation "being attacked from within" (true, that) by Dems "beholden to radicals. We have let the barbarians inside the gate, and next year the Communists will be in Congress." (Oh, please.) Ever-slimy J.D. called half of Congress "the party of hatred (that) despises America and the people who built it." Don Jr. revisited the "dystopian hellscape" of left-wing ideology, declaring, "Communism is on the march." His demented old man said Dems "turned our cities into scenes of death, misery, murder, poverty and destruction," but thank God "we took that dark age of America and turned it into a golden age." Also, he'll give you a $5,000 bribe if you "cheat like hell" on Election Day. Inspiring.Later, at a 9/11 Pentagon event, he and his lackeys reiterated their devotion to “never forget” not to learn anything from a grievous past. Trump said his Iran debacle fulfills a "sacred oath" to "never, ever forget,“ or learn, squat. Dangerous zealot Pete said "our warriors" have "fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for half a century, that cheered on 9/11," a total lie. Iran's government and people decried the “mass murder of human beings" on Sept. 11, with huge crowds attending candlelit vigils. Sliding past pesky facts, Pete yawped Iran still "plots to kill our citizens" and "we're still sending terrorists where they belong - to Hell." Then he crudely veered to Scripture: The struggle against evil "will continue until Judgment Day, "our only answer (is) eternal vigilance,” and thank you Jesus for brave new "warriors who will say when it matters most, 'Send me.'”Startlingly for those of a certain age who, dumbfounded, watched it unfold on that blue-sky day - and then rewatched it a thousand times, trying to grasp a reality so much of the world, but not this once-shining city on a hill, has experienced - about a third of Americans are too young to remember the chaos of 9/11 - its searing images of office workers, often holding hands, plunging to their deaths; the collapse of both towers in a vast cloud of ash, dust, paper, carcinogens; the courage of firefighters and first responders, thousands of whom died that day or later of cancers; the initial summoning of our better angels as a nation came together for one another. Historian David Blight cites "the essential grief of it...a sheer sense of unspeakable loss." He also calls it "the most visual event in our history, so shocking, so horrifying that you can’t watch it without a certain weeping." Obviously, it didn't last. At first, Bush's language was of criminality, not war. The resources of the federal government would go to help victims' families and "find those folks who committed this act." He was rational: He told Congress the terrorists "practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism (that) perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam." Then - from fear, hubris, ineptness, talking to mad Cheney? - his rhetoric pivoted to the martial, the need in a new world to "win the war against terrorism." “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," he said, and new Sen. Hillary Clinton echoed him: “Every nation has to be either with us or against us." Absurdly, he vowed to end terror, evil itself, "a frightened child wishing to rid the world of bad guys." Even language warped into creepy, blood-and-soil, "Nazi-resonating" totalitarianism with the newly coined "Homeland Security." 9/11was "when things began to go wrong for the United States," argues former Bill Clinton adviser Bill Galston. When "the world's most powerful country responded to the worst terrorist attack in its history by inflicting terror of its own," we swiftly squandered our global good will, power, money, resources and whatever remained of our moral capital after decades of imperialist crimes to invade Afghanistan, then Iraq, now Iran, in forever wars born of the same lies, missteps, ignorance, arrogance and racism whose abuses and lack of accountability continue to haunt and fracture us today. Added to millions of innocent lives lost, the reflexive move to demonize, dominate or torture those seen as lesser also led to "a staggering level of the willful infliction of suffering...of gratuitous cruelty and sadism that became operationally part of the war on terror."An estimated 940,000 people were killed by direct, post 9/11 violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen; up to another 3.8 million people died indirectly in those war zones. Bush promised great military victories, as Americans learned (again) to equate national strength with the ability to inflict harm. When misbegotten wars faltered, ravaged, failed - it took the Taliban just 20 years to retake power - leaders began recycling 9/11 lies to justify new wars (see Iran), recycling hardware and manpower from the old, well-funded wars for a paramilitary and counter-insurgency force at home (see ICE), finding domestic enemies to scapegoat and target (see migrants et al), and pitting Americans against each other. In brief, after a long road of death and destruction, "The war on terror has come home."Historians debate whether Osama Bin Laden "won" after all in the dark aftermath of 9/11. He failed in his desire to establish a caliphate and expel western countries from the Middle East, but "the magnitude of the self-inflicted wounds (of) America's overreach," argues former Obama advisor Ben Rhodes, "hastened our own decline, division and betrayal of our own story.” Rhodes is often haunted by the cost in blood and treasure of what we did - and what we didn't do, say, for climate change, health care, education: "If you came down to Earth from another planet and tried to make sense of the fact that the United States spent several trillion dollars chasing a relatively small number of terrorists around a few countries, toppling governments and then fighting insurgencies when it has huge problems...you would think this is a country that has gone insane.” To The Intercept's Nick Turse, a quarter century after 9/11, "It's clear that bin Laden won." A major goal, Turse notes, "was to trap the U.S. in expensive, foreign quagmire wars that would trigger domestic economic collapse." In 2001, America enjoyed an unimaginable budget surplus of $128 billion. After decades of ruinous wars, tax cuts for the rich and too much spending on the wrong things, today's national debt is over $40 trillion, we'll pay more than $1 trillion in interest, and that will likely double in the next decade. In 2004, Bin Laden touted his strategy of "bleeding America to the point of victory," writing, "All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without achieving for it anything of note.”Of late, America's "swirl of toxic policies and overreach has opened the door to something beyond bin Laden’s wildest dreams" - the rise of a more deadly terrorist than any foreign threat or even Cheney, who deemed "quietly" waterboarding detainees "a no-brainer.” Trump, Putin's useful idiot, has "stepped into that slipstream of othering people" - a Black president, Mexican "rapists," immigrant caravans, Democrats - unleashed by 9/11, and swiftly, blithely taken nearly 4,000 authoritarian actions - 1,050 undermining democracy, over 940 suppressing dissent, 650 destabilizing foreign policy, 600 gutting civil rights, 500 spreading misinformation, and now tryiing to kill us all with greenhouse gases. Bin Laden is long gone, but his spiritual successor remains ensconced in the White House," Turse chillingly notes. "The Al Qaeda leader couldn’t have hoped for better."At last week's 9/11 remembrance, several relatives of the dead spoke out against the same "sickening, unfathomable" othering, denouncing "using this tragedy to spread hate, which does no honor to the victims." Jonathan Larsen likewise urges we find hope in the "stories of what people did when faced with the prospect of horrific death, people who had to weigh that against their own humanity." Those stories offer "hopeful messages about America" because "they’re about humanity, a humanity 9/11 was engineered to make us forget." Our own "true instincts," he argues, are "of greatness, of self-sacrifice," demonstrating "that any of us, unburdened by stupid stories about who our fellow humans are, will help each other." 25 years later, "What we need to recover our forgotten better natures are better stories." May we tell them, and hear them above the carnage, and find solace going forward. ICE, born of Bush/Cheney's ill-conceived War on Terror, brought the war home to Chicago.Getty Images
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[l] at 9/14/26 12:20pm
AI “doomerism” is going mainstream. This week the heads of major frontier AI companies ratcheted up their rhetoric about how dangerous the technology they are building is, calling for a “pause” on AI development.Digital rights group Fight for the Future, which has run many of the highest profile campaigns against the use of AI for surveillance and warfare, issued the following statement, which can be attributed to the group’s director, Evan Greer (she/her): “We can’t trust the AI industry to regulate itself. We can’t really trust anything these self-interested billionaires say. But we should take them seriously that the technology they are building is dangerous. And we should act urgently to demand strict regulation that protects people and holds AI companies accountable for the harm they’ve already done, while also preventing future harm. It’s clear that these industry leaders think they are best positioned to craft AI policy for the good of all humanity. We think that’s horseshit. Lawmakers should be listening to independent experts, researchers, civil society, and the communities most impacted. They should craft policies that address AI harm without undermining open source models or entrenching the largest players. Whether humans use AI to kill each other or AI agent swarms do immense harm, it’s clear that unregulated AI poses an existential threat to human rights and liberty, if not humanity itself. Congress should act, but they shouldn’t just do whatever the AI bros tell them to.”
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[l] at 9/14/26 10:35am
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to announce today that it will stop regulating carbon dioxide released by power plants burning fossil fuels, according to reports. If allowed to go into effect, the second largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be allowed to grow unchecked. In response, David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program issued the following statement: “With this move, Trump again subverts the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Allowing more climate-heating pollution from the U.S. power sector will deeply harm Americans’ health and our natural environment. It will also cost us money and put us further behind in the competition over the energy of the future, renewables.“The EPA’s rationale, that greenhouse gas pollution doesn’t endanger human health or the environment, is absurdly wrong, and the courts should reject it.”
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[l] at 9/14/26 10:10am
According to published reports, the Trump Administration will finalize rules to rollback carbon pollution standards for power plants, as soon as today.Following is reaction from Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):“With millions of Americans facing wildfires, heat waves and deadly storms fueled by climate change, the Trump administration is cutting the biggest polluters loose to do more damage than ever. “For the health of our families and good of our nation, this cannot stand. Ignoring the immense harm to the public from this power plant pollution is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act and of Supreme Court precedent. We will be seeing them in court."
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[l] at 9/14/26 9:53am
According to reporting, Donald Trump’s administration will propose to repeal the Endangerment Finding for power plants today – a move that would permanently strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas power plants under the Clean Air Act. This action would strip EPA of one of its most powerful tools for combating climate change. Combined with the administration’s February repeal of the Endangerment Finding for motor vehicles, today’s proposal is part of a sweeping effort to dismantle the legal foundation for federal climate regulation, leaving the EPA legally unable to act on the two largest sources of carbon pollution in the country. The proposal is another one of Donald Trump’s attempts to bolster the profits of a struggling coal industry and deliver directly on the promises EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made to the corporate executives at a National Coal Council meeting in July, where he vowed to fulfill the industry’s “wish list.” The administration has already given more than $700 million in taxpayer dollars to the coal industry, despite the immense public and environmental harms associated with burning coal for electricity, and the well-documented evidence that clean energy is now cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than fossil fuels. The handouts and regulatory giveaways come as renewable energy continues to outperform fossil fuel-burning power plants in the marketplace. It is now cheaper to build new solar energy than to build new coal or gas plants–even without subsidies for renewable projects. In May, solar energy generated more electricity than coal across the entire country. That same month, Utah generated more energy from solar than any other source. Despite Donald Trump’s best efforts, the coal industry cannot compete with solar—it’s being kept on life support by taxpayer subsidies and regulatory handouts, while ordinary families pay the price in higher electricity bills, dirtier air, and more extreme weather fueled by carbon pollution.In response, Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender issued the following statement: “While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting. This is full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time and a shocking betrayal of the American public. The Sierra Club will fight back against this reckless and dangerous proposal with everything we have in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country.” BackgroundThe Endangerment Finding is a 2009 scientific determination by the EPA that greenhouse gasses pose a significant threat to public health and the environment. It is the legal cornerstone of the EPA’s authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act – the foundation upon which vehicle standards, power plant rules, and other climate protections have all been built. The nonpartisan National Academies of Sciences confirmed last year that the finding “was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”Sierra Club has been at the front lines of the fight for federal climate standards longer than any other organization. In December 2002, the Club filed the first-ever climate case under the Clean Air Act in federal court, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gas pollution and to all of the federal climate standards that followed. Now, two-and-a-half decades later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are trying to destroy those hard-won victories in an effort to double-down on the fossil fuels that are harming the climate and environment, and driving up costs.
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[l] at 9/14/26 9:31am
Two national activist groups, Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction, announced today that they will launch a campaign soon after the November midterm elections calling for Reps. Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to enter the race for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.“As the prospective field comes into view, it’s crucial to have a strong progressive at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2028,” the two groups said in a joint statement. “Most of the Democrats whose names now crowd the field have been war enablers, go-slow reformers or status quo protectors. AOC and Khanna, meanwhile, have shown a willingness to blaze unusual and much-needed trails on Capitol Hill beyond the constraints of the Democratic Party establishment and bipartisan corporatism.”The groups said: “Majorities of voters, not just Democrats, are angry about nonstop war, runaway inflation, corporate greed and a government dominated by billionaires. The voices of Khanna and/or AOC are needed in the presidential campaign to ensure that voters hear serious solutions. Without a progressive populist advocate atop the ticket, the Democratic response would be woefully underwhelming -- enabling right-wing demagoguery to push voter unrest in dangerous and divisive directions.”Progressive Democrats of America launched the “Run, Bernie, Run” campaign in 2013, which successfully drafted independent Senator Bernie Sanders to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 -- a campaign that sparked a big part of the contemporary progressive movement.In November 2022, RootsAction launched the “Don’t Run Joe” campaign calling for President Biden not to seek re-election. RootsAction was the first national group to announce support for Zohran Mamdani in his successful run for mayor of New York.The joint statement called Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez “proven leaders and voices of clarity at a time of grave peril for our country and the world.” The groups said “we believe their presence in the race is crucial to foster debate on healthcare, jobs, AI, militarism and the U.S. relationship with Israel, along with many other issues important to a wide range of voters.”Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction commented: “The announcement of this campaign will come as a surprise to both Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez. We did not give them any advance notice of it, and they have never suggested to us that we do any such thing.”“Our organizations do not always agree with Reps. Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna, and no doubt they don’t always agree with us,” the groups said. “But we definitely want to see one or both of them in the race.”Both RootsAction and PDA are committed to helping the Democratic Party win the midterm elections, after which this campaign will launch. The groups added, “Party unity will be stronger with the expectation that the party’s full spectrum of views will be well-represented on presidential debate platforms in 2027 and ’28.”PDA executive director Alan Minsky said today: “The success of progressive candidates across the country was the story of the 2026 primary season. Yet almost all of the high-profile prospective Democratic presidential candidates are Big Money-backed status quo centrists -- at a time when the Democratic voting base overwhelmingly supports progressive policies that lift the lives of working people. We need at least one progressive champion on the presidential debate stage to counter the corporatists’ cacophony of bland incrementalism. Americans want change. Reps. Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez are two brilliant advocates for an America as great as its promise."RootsAction senior strategist India Walton commented: “Working people are hungry for leadership that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected -- leaders who do not capitulate to corporate power, who reject endless wars, and embrace policies that mean we can live healthy, happy lives. AOC and Ro Khanna can bring that vision to the presidential stage."
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[l] at 9/11/26 1:18pm
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Disaster Management, has launched an investigation into OpenAI following revelations that the company’s AI agents breached Hugging Face during cybersecurity evaluations this summer. Hawley is seeking documents and information from OpenAI about the incident, including evidence that the company knew its agents were engaging in unauthorized behavior before the breach and allowed testing to continue. Public Citizen previously called on Congress to investigate this deeply disturbing incident and hold the corporations responsible accountable for their failures. J.B. Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response: “Senator Hawley’s investigation is an important first step toward getting the answers the American people deserve. Public Citizen, alongside dozens of civil society organizations and leading experts, called on Congress in July to investigate the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident and examine the serious gaps in federal oversight that allowed it to happen. “But an investigation is only a start. Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and other leaders of frontier AI companies must be brought before Congress to testify under oath about these incidents. These companies are developing technologies with profound consequences to our digital infrastructure and public safety. Congress must follow the facts wherever they lead and use its oversight authority to determine what went wrong and what binding safeguards are necessary to prevent the next incident from causing far greater harm.”
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[l] at 9/11/26 1:14pm
A coalition of 45 faith, peace, labor, health, and political organizations is calling on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and committee Ranking Members Gregory Meeks and Jim McGovern to immediately announce plans to call a vote on Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s Cuba War Powers Resolution (H.Con.Res. 106). In a letter sent this week, the groups call on the House to vote to end the de facto US oil blockade on Cuba, which they argue amounts to hostilities that Congress has not authorized."Cuba is suffering through a man-made economic and humanitarian catastrophe, caused in significant part by deliberate policy choices of the United States," the organizations wrote.The privileged resolution — which can be called for a vote without Speaker Johnson’s approval — directs the president to remove US Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Cuba absent congressional authorization. The signatories, who include the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Church World Service, Demand Progress, Just Foreign Policy, Indivisible, the Latin America Working Group, Pax Christi USA, Peace Action, RootsAction, United Church of Christ, Win Without War, and dozens of others, argue that the de facto oil blockade in place since January 2026 meets the definition of hostilities under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.The letter describes a humanitarian emergency on the island that grows worse by the day. Already, six nationwide power grid collapses have occurred in the past year, leaving more than nine million people without power for periods lasting more than 20 hours, and with transportation stranded, inadequate water and food, and the health system forced to ration care. Cuba’s infant mortality rate has increased by 148 percent under sanctions imposed by Trump, meaning 1,800 babies have died since 2018 who otherwise would have lived.On August 6, a panel of UN experts warned that the humanitarian fallout of the sanctions escalation is becoming a full-blown crisis, threatening Cubans’ rights to health, food, development, and to life itself.The letter follows a Senate vote on April 28 to end US hostilities against Cuba — sponsored by Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and Adam Schiff (D-CA) — which was defeated on a procedural motion in a 51-to-47 vote, despite the support of Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rand Paul (R-KY). The letter notes that those 47 senators voted to affirm that this blockade, imposed without a single shot fired, nevertheless constitutes an act of hostility under the War Powers Act. The letter deems this vote to be “one of the most important stands Congress has taken against U.S. economic sanctions toward Cuba in over six decades,” and calls on the House to “take a similarly forceful action at this crucial moment.”The letter notes that under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, “the President may not introduce U.S. forces into hostilities, or situations where hostilities are imminent, without congressional authorization,” stating that “a de facto fuel blockade enforced by military assets meets the definition of hostilities.” It cites the UN Charter, which treats a blockade as a use of armed force, and the UN General Assembly’s official “Definition of Aggression,” which also identifies a blockade as an act of aggression. The signatories observe finally that the “deliberate deprivation of fuel to a civilian population also violates the 4th Geneva Convention’s prohibition on collective punishment of civilians, and is therefore a war crime under this treaty, which the United States, along with all other UN member countries, has ratified.”The signatories call for urgent action, concluding that this “moment calls for decisive leadership that enables our communities to engage in the political process and try to shape the outcomes of policies being waged in our name.”
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[l] at 9/11/26 11:33am
Today’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report shows prices rose 0.4% in August and are up 3.4% over the past year. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.3% in August alone. Gas prices reached their highest ever recorded for August, and the pressure has not let up, climbing $4.29 per gallon, up 14 cents since hitting a Labor Day record. Diesel surged past $6 per gallon for the first time ever, up more than 70 cents from a month ago, which will show up on grocery store shelves for months to come as it costs more and more to transport essentials.Rather than address the pain families are feeling at the grocery store and the gas pump, Trump this week floated an absurd rebate program, promising checks sent directly to Americans if his party is successful in the midterm elections – after promising 15 similar payments that never materialized during his second term. Under Trump’s watch, wage growth has slowed to its lowest point since 2021, while inflation has shot up and shows no signs of easing. Every day in Trump’s economy is more expensive than the last for working families. Today’s report is the final inflation print before the Federal Reserve meets next week to decide where interest rates go next, and it’s already out of date. Most of the August data was collected before Trump’s 50% tariffs on Canadian imports took effect on August 22, hitting products including wine, furniture, and dairy products, and before Trump further escalated his war in Iran and sent oil prices past $100 per barrel. Groundwork’s Senior Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Research Alex Jacquez, released the following statement:“Trump’s economy is setting all the wrong kinds of records. Working families are being forced to use credit cards to cover the basics as gas prices hit historic highs. Meanwhile, the president has imposed further tariffs on one of our closest trading partners and continues escalation in Iran. Trump promised to lower costs and improve daily life for Americans. He’s not only failed to deliver on that promise, he’s driven our economy over a cliff.”
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[l] at 9/10/26 1:43pm
At a speech at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas yesterday, Donald Trump promised,“if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000.”Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:“Even for the notoriously corrupt and lawless Trump, this explicit and desperate attempt to buy votes in the November election is a new low. Trump knows he can’t do this, and yet he’s attempting to bribe voters with the false promise of cash to help his party win an election, which is antithetical to every principle of American democracy.“Every Republican at the convention and across the country should loudly and vehemently denounce Trump for proposing this dangerous and transparently illegal scheme. The fact that no one has done that yet is cause for deep alarm about the future of American elections.”

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