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Today, six former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees filed First Amendment legal challenges to their recent firings for signing a letter of dissent. The six employees were among approximately 160 EPA employees who publicly signed a June 30th open letter to Administrator Lee Zeldin and members of Congress protesting the politization of science at EPA and warning that EPA’s actions under this administration were endangering public health and the environment.

The EPA employees filed their claims before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), a federal agency that resolves appeals from terminated federal government employees. Counsel for the fired employees includes Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), James & Hoffman, P.C., Minahan Muther Klinger, P.C., and Brown Gaines, LLC.

The former employees argue, among other things, their removals were illegal because –

• They were fired for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech;
• Their firings were illegal retaliation for perceived political affiliation;
• Their firings were an arbitrarily harsh and inconsistent punishment for their actions in relationship to other signatories of the letter; and,
• They were fired without cause.

EPA only fired a small number of employees, most of whom had long careers of distinguished government service. Many other workers who publicly signed the letter were suspended without pay for two weeks.

“Federal employees have the right to speak out on matters of public concern in their personal capacities, even when they do so in dissent,” says Joanna Citron Day, General Counsel for PEER. “EPA is not only undermining the First Amendment’s free speech protections by trying to silence its own workforce, it is also placing U.S. citizens in peril by removing experienced employees who are tasked with carrying out EPA’s critical mission.”

“Federal law protects these civil servants from arbitrary terminations,” said Daniel Rosenthal, a partner at James & Hoffman, a law firm that represents labor unions and employees. “The agency has the burden to prove that the employees engaged in misconduct and that this misconduct was severe enough to interfere with the employee’s work or another legitimate government objective. We look forward to refuting the EPA’s justification for terminating these dedicated employees.”

“If America is to remain on the course of democracy and honor the principles of its Constitution, we must allow its judicial system to restore employment for those unjustly fired and our collective faith in our country,” said Eden Brown Gaines, partner at Brown Gaines, LLC, a law firm that specializes in labor and employment matters.

“Unfortunately, the current Administration continues to attack federal employees without justification,” said Joshua Klinger, a partner at Minahan Muther Klinger, PC, a law firm representing federal employees and labor unions. “The overreach by the EPA regarding terminating a small group of employees who signed a dissent letter is in direct violation of the protections established under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.”

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See a termination notice

Look at the offending letter of dissent

Scan short bios of some of the removed EPA employees

A new report from Greenpeace USA reveals plastic recycling has largely failed after decades of being touted by corporations as a solution to the pollution crisis. The report uncovered that only a fifth of the 8.8 million tons of the most commonly produced types of plastics — found in items like bottles, jugs, food containers, and caps — are actually recyclable. Moreover, plastic recycling rates in the United States have been cut in half since 2014, from 9.5% to roughly 5–6% today. The report concludes that plastic recycling is no more of a viable solution now than it was in the 1950s.

Our team of researchers also uncovered the effort by the plastic industry, retailers, prominent plastic-reliant brands, and related trade associations — the so-called “Merchants of Myth” — to mislead the public, protect their profits, and delay regulatory action.

Major brands like Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Nestlé have been quietly retracting sustainability commitments while continuing to rely on single-use plastic packaging. On top of this, the U.S. plastic industry is undermining meaningful plastic regulation by making false claims about the recyclability of their products to avoid bans and reduce public backlash. As global plastic production continues to climb and is projected to triple by 2050, our report investigates the ineffectiveness of voluntary measures without regulatory support.

John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA oceans campaigner director, said: “Recycling is a toxic lie pushed by the plastics industry that is now being propped up by a pro-plastic narrative emanating from the White House. These corporations and their partners continue to sell the public a comforting lie to hide the hard truth: that we simply have to stop producing so much plastic. Instead of investing in real solutions, they’ve poured billions into public relations campaigns that keep us hooked on single-use plastic while our communities, oceans, and bodies pay the price.”

Despite growing public awareness of the environmental and health concerns posed by plastics and microplastics, Merchants of Myth reveals many corporations have ramped up their disinformation campaigns and aggressive lobbying – and are being backed up by a compromised government.

While the Make Americans Healthy Again (MAHA) platform pledged to address chronic illnesses linked to toxic chemicals, its recent health report largely sidestepped plastics — one of the most pervasive sources of chemical exposure. Despite growing scientific consensus on the health risks and economic costs of plastic pollution, the report offered only vague commitments to develop a framework to study chemical exposures, including microplastics, allocate limited funding for safer farming, and launch a public pesticides awareness campaign.

Jo Banner, executive director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Black history and fighting environmental racism in the frontline communities of Louisiana’s River Parishes, said: “It’s the same story everywhere: poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities turned into sacrifice zones so oil companies and big brands can keep making money. They call it development — but it’s exploitation, plain and simple. There’s nothing acceptable about poisoning our air, water, and food to sell more throwaway plastic. Our communities are not sacrifice zones, and we are not disposable people.”

Among the report’s other key findings on the ineffectiveness of plastic recycling:

• Recycling access gaps: Up to 43% percent of U.S. households lack access to basic recycling services. Participation in recycling is also decreasing.
• Infrastructure limits: Of the 380 municipal recycling facilities nationwide, only 46 are capable of processing common consumer plastics.
• Technological limits: Only 1 of 6 “advanced recycling” plants can handle mixed post-consumer waste — and even at full capacity, these facilities cannot meet the 60% recycling rate required by law.
• Cost to taxpayers: The public has to pay to collect and sort plastics, while most of it ends up in the landfill with the rest of the trash.

President Trump’s Department of Transportation today formally proposed gutting CAFE mile-per-gallon standards, which save billions of gallons of gas and save consumers billions at the pump. The agency signaled its intent to finalize the actions by year’s end.

Trump’s action is illegal because the CAFE law requires that the standards be set at the “maximum feasible” level, yet the new weak rule ignores not just the feasibility of clean technology but the existence of millions of efficient cars on the road.

“In one stroke Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs and global warming,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “The cure for pollution and high gas costs is strong fuel economy standards, not killing them as a favor to the president’s Big Oil, Big Auto and OPEC golf buddies. Trump’s action will feed America’s destructive use of oil, while hamstringing us in the green tech race against Chinese and other foreign carmakers. The auto industry will use this rule to drive itself back into a familiar ditch, failing to compete.”

The CAFE rule Trump is eviscerating would have saved 64 billion gallons of gas and delivered $35 billion in savings to consumers over the lifetimes of the vehicles covered. To do this, it would have required automakers to add gas-saving technology to make new cars average 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031.

The standards would also have slashed pollution that harms American kids, created jobs and helped check the flow of billions of dollars to OPEC and other countries.

Gutting the clean car standards will allow automakers to make vehicles that guzzle more gas and pollute more. It will force consumers to pay up to $35 billion more at the pump.

“We’ve seen this movie before when President George W. Bush’s weak standards allowed Detroit to ignore technology and churn out gas-guzzling clunkers. The result was bankruptcy for two of the Big Three and an $80 billion bailout paid for by taxpayers,” said Becker. “It’s sad that Trump invited the Big Three big wigs to tell them they needn’t make gas-saving cars while China is telling its carmakers to take advantage of the lack of U.S. competition and accelerate their efforts to grab the world’s burgeoning clean car market.”

CAFE standards are important because the United States is the world’s biggest oil guzzler, consuming 20 million barrels (840 million gallons) per day — 20% of the world’s oil use. Transportation is the biggest consumer of that oil, making strong auto standards the most effective way to cut pollution and oil use.

Demand Justice today launched a $1 million television and digital advertising blitz aimed at Senate Democrats who have voted to confirm Donald Trump’s judicial nominees – beginning with state-specific TV ads in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maine calling out Senators John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, and Angus King, as well as a national cable buy and a coordinated digital rollout across key battleground states.

See the ads here (Pennsylvania), here (New Hampshire), and here (Maine).

The ads will run on major broadcast and cable networks, high-impact streaming platforms, and targeted digital channels reaching Democratic base voters and politically engaged audiences.

A new Demand Justice report found that Donald Trump’s second term judicial nominees have refused to tell the truth about who won the 2020 election and what happened on January 6th – with nominees using nearly-identical and evasive language to talk around the facts. Yet 16 Senate Democrats have voted for at least one of these judges. If judicial nominees demonstrate loyalty to the President by accommodating his Big Lies, and not to the Constitution, it undermines the legitimacy of the courts in all future cases about the Trump Administration, including cases related to political retribution, election interference, and Trump’s corruption.

“It is outrageous that Senate Democrats are voting to confirm Trump’s judicial nominees who refuse to tell the truth about January 6th and the 2020 election,” said Josh Orton, President of Demand Justice. “This isn’t normal. If Senate Democrats don’t take a stand and strongly oppose these judicial nominees who have disqualified themselves – we will. And we won’t let up.”

The surreal and deadly lurches on. In the last, frantic, script-flipping week, MAGA went from threatening to kill Dems who reminded troops to obey the law to scurrying to parse or ignore the news their macho, bungling Secretary of War Crimes evidently blew apart (at least) two guys in the water for no reason - an action universally deemed either murder or war crime, but def against the law. Now see Kegseth et al thrash, bluster, scapegoat the other guy. Trump doctrine: Deport, raze, blame, kill first; think (sic) later.

Most notably, a flailing presidency of "malevolence tempered by incompetence" - Cue the bonkers holiday greeting, "A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at" - is now embroiled in the detritus of a toxic, slapdash revenge tour targeting perceived, if often outlandish, enemies, both here and abroad. Last week's berserk campaign focused on six, uppity Democratic lawmaker and veterans who dared post a brief video reminding the military of their oaths to follow all laws and if needed disobey orders that don't - a bedrock tenet of the military engraved on a plaque at West Point: "Should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers obey the law." Pretty radical.

The measured response from the Mob-Boss-in-Chief: Charging them with "SEDITION," "TREASON," "MILITARY TRIBUNALS," and calling them "traitorous sons of bitches" who should be "EXECUTED." Even as death threats followed, he was swiftly joined by every MAGA lickspittle, especially the lickspittlest - Whiskey Pete, the preening, fragile, manly creator of the War Dept. famed for strutting on stages to spout lethal bullshit about a "warrior ethos" that demands "more lethality, less (sic) lawyers" 'cause who needs rules and laws? Shrieking the Dems' "screed" was "despicable, reckless, and false," he zeroed in on Sen. Mark Kelly - Macho Twit Goes After Actual Mensch - announcing he'd gotten "serious allegations of misconduct” by Kelly; he'd "determine further action," and maybe recall Kelly to active duty so he could court-martial him.

It was a brilliant move by a National Guardsman whose drunken, inept, sexual assaulting career peaked in a Civil Affairs job and a weekend TV host gig until his appointment, savaged as "an affront" to anyone who ever served, especially after he leaked war plans. Veterans viscerated him as "an absolute jackass," "an imposter," "a coward," "a blowhard" in makeup, "that officer, a total blue falcon" who screws his comrades. So did pols. Sen. and former Marine Ruben Gallego: "This is fucking insane." Kelly, in contrast, is a decades-long, much-decorated Navy pilot who saw 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, an astronaut who flew four space shuttle missions including the mission to recover the Columbia crash victims, a husband who retired to nurse his wife back to health after she was shot in the head, and a respected Senator.

Kelly, who's seen worse, fought back: "He runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos (like) a 12-year-old playing army, and it is ridiculous. It is embarrassing. This is not a serious person." He noted the "wild" irony of Hegseth going after him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is what the six traitors recited: "You can't make this shit up." He posted an image of his 20-plus medals to explain how he'd served and loved this country. In response, nasty little Pete sneered to "Captain" Kelly not only did he do "sedition" but his medals "are out of order," and he'd get to that. Alexander Vindman (and half of America): "Ever heard of a picture being mirrored? Good reminder: You’re out of your depth." Shut down, Pete went after our real enemy, vowing to cut support for a DEI-infected Boy Scouts who've become "genderless" and failed to "cultivate masculine values."

This is what he's been busy doing. This is who this petty macho arrogant sadist is. This is the guy who, as the Washington Post reported days later, allegedly ordered a SEAL Team on Sept. 2, in the first of nearly two dozen military strikes on fishing boats in the Caribbean that have killed 83 mostly anonymous "narco-terrorists" in extrajudicial assassinations, to "kill everybody" after the smoke from an initial strike cleared and revealed two wounded survivors in the water, clinging to wreckage of the burning boat. "Kill them all," writes JoJoFromJerz. "That was the order, plain, deliberate, and damnable, issued by the booze and bronzer-brined (Hegseth) as if American power were his personal cudgel and human life his disposable currency. The directive slithered down the chain of command like toxic runoff." In moments, the two helpless men were "blown apart in the water."

The "double-tap" strike was needed, the Pentagon argued, to sink the boat and avoid a "navigation hazard” - a claim Rep. and Marine veteran Seth Moulton called "patently absurd," just like Trump's "novel" claim the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" with oil-rich Venezuela' and its drug cartels. Despite American opposition, to date he's threatened ground strikes, hinted at regime change, and unilaterally declared Venezuelan airspace closed along with 83 killings so politically and legally dubious the U.K. has stopped sharing intelligence on traffic in the Caribbean to not be complicit. All this, despite a total lack of evidence the victims are drug traffickers or any accountability for their deaths, and the fact most fentanyl doesn't even come from the Caribbean. One pundit: "So what gave him the idea blowing up small boats in international waters was a thing?"

Warrior Pete is on it anyway, damn near swooning from blood lust, with his dumb renaming stunt - "WAR.GOV/JOINTHEFIGHT - rabid calls for "lethality," firing of military Judge Advocate Generals who act as legal guardrails against possible future illegal commands (hmm) and queasy zeal for the fight: "Trump ordered action - and the Department of War is delivering! Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR defends our Homeland!" The WaPo story of his verbal command to "kill everybody" shouldn't surprise anyone; it's part of the long, sordid, bellicose narrative arc of a laws-are-bullshit buffoon who only feels big if he makes others small, or per Trump, "like, dead," and can then brag about it. An over-the-top, uber-macho cartoon version of a weak man willing to do anything to get by, he fits right in with all the regime's other flame-throwing hacks, clowns and sycophants.

Meanwhile, the consensus of every military expert or lawyer asked is that Hegseth is, by his actions, either a war criminal or a murderer. The legal bottom line: "There is no basis in law for the maritime attacks. Period. Full stop." Even if there were, international and US law render the targeting of defenseless persons - showing them no quarter - "patently illegal." They add, "Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options." And anyone who issues or follows those orders should be prosecuted. Many cite a "textbook war crime," as in, "If we were at war, Hegseth committed one. If not, it's outright murder." Laurence Tribe, who taught law at Harvard for 50 years, helpfully adds the DOD Law of War Manual, Sec. 18.3.2.1 includes the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders. Their key example? "Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."

Also, in case anyone ever believed Trump's "war" was about drugs: Last week he pardoned former Honduran president and cocaine kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year in a US court to 45 years in prison for conspiring to traffic over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.; with his brother, he also helped turn Honduras into a major producing hub and transit point for cocaine heading to the US, and once said he wanted to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos." That brazen Trumpian flaunting of his "charade" of a drug war may be why even key Repubs on House and Senate Armed Services Committees are saying, on the record, they may even do some oversight of this crime by their mad king among so many; it remains to be seen how many are willing to "fall on their swords" for the grossly incompetent, unsavory Hegseth.

South Park's latest, savage skewering of "fucking douchebag Pete Hegseth" may help them decide, or not. Trump sends him to town to free Peter Thiel; armed with his selfie stick but thrown out by the "woke" police chief, he teargasses the annual, Saudi-sponsored 5K Turkey Trot, mistaking the race for an Antifa mob; then he bickers with ICE Barbie - who shoots another dog livestreaming and yelling, "Like and subscribe, guys! The Department of War will not be intimidated!" Possibly confusing art with life, Hegseth tried Friday to sneeringly meme his way from the outrage by trashing "fake news," doubling down with, "We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists," and posting a grotesque, quickly blasted, parody of kids' icon Franklin the Turtle firing rockets at small boats. Up next: "Franklin Goes to the Hague For War Crimes" and "Franklin On Trial at the ICC."

The White House, meanwhile, feverishly tried to quiet the uproar. Press Barbie babbled the second strike was "in self-defense to protect Americans in vital United States interests" (sic) and insisted "presidentially-designated Narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting." Also, they suddenly found a scapegoat, Admiral Frank Bradley: "Bus, meet Admiral Bradley. Admiral Bradley, meet bus." Hegseth "authorized Adm Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. (He) worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated," said Barbie, a renowned scholar of maritime law. Pete's stupid, rank deceit reportedly set off "furious backlash" at the Pentagon. "He is selling out Bradley and sending chills down the spines of his chain of command," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "A case study in how not to lead."

The morning after the Sept. 3 attack, Hegseth told former Fox News cohorts he monitored the strike in real time: "I watched it live." At Tuesday's Cabinet circle jerk, Trump dozed from his night's hypomanic episode of rage-posting160 times, and Pete's story shifted. He saw the first strike, but "at the Dept.of War we got alotta things to do" so he didn’t stay for when "sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs" blah blah and went to a meeting; hours later, he learned "the commander had made the - which he had the complete authority to do" blah blah under bus and "we have his back." Asked if he saw survivors, he lost it: "The thing was on fire. This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices, plant fake stories, nit pick, kill everybody, not based on anything, American heroes, I wrote a book, yada yada, war fighters!

Wait. "The fog of war"? You mean the fog of bullshit? You mean the cloud of smoke you see in your air-conditioned office far away as drones on a screen incinerate small boats and the poor souls in them, or a rare survivor who desperately hangs on in the flames and water as you flick a switch to kill him too? That fog of "war"? Fuck you, you gutless piece of self-serving shit, whining you are doing "what is necessary, dark and difficult things (on) behalf of the American people." On Tuesday, the Columbian family of one victim filed the first court petition charging their husband and father, Alejandro Carranza Medina, 42, was illegally killed in a 2nd US strike on Sept. 15. They said he was a fisher who often set out for marlin and tuna; they named Trump and Hegseth as his killers. Trump had bragged that day of "a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels." He said they were "from Venezuela."

The Department of Justice has filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up pesticide manufacturer Bayer’s case Monsanto Company v. Durnell, angling for a ruling capable of blocking thousands of lawsuits brought by cancer patients who allege its Roundup product was to blame. Bayer bought Monsanto in 2018, and has since spent over $11 billion settling over 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to Roundup, whose active ingredient glyphosate is under investigation as a possible carcinogen.

The Trump Administration has repeatedly come under fire for its failure to take a hard-line stance on pesticides’ human health impacts; the recent “Make America Healthy Again” policy report avoided the issue of increased regulation altogether.

Food & Water Watch Staff Attorney Dani Replogle issued the following statement:

“The Trump Administration’s filing encourages the Supreme Court to slam judiciary doors in the faces of cancer patients across the country. No political posturing can undo the clear message this brief sends to sick Americans harmed by toxic pesticides: Trump has Bayer’s back, not theirs. Monsanto/Bayer’s push to silence cancer patients and keep the sick from pursuing justice is cruel — and Trump’s support is even more despicable.”

At issue in Monsanto Company v. Durnell is whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempts state laws that protect citizens when companies fail to provide adequate warnings about the harms their products may cause. If Bayer is successful, a Supreme Court ruling would have the same effect as the unpopular Cancer Gag Act Campaign.

A damning investigation by the New York Times has found that top White House A.I. and Tech Advisor David Sacks has “positioned himself to personally benefit” from his official government role – which he has only been allowed to hold because of his designation by President Trump as a “Special Government Employee” exempted from key financial disclosure requirements and anti-corruption laws.

The Times investigation found that Sacks – despite claims that he had sold most of his A.I. assets – has retained at least 449 stakes in companies with ties to A.I. that could be aided directly or indirectly by his policies.
The Times investigation also found that Sacks has recommended A.I. policies that have sometimes run counter to national security recommendations and has dramatically raised the profile of his weekly podcast, “All-In,” through his government role, expanding its business and sharing profits in areas such as event tickets and liquor sales, with a new $1,200 “All-In”-branded tequila.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“These revelations explain so much about why the Trump Administration’s A.I. policies have looked like a big juicy government giveaway to tech billionaires – because they’ve been written by one of them. Mr. Sacks should resign from his government role and Congress should step up and investigate whether he has improperly benefited himself.”

In April, a Public Citizen report titled “Isn’t That Special?” named Sacks as one of a dozen other high-level Trump Administration officials who, like Elon Musk, had been designated “Special Government Employees” but were likely to have disqualifying conflicts-of-interest that should prevent them from serving in those sensitive roles.

The author of that report, Public Citizen Democracy Advocate Jon Golinger, said: “The Trump Administration’s wild abuse of the Special Government Employee law has enabled people to enrich themselves from their government jobs at the expense of the American people. The SGE law should be either radically reformed or eliminated entirely so that it can never be abused like this again.”

Whew. Last week was...a week. Enraging, astounding, often venomous, with flailing small dicktator energy all around. There were pigs, dogs, bonesaws, pedophiles, tumbling polls, charming Marxists, almost everything he's done declared illegal and defiant Democrats threatened with death for, um, defending the rule of law. Sen. Chris Murphy's message to those still complacent before the growing dangers posed by a cornered, venal, fascist loser: "Maybe now would be the time to pick a fucking side."

Over the last bungled weeks of a shambolic presidency that's transmuted America into dark, ugly chaos, the wannabe king has suffered enough losses - electoral, legal, political, economic - some observers argue he's finally losing his mystifying "air of impenetrability," with polls showing him underwater on every issue, including immigration. As U.S. consumer sentiment falls over 7 points to record lows - thanks disastrous tariffs! - he has a lame 26% approval rating on the cost of living, 76% of Fox viewers say the economy is bad, and even cult members shopping for the holidays are reportedly starting to notice the dissonance between his gold ballroom and their unaffordable "groceries," even if he did invent the elegant word. Hell, they might even spot the idiocy of a guy who recently revealed he had an MRI, insisted it had "the best result," but when asked if it was for his brain raved, "I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well."

They've also finally noted his stonewalling on what is evidently, universally unpopular pedophilia, with 80% of voters blasting his handling of his dead bestie predator's files and the "wonderful secret" they shared. Even as Congress voted to release the Epstein files and Trump signed off on it, he continues whining it's "time to move on" from "a Hoax" that just deflects from his "Great Success (with) Affordability (where we are winning BIG!)" and "gaining Trillions of Dollars of Investment" and "stopping Transgender for Everyone." Hmm. A tad suspiciously, he then ordered his Dept. of Justice (sic) to newly investigate any creepy Democrat pedophiles though they already said there'd be no more investigations; asked about that disparity, a robotic Pam Bondi declaimed there is "Information...new information" but not to worry because they will "follow the law" with "maximum transparency," blankly repeating, def not from a script, "follow the law, maximum transparency," "follow the law...."

Finally, desperately cornered into "maximum transparency" after months of dissembling and deflection and lies, Trump has taken in stride his monumental failure to get his way and hide his crimes with the calm compliance of any vaguely responsible adult who knows he's doing the right thing. Just kidding. Because, "Nothing says 'I'm definitely not worried about the Epstein Files' like telling a female reporter, 'Quiet, Piggy,'" that's what he now famously did last week during a press gaggle on Air Force One en route from D.C. to Mar-A-Lago (again). Asked by Catherine Lucey, a senior Bloomberg reporter who's covered national politics for over 20 years, what Epstein meant when he said Trump "knew about the girls" - duh - he said, "I know nothing about that" but insisted on his "very bad relationship" with his longtime bestie. When Lucey began a very sensible follow-up question - "If there's nothing incriminating in the files..." he lost it. "Quiet! Quiet, piggy," he snarled, jabbing his stubby, rancid, little finger in her face.

It was, of course, "one more unforgivable thing in a list of 20,000 unforgivable things." It was the gazillionth loutish, repulsive, misogynist dross issuing from the vile anus mouth that's spewed, "be nice;" "fat pig," "keep your voice down," "not my type," "what a nasty question," "don't be threatening," "that's enough of you," "there was blood coming out of her eyes, out of her wherever," and, "they let you do it." Perhaps because it was more of the same or that no reporter stood up to it, the atrocity drew little mainstream coverage. But for many, revulsion at his aberrant, "aggressive sexism now seemingly uncontrollable by the man himself" took off. Among pols, Gavin Newsom and his take-no-prisoners press team were almost alone to speak up, loudly. Along with legit critiques - tariffs, ballrooms, gold crap, last month's 40,000 layoffs: "Cant. Stop. Winning" - there was the pig-faced builder of ballrooms, the Trump/Epstein "piggies," the "Good Night Little Piggy" and several other grotesqueries.

Speaking of: In the following days, there was also treacherous, sycophantic Press Barbie, aka Washington Rose, excusing the "hostile sexism" widely deemed not just a crass personal offense but "a political weapon (tied) to violence, a war on women that is ultimately part of the war on democracy." First, Karoline Leavitt tried out, "This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues" - with, obviously, zero evidence. When that didn't fly, she turned to calling for us, his lucky minions, to celebrate the mad king's "frankness." We should respect "the president being frank and honest," she said, returning to the "frankness" theme three more times as "one of the many reasons the American people reelected him." Also, "fake news," calling it "like he sees it," and getting "frustrated with reporters when you lie about him" - which we bet is a lot like patriots getting "frustrated" when foul regime flunkies endlessly, brazenly lie to them about fucking everything.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Lie, twist, embroider, digress, threaten, distort: Has there ever been a less "frank," more hideously two-faced, self-serving band of charlatans, fraudsters and crooks ostensibly running this nation? "Quiet, piggy" has, indeed, been said in various iterations to us all. Words have become hollow and weaponized, cudgels to deceive, subdue, silence their "enemies" - who, if they dare speak up, are pummeled by the full force of a vengeful regime. And so to the six "seditious" Democratic lawmakers, all veterans, who had the chutzpah in this dark and lawless time to urge members of the military to, gasp, obey the law. In last week's 90-second video, Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and Reps Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Jason Crow reminded service members they don't have to obey orders they believe break the law. "Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend the Constititution," they said. "Our laws are clear, you can refuse illegal orders."

Private Bonespurs, the abuser-in-chief in charge of words as weapons, went ballistic. "Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL," he thundered. "Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” For moral support, he added 16 MAGA comments; one called for hanging the perps. Still fuming, he kept raging. Soon, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??" Then, just going for it, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He also re-posted another MAGA stable genius: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” Ok. So the leader of the free speech, anti-cancel-culture party, whose frenzied campaign against potentially violent political speech after the shooting of angelic Charlie Kirk led to many hundreds of people losing their jobs for accurately critiquing Kirk's incendiary words, now accuses his opponents for encouraging political violence. Got it.

The Democratic veterans stood firm. "The president considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law," they said. "But this isn’t about any one of us. This is about who we are as Americans. This is a time for moral clarity." Sen.Chris Murphy concurred. "The President just called for Democratic members of Congress to be executed...If you're a person of influence in this country (who) hasn't picked a side, maybe now would be the time to pick a fucking side." On social media, people were aghast at the spectacle of a weak strongman spiraling down, like a cornered animal. "Good fucking Christ, what an absolute buffoon," said one. Also, "'Just following orders' is not a valid defense, and never will be." Heather Cox Richardson noted that, before 1866 midterms, Andrew Johnson called for his rivals to be hanged as traitors: "Voters were so profoundly moved by his words they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the 14th Amendment.”

Republicans, with their usual backbone, stayed silent. Reptilian Mike Johnson said Dear Leader was "just defining the crime of sedition" and any Democrat "behav(ing) in that kind of talk is to me just beyond the pale," MAGA-ese for, "You talkin' to me?" Press Barbie again defended her mob boss, shrieking Dems "conspired together" to urge the military to "defy the president's lawful (sic) orders" and we should be talking about them inciting violence. But the backlash shut her up. A day later, asked, "Does the president want to execute members of Congress?” she answered, "No." Headlines befitting the surreal timeline then dutifully reported, "Trump Does Not Want to Execute Members of Congress, White House Says." The same day, a judge declared National Guard deployment to DC an unlawful order, just like in Chicago and Portland; another, in a 233-page roast, said ICE use of force was also illegal, blasting mini-perp Greg Bovino as "evasive, violent and outright lying."

At the next "veritable Comicon for serial killers," the White House rolled out a blood-red carpet for Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Bonesaw as a giddy Trump proclaimed, "We’re more than meeting. We're honoring Saudi Arabia." Never mind his own first-term CIA found they ordered the grisly murder of WaPo writer Jamal Khashoggi: Cue a weird, gleeful, blindingly gold Oval Office meeting, a state dinner with Jewish or gay CEOs who'd be stoned or jailed by Saudis, a swap of U.S fighter jets for Saudi investment. It was jolly until ABC News' Mary Bruce rightly asked about the Saudis' role in 9/11, Khashoggi's murder, Trump's blood-soaked business deals. At her impudence, the mob boss who gets to decide who says what scowled. He smeared Khashoggi, cleared Bonesaw, inanely decreed "things happen," and went after Bruce. She was "insubordinate," "a terrible reporter" who shouldn't "embarrass our guest by asking him a terrible question.” Essentially, he told Bruce, "Quiet, piggy."

Trump’s playdate with Mohammed bin Salman took a handsy turn #DailyShow #Trump #MohammedbinSalman

It's unclear how productive the meeting will prove. At their last visit, the Saudis blithely played the idiot narcissist - SAD - with a mobile McDonald's truck; this time, headlines posited Bonesaw "got almost everything he wanted" from Trump, and pundits gravely noted, "We're still kind of waiting to see what all this actually means." Meanwhile, can-do House Republicans continue tackling vital issues of the day. After 10 months of mostly being on vacation and accomplishing virtually nothing but an Epstein vote they were forced into - and before breaking until December - they just passed a resolution, 285-98, denouncing the horrors of socialism. In a truly WTF move, they were helped by the votes of 86 cowardly Dems who evidently agreed with sponsor and Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar that, "The Mamdani socialist agenda is seeping into our country like poison," aka we can't let them make our children live under Sharia law and count in Arabic numbers and let's all panic.

The next day, Trump met with Mamdani. It was not the expected fiery confrontation; rather, a calm, savvy, charming Mamdani wrapped a star-struck Trump around his Democratic Socialist finger in a surreal scene that made MAGA heads - especially, presumably, Goebbels' bald one and J.D.s groveling one - explode. Polite, even gracious, Trump, a hollow, insecure, image-obsessed shell who "agrees with whoever's standing within 10 feet of him" and is ineluctably "drawn to the shine of respect in others' eyes," pronounced Mamdani "a very rational person," a winner who will make "a great New York City mayor." Mamdani smiled. "What the hell is going on?" asked many. Also: "Trump having a man crush on Zohran was not on my Bingo card," "You can tell Mamdani spent a lot of time ferrying loose aunties around because I don't know how else you get that kind of composure," and, "We did the same thing to our dog - insult him but with a smile and friendly voice. He would wag his tail."

In a memorable moment, one far-right dreg of the White House press corps asked Mamdani if he still thinks Trump is a fascist. Carefully starting to answer, he's interrupted by Trump mildly saying, "That's okay, you can just say yes...I don't mind." "Okay, yes," said Mamdani, still smiling; Trump pats his arm. In all, argues Bruce Fanger, it's a case study in what happens when a bully can’t rely on fear, and a principled politician refuses the role of victim. Trump, argues Fanger, needs an emotional response to his abuse - fear, flattery, even anger. "Mamdani gave him nothing," he writes of "the calm of someone who refuses to let the other person set the emotional tempo." He speaks plainly, in a "civic language," about issues. Trump, awash in grievance, ego, delusion, nostalgia, "can't decode it...They aren’t having the same conversation, (or) even on the same continent." The lesson: "Trump is only powerful when the room fears him. Mamdani didn’t. Trump folded."

At least in that moment. Then he sprang back to vitriol, bluster, lies. At length, he blasted "THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS," raved about "prices sharply down," bragged about "THE HIGHEST NUMBERS OF MY 'POLITICAL CAREER.'" More numbers: Racking up thousands of conflicts of interest, often on lavish pointless trips abroad, he's spent $71 million on 99 fucking trips to his fucking properties and many millions more on a fucking marble bathroom and Gatsby party and cheesy patio and Oval Brothel and tacky ballroom to come, all amidst kidnappings of brown people, extrajudicial murders, endless abuses of power, vast obstruction of justice and rabidly working to strip food stamps as four of ten kids in the U.S. go to bed hungry. Now, after a fucking aerial tour of Joint Base Andrews' fucking three 18-hole golf courses, three putting greens, two private practice areas and driving range, he's decided to do "some fix-up" on them: "We’re going to do some work." A fucking shameless piggy. May he fall quiet soon.

The annual UN climate talks, COP30, are entering their final hours after a fire briefly shut down the venue yesterday. Early this morning, the COP Presidency released a raft of new negotiations text including an updated version of Brazil’s Mutirão, an overarching political package for climate outcomes put forward by the Presidency. Despite its omission from the latest text, there is increasing support for a roadmap for a transition away from fossil fuels, endorsed by over 80 countries. Also this morning, Colombia led a press conference presenting the Belém Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, highlighting the growing number of countries at COP30 calling for a global just transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

Below is a quote from Dr. Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who is on the ground at COP30.

“The new texts released this morning are disappointing across the board and the Mutirão text is much weaker than the earlier version. The COP Presidency must intensify its efforts to bridge differences, including in open and transparent plenaries in these final hours, to secure an ambitious outcome at COP30.

“The lack of finance for a clean energy transition and adaptation from richer nations—a critical part of the Paris Agreement—remains an ongoing obstacle to securing bold and fair outcomes. Political leaders from wealthier countries must show a willingness to meet their responsibilities instead of once again forcing those least responsible for the climate crisis into an inequitable compromise.

“Adaptation finance, which is a top priority for climate vulnerable nations coming into this COP, has been low-balled yet again. Lower income countries are unjustly enduring blow-after-blow from climate impacts caused primarily by heat-trapping emissions from rich nations, impacts that will worsen as the world overshoots 1.5 C of global warming. A strong outcome on funding for adaptation is essential to restore trust and deliver a fair outcome at COP30.

“The Mutirão text has completely dropped mention of a roadmap for a just transition away from fossil fuels, a glaring omission of an urgent call championed here by more than 80 countries. Fossil fuels are the root cause of the climate crisis and there is no credible pathway to meet science-based climate goals without a fast, fair, funded phaseout of fossil fuels. Lower income nations cannot make this transition rapidly, nor can they close the vast energy poverty gap that millions suffer from today, without funding from richer countries. Public finance is essential.

“More and more countries are demanding a just transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy to protect people and the planet while building thriving economies. The Belém Declaration led by Colombia is a bold complement to the roadmap nations are calling to include in the Mutirão, setting a high bar for ambition. How we make the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is crucial to ensuring this transition serves the needs of people, not fossil fuel interests bent on extracting profits. In addition to ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency, a just transition must include support for workers currently dependent on fossil fuels for their livelihoods and for communities suffering from fossil fuel pollution.

“At COP28 in Dubai, nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Now at COP30, billed as the ‘implementation COP,’ world leaders must secure a just transition package that sets the world firmly on a path to turn that commitment into reality within this critical decade and beyond.”

Bronwen Tucker, Public Finance lead at Oil Change International, said:

“This is outrageous. We came here to secure a COP 30 package for justice and equity. The Presidency has presented a shamefully weak text that fails to mention fossil fuels, fails to deliver accountability towards rich countries’ finance obligations, and only makes vague promises on adaptation. The Belém Action Mechanism for a just transition needs to be protected at all costs in the final hours. But let’s be clear, we need all of these pillars to work together in one package: the just transition, public finance, and planning for a fair fossil fuel phaseout.

“A large group of countries have been vocal in their support for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, but rich parties are still refusing to deliver the debt-free public finance on fair terms that is key to make it happen. Until they stop blocking efforts to address the systemic barriers developing countries face to phasing out fossil fuels, any roadmap will be a dead-end.”

Responding to this morning’s second draft COP30 decisions, 350.org warns that the texts still lack the ambition needed to close the climate and finance gaps, even as global momentum for a fossil fuel phaseout roadmap accelerates.

“This morning’s draft COP30 decisions fall far short of the giant leap needed to close the climate ambition gap. Crucially, they don’t offer a clear and robust plan to phase out fossil fuels. The inclusion of a Just Transition mechanism is a genuine multilateral achievement with real potential to shift implementation on the ground, but without a transition plan to end oil, gas and coal we’re still fanning the flames. When it comes to finance, especially the weakened commitment to triple adaptation support, the texts lack the lifeline communities already facing climate impacts urgently need. We can’t achieve justice on the cheap,” said Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns, 350.org.

“We’re stagnating at a time when our islands can’t afford even a small amount of delay. While the Just Transition mechanism is a notable achievement, the fact that this morning’s draft COP30 statement doesn’t even mention a plan to end fossil fuels casts a shadow over our day here in Belém. COP30 needs to address the obvious cause of the climate crisis, and ramp up the finance required to adapt to it. We’re walking a fine line here between survival and climate catastrophe, and in these final hours I am hoping we can take something back to our communities that indicates that the world considers our homes worth fighting for,” said Fenton Lutunatabua, 350.org Pacific Team Lead.

This lack of clarity on fossil fuels comes despite over 80 countries publicly supporting a Transition Away from Fossil Fuels Roadmap (TAFF). Yet, the mitigation section of the draft still contains no mention of fossil fuels, relying instead on weak voluntary initiatives and vague and non-binding plans to wind down oil, gas, and coal.

On finance, the text is not the justice-focused package needed:

• A weakened call to triple adaptation finance with no clear responsibility.
• No delivery plan for the new collective quantified goal (NCQG).
• Lack of progress on innovative finance, direct access for Indigenous Peoples, and clarity on the contributor base.
• The reference to ending inefficient fossil fuel subsidies has disappeared.

The launch of the Just Transition Mechanism is a welcome and meaningful step, but without a fossil fuel phaseout plan and real finance, the world will still be adding fuel to the fire.

350.org urges Parties to match the global momentum and deliver a final COP30 outcome that is just, equitable, and aligned with climate science and justice. A viable COP30 package requires finance, adaptation and a fossil-fuel transition roadmap. Without all three, the deal cannot hold.

Big Pharma and its allies have taken corporate influence in Washington to new heights, hiring more than 500 lobbyists this year in an attempt to pass three bills that undermine Medicare drug price negotiations, according to a new Public Citizen report.

• The ORPHAN Cures Act, passed in July 2025, will delay and exempt some of the most profitable drugs – including cancer treatments – from negotiations, representing tens of billions in annual Medicare spending.
• The EPIC Act and MINI Act, if passed, would lengthen the already long delay period before small molecule drugs are eligible for negotiation — effectively excluding many medicines from negotiations entirely or shortening the period patients have access to lower negotiated prices to only one or two years.

Lobbyist hires by Big Pharma and its allies outnumbered public interest lobbyists on the Hill opposing the 3 harmful bills by over 20-to-one.

In addition to Republicans including ORPHAN Cures in their Big Ugly Bill, one of President Trump’s recent executive orders suggests Big Pharma’s lobbying efforts on EPIC are working. In April, Trump issued an executive order titled “Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First”, which essentially endorses the EPIC Act, a bill that would raise drug costs for patients and taxpayers by billions of dollars.

“Members of Congress must reject the demands of pharma lobbyists and instead work to make prescription drugs more affordable,” said Steve Knievel, Public Citizen Access to Medicines Advocate. “Instead of handing drug corporations billions of dollars by helping them evade price negotiations through measures like the ORPHAN Cures Act, EPIC Act and MINI Act, Congress should pass legislation to empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices on all costly medicines and allow all patients to access lower, negotiated prices, even if they don’t have Medicare.

The prices for the 15 drugs negotiated by Medicare with pharmaceutical companies is expected to be announced in November.

The American Gestapo's brutish, racist, unholy crusade rampages on. They've now left Chicago - trailing tear gas, court losses, manifest lies, the wrath of a people - to terrorize diverse blue Charlotte NC with its "cowardly fascist pigs doing cowardly fascist pig things." In a new "offense to history," they even named their latest depravity Operation Charlotte's Web. its author E.B. White, a stirring voice for democracy and inclusion who decried the "smell" arising from those who "adjust to fascism," weeps.

Thanks to his big butt-ugly bill's profane gift of $75 billion to thugs fighting an imaginary invasion of "criminal illegal aliens" and other forms of "domestic terrorism" by brown people, nearly half of FBI agents and countless Homeland Security workers have been pulled off other issues (like homeland security) and reassigned to round up deadly day laborers, taco makers and baby-sitting abuelas - coincidentally and not vengefully at all, mostly in Dem-run cities. Key to keeping the ethnic cleansing program churning is fascist ghoul Stephen Goebbels Miller, who sees every critic or court loss as "legal insurrection" and "domestic terrorist sedition" - what Jan. 6?- against federal government heroes who have immunity no matter their atrocities because, "This campaign of terrorism will be brought down."

Miller's fever dreams are echoed in the frenzied white nationalist agit-prop DHS spews to lure thugs to JOIN.ICE.GOV: "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out." The rhetoric is brown-shirted: "We're Taking Back America," "The Enemy Is At the Gates," "America For Americans," "We Are Asleep No Longer," and, from the video game Halo whose villains are zombie parasites, "Destroy the Flood." They've even tossed into their state-sponsored domestic terrorist campaign Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders from the Spanish-American War - "We have room for but one flag, the American flag" - evidently unaware they were famously diverse, from cowboys to elites to Native Americans. George Conway on the brazen language: "It's hard to Nazi what's going on here."

Despite lowering physical and moral standards, and offering $50K bribes, DHS is still struggling to find enough sadists, losers, "pudgy militia stooges" and Marx' “scum, offal, refuse of all classes" to fill their ranks of bounty hunters. As a result critics, often cops, say it's clear from videos of wild, ham-fisted abductions, "There's something off with those guys - they're out of control." Many cite operations "built on spectacle, not evidence," with "a total abrogation of responsibility or training" and illegal practices like chokeholds meant to "send a message of brutality..."They're just fascist shows of force to satiate the creepy desires of an old man who wants to seem macho.” In Chicago, those abuses led to multiple court orders to rein them in, and even a call from Mayor Brandon for the UN to investigate them.

Response from a Chicago bounty hunter when a resident began filming him.Photo from Bluesky

"Operation Midway Blitz," the terrorizing of Chicago's brown-skinned population from early September to last week, saw 3,100 people, including U.S. citizens and children, detained, perhaps 1,100 of them deported or agreed to leave, lively communities shrunk to ghost towns, widespread trauma, inspired resistance, and a shitshow of often deranged violence by grossly ill-trained goons. They shot at least 2 people, killing one. They repeatedly, indiscriminately shot rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, teargas and smoke bombs at protesters, journalists, first responders, pastors, and outside an elementary school. They handcuffed a city alderman at a hospital, pepper-sprayed a one-year-old in the face, beat up and bloodied the people they detained. They undertook 8 car chases that ended in 8 crashes.

In one of their most ludicrous, performative flops, they launched a flamboyant raid on an apartment building allegedly filled with Venezuelan gang members - rappelling from a Black Hawk helicopter, smashing doors, seizing families and crying kids, dragging them into the cold, zip-tying, leading away and slickly videotaping 37 victims in what Goebbels hailed as a counterterrorism victory that "saved God knows how many lives" - except all the drama resulted in zero criminal charges. Again and again, the bombastic cruelty proves both hollow and illegal: In a lawsuit about conditions at Broadview detention facility, a judge "literally ordered DHS to clean up their shit" after agreeing detainees were being held without access to beds, toilets,food, water, counsel, telephones, anything approaching basic humanity.

The malfeasance kept bigly backfiring on them. Last week, another judge, citing "repeated, material violations," ruled that 614 detainees at Broadview should be released on a $1,500 bond following an earlier class action lawsuit charging their detentions contravened a Biden-era consent decree limiting warrantless arrests; he also barred them from being deported. Of the 614 named, just 16 have criminal records, usually minor, and will not be freed. The other 97.4% were just randomly grabbed and shoved in vans, mostly while working, commuting to or from work, or at Home Depot looking for work, leaving little time for the gang murders they're alleged to indulge in. Sensibly and hysteria about terrorism notwithstanding, the judge decided it was "highly unlikely" they constitute the infamous "worst of the worst.”

Overseeing much of this hapless carnage is preening, Napoleonic, 5'4", Nazi-coiffed Greg Bovino, who goes to work "with a Bowie knife in his belt - it's all for show." Bovino often posted heroic photos of his time in Chicago, like on a Mekong-esque patrol boat - "Where streets end, our Marine Unit begins" - and when he slammed a city official to the ground and paraded him around "like in some kind of masked-domination fantasy reboot of the Battle of Midway and the London Blitz, but where the Nazis were the good guys." His contempt for heeding the law is so great that, when he got hauled before another judge in a lawsuit ripping his violence - teargassing students, no body camera, repeatedly lying, "force (that) shocks the conscience" - and she issued a restraining order, it took him just days to violate it.

On Friday, ongoing protests at Broadview erupted in scuffles that ended in several injuries and 21 arrests. Among the detainees was Rev. Michael Woolf, pastor at Lake Street Church and one of many faith leaders who've long put their bodies out there to decry a "black hole" of a facility, tell those inside "we didn’t forget you," offer weekly witness "at the picket line, amid the tear gas," and declare the moment "absolutely a spiritual emergency...We are somewhere in 1930s Germany, and whether the church is going to be silent is being tested." In this commitment, he joins Catholic bishops, journalists, rights advocates, former federal officials and other critics who've blasted the months of mindless brutality, abduction, fear-mongering and gutting of communities. One attorney: "This is not law enforcement. It is terror."

The Rev. Michael Woolf was slammed to ground at Broadview protest Photo by Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times

Still, Chicago has sought to rise to the challenge. The nation's third-largest city, with a history of fierce labor activism, it likes to view itself as "a collection of small towns with Midwest sensibilities," where "people know their neighbors (and) word spreads quickly." Organizers began building a broad grassroots coalition right after Trump's election: "We knew what was coming. Trump wants to terrify Chicagoans into submission - we aren’t having it. Mayor Brandon Johnson created an Office of Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Rights to strengthen sanctuary protections, declare an "ICE Free Zone," expand access to resources and local groups launched multiple resistance efforts, many in the largely Latino Little Village: Rapid Response teams, neighborhood patrols, ICE-spotting hotline, Know-Your-Rights flyers.

Volunteers escorted kids to school and families dropping them off; for those afraid to go out, they did grocery runs and gave out ride-share gift cards. A West Side group hosted "Whistlemania" events, packing over 17,000 kits with warning whistles, resource guides, tips on what to do if ICE turns up. MigraWatch trained over 2,000 people to monitor raids and tell people their rights. Everyone honked horns. To help often-targeted Latino street vendors - tacos, flowers, candy, tamales - cyclists organized "buy-out" events, emptying stands and delivering the goods to shelters or families in need. Pop-up events raised money for vendors, restaurant crawls helped keep Latino-owned eateries open, students held walkouts, tracked unmarked SUVs, monitored ICE hot spots to keep neighbors safe.

"The strategy here is to make us afraid. Our response is a bunch of obscenities and ‘no,’" said one resident. Of those threatened, she said, "We’re showing we care about them, even if the federal government doesn’t." Organizers also sought to create a template for other besieged cities to follow - a tactic that's evidently worked as North Carolina towns face their own "reign of terror." Tellingly, before leaving, Bovino berated Chicago as "a very non-permissive environment"; weirdly, he then gathered his gang of armed sadists in their masks and fatigues for a photo op by their agit-prop team at Anish Kapoor’s landmark sculpture Cloud Gate, or The Bean; preposterously, because they exist beyond irony, on command they shouted not "cheese" but "Little Village," the community they've been terrorizing.

Saturday, they moved on to Charlotte, which has a black female mayor and black male sheriff; he and four other black sheriffs in the state’s largest counties were all elected on platforms opposing ICE after fierce organizing by immigrants’ groups. DHS said they were "surging" agents to Charlotte "to ensure Americans are safe"; they also charged "sanctuary politicians" letting alleged criminals "roam free on American streets" "failed to honor" ICE detainers - so, keep people in prison to not hurt goons' feelings? Given Charlotte's diversity, its low crime rate, and Dem Gov. Josh Stein's charge ICE is just "stoking fear," their arrival was widely deemed "pure racism and retribution." Also, Bovino is from there and attended Western Carolina University before becoming a stormtrooper; his parents, if he had any, must be so proud.

The abuses came fast. En route to work Saturday morning, Willy Aceituno stopped at Pollo Campero to get breakfast; Honduran-born, he's a U.S. citizen. At the door, he was confronted by thugs for living while brown; he showed his REAL ID, they let him go. Minutes later, in his truck, more thugs; he declined to open his window or answer their questions with, "Why don’t you ask other people? Why just me?" They smashed his window, dragged him out, slammed him to the ground; livid bystanders yelled, "They just I.D.'ed him!", "Don't you guys coordinate?", "This whole thing's wrong, man!" and "What the fuck is wrong with y'all?" After driving off with him, he later said, they finally looked at his I.D. and let him out of the car; when he asked for a ride back, they told him to get lost or they'd arrest him again.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Charlotte, meanwhile, grew quiet, with residents "reeling" from the ugly incursion. Protesters marched and chanted, "Fuck Donald Trump"; drivers honked thug warnings; a woman in a car kept yelling, "This is an illegal traffic stop" until nervous goons pointed guns at her. But many restaurants stood empty, street vendors dwindled, small businesses and foreign markets shut down. Manolo’s, a Colombian bakery that's closed once in 28 years, did again after thugs chased and tackled customers when they left; the owner didn't want to carry the weight "of maybe a kid to lose their father or mother on their way (to) get a cake." Outside apartment complexes, auto parts stores, Wal Mart, masked agents menacingly patrolled, grabbing "whoever they see as Latino" and bumbling with handcuffs before driving off with them.

Panicked churchgoers fled after masked agents came and snatched a member as scared kids cried; one 15-year-old: "We thought church was safe." Thugs "geared up like they're in Fallujah" chased a flower-shop owner into the woods; bystanders followed, filmed, shamed them into clumsily retreating. The owner of a laundromat stayed open but locked the door behind each customer. as louts patrolled outside: "I know these folks, and I'm pretty sure they're not criminals...People need to do laundry. Laundry does not discriminate."An older woman having coffee on her porch as two guys she'd hired hung her Christmas lights chased off goons who came by "looking for easy pickings." "We've got two human beings in my yard trying to make a living," she raged. "It's an abuse of all our laws."

At a grocery store, Bovino heroically helped bulky guys in camo snare a teenager pushing carts and pin him to the ground; as agents drove out, they smirked at appalled residents filming them. And a neighbor filmed goons chasing down two women, U.S. citizens, who'd been honking at drivers to warn of a raid; as they pulled into their driveway, the guys aimed a rifle, screamed to open the car window, smashed it, hauled them off. The neighbor, in disbelief: "This is our reality now." In a scathing editorial, The Charlotte Observer blasted that reality of a hateful regime that's "already failed...with every unnecessarily smashed window, every sneer at due process, every federal agent’s smirk." While the cruelty is still the point, they write, "It turns out Americans don't like masked federal agents gleefully stomping on our core values."

An oblivious, Bovino keeps celebrating doing it anyway, crowing on social media of his success in Charlotte. He touted the arrest of a "criminal illegal" with an alleged history of drunk driving, bragging he took him "off the streets so he can’t continue to ignore our laws (like he is) and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on." He gloated about capturing his latest victim with a photo of her in tears. He boasted 81 people were detained Saturday - the total eventually climbed to 130 - with, "We had a record day today!!!!!" He added, "With some good criminals also," evidently forgetting the tired, worst-of-the-worst claim. Many had “significant criminal and immigration history,” he said, then listing minor breaches like DUI, larceny, and removal orders - which have always been, and remain, a civil offense.

His transgressions grew yet more egregious when he doubled down on the assault's grotesque Charlotte's Web shtick. Alongside a video of two victims, Bovino quoted, wildly out of context, the gentle, eloquent, freedom-loving E.B. White, who created a generous, compassionate spider, Charlotte, who uses her web and words for good, to save Wilbur the pig. "By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a little,” she says. "Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that." Bovino, deeply ignorant of lifting up a life, appropriated the words of Charlotte’s babies as they hatch and fly off: "Wherever the wind takes us. High, low. Near, far. East, west. North, south. We take to the breeze, we go as we please." He then crudely, basically added, "Us too!" with, "Our agents go where the mission calls." Just fucking fuck off, you fascist fucking loser.

Bovino, raged both White's granddaughter and literary executor Martha White and Law Dork's Chris Geidner, "is exactly who E.B. White warned us about." Geidner praises White, who once shamelessly admitted he believed in freedom "with burning delight," as "a leading voice for American democracy." In a 1940 essay, before the U.S. entered World War II, White described America's worrisome reaction to the rise of Nazism as "a sort of dim acquiescence." "The least a man can do at such a time is to declare himself and tell where he stands," he wrote, adding he was "suspicious of people beginning to adjust to fascism and dictators. From such adaptable natures a smell rises. I pinch my nose." After Charlotte, Bovino and his thugs went to Raleigh, where they were fiercely denounced; said Mayor Janet Cowell, "We didn't ask for this." Neither did 16-year old Manny Chavez. "Everyone is scared," he said. Still, he spoke up.

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A three-judge panel in El Paso today blocked a redistricting map demanded by President Trump and supported by Texas Republicans, ruling it unconstitutional because it discriminates along racial lines.

Adrian Shelley, Texas director of Public Citizen, issued the following statement:

“Today’s ruling is a rebuke of Texas Republicans who caved to Donald Trump and trampled the voting rights of their constituents. Gov. Abbott and his allies in the Legislature have forgotten their independent streak as Texans. Perhaps they can find the courage that Republicans in a few other states have to tell the president no.”

Congressional Progressive Caucus Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05) issued the following statement after the House vote to release the Epstein Files.

“Today, my Progressive Caucus colleagues and I unanimously voted to release the Epstein Files. The American people deserve to know who enabled Jeffrey Epstein, who looked the other way, and who’s still being protected. It is shameful that the pedophile protection party refused to take this issue seriously, all to protect Donald Trump at the expense of survivors who have waited long enough. While I am glad the House passed this legislation, it is unconscionable that we needed a discharge petition to get a vote because Republican Leadership refused to take up this issue. Despite an overwhelming vote in favor, we know Trump will still try to conceal the truth from coming to light which he can release on his own.

“Our Caucus is grateful for the incredible work CPC Member Ranking Member Robert Garcia did on the Oversight Committee, as well as the efforts of CPC Member Congressman Ro Khanna in helping move this legislation across the finish line. This vote would not have happened without CPC Member Congresswoman Summer Lee, who forced the vote to subpoena the DOJ.

“Survivors of Epstein’s abuse—and all survivors of abuse and sex trafficking—deserve justice. We will keep fighting to ensure the public gets answers and transparency. Today is an important step in holding some of the most powerful institutions and people accountable.”

A major outage at internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare today disrupted access to numerous websites, public services, and AI tools worldwide. The incident follows recent large-scale outages at Amazon Web Services and CrowdStrike, underscoring how much of the modern internet now depends on a small number of private companies. Cloudflare, which routes and secures roughly 20% of all web traffic, attributed the disruption to a spike in unusual traffic but has not identified the cause.

J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen, issued the following statement on the outage:

“This outage is another brutal reminder that the internet is far too dependent on a tiny handful of tech giants. For years, industry lobbyists have insisted that deregulation would spark innovation from smaller companies. Instead, we got the opposite: mass consolidation of data, compute, and infrastructure into the hands of a few dominant firms whose failures now cascade across the globe.

“Governments and companies continuing to contract with the same handful of companies are increasing the fragility of both the internet and entire economies. Congress and regulators must finally step in and crack down on anticompetitive behavior, opening markets, requiring interoperability, and ensuring smaller tech firms can compete so the entire digital economy isn’t held hostage by the failures of a few dominant companies.”

On Tuesday morning, a problem at web-infrastructure firm Cloudflare caused global outages that took down websites, video games, social media platforms, AI chat bots and more. Last month, following a similar Amazon Web Services outage, Demand Progress Education Fund and 14 other organizations sent a letter asking Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson to investigate how consolidation in cloud services can lead to these single points of failure in our economy and security.

• Read the Letter

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Education Fund Policy Director Emily Peterson-Cassin:

“Yet again, a failure at one company disrupted the lives of people all around the globe. Big Tech’s relentless drive to become the only fish in the pond and centralize the internet in their hands threatens our economy and our national security. The FTC has the knowledge and the power to help prevent this from happening again. For all our sakes, the agency must take action immediately.”

Over forty citizen’s sector organizations including the national nonprofit Physicians for Social Responsibility have sent a joint letter to federal officials warning of public health consequences of a series of executive orders by President Trump which direct the NRC to dramatically weaken Standards for Protection Against Radiation in the US federal code. The letter points out sharply disproportionate impacts on women and children from weakening existing radiation exposure standards and calls for strengthening them.

The letter is posted here. It was spearheaded by the nonprofit Generational Radiation Impact Project (GRIP) and Beyond Nuclear. and sent to US Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Surgeon General Denise Hinton, and other key elected and appointed officials.

Recent Trump executive orders direct the NRC to “reconsider” the linear no-threshold (LNT) model. The joint letter argues that this “would undermine public trust by falsely claiming that the NRC’s radiation risk models lack scientific basis, despite decades of peer-reviewed evidence and international consensus.” The widely accepted LNT model has no limit “below regulatory concern,” i.e. no level below which radiation exposure can be treated as negligible or zero-risk. Where applied, LNT takes account of proportional cancer and health risks of all tiny exposures no matter how small.

Trump executive orders direct the NRC to undertake new rulemaking and “wholesale revision” of existing radiation regulations, which would likely lead to the NRC abandoning LNT and raising allowable exposure limits.

A July 2025 Idaho National Laboratory report commissioned by the Department of Energy recommended loosening the public radiation standard fivefold to 500 millirems. In 2021 the NRC roundly rejected a petition to raise allowable radiation exposures for all Americans, including children and pregnant women, to 10 Rems a year, 100 times the current limit.

But past NRC opposition to such changes stands to be reversed by the Trump executive orders. If federal radiation regulations were weakened to permit exposures of 10 Rems a year, scientists estimate that over a 70-year lifetime, four out of five people would develop cancer they would not otherwise get.

Today’s joint letter stresses that health damage would not be evenly distributed across the population, but would disproportionately affect women and children, who are biologically more susceptible to ionizing radiation than men. And an article published today in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists cites several lines of evidence “that women and young girls are significantly more vulnerable to radiation harm than men—in some cases by as much as a ten-fold difference” and that “infants are especially vulnerable to radiation harm.”

“[NRC] bases its risk assessments on Reference Man, a model that represents a young adult male and fails to reflect the greater impacts to infants, children, and women—pregnant or not,” the joint letter states. “Newer research has shown that external radiation harms children more than adults and female bodies more than male bodies. Research on internal exposures…has not yet been sufficiently analyzed to discover if there are broad age-based or male/female differences in impact…. Existing standards should therefore be strengthened to account for these life-stage and gender disparities…not weakened. Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease and ongoing new findings.”

In cases where cancer, heart disease, and vascular degradation including stroke are caused by radiation, they are documented at higher rates in women than in men, according to 2024 UNIDIR report Gender and Ionizing Radiation.

The joint letter urges the NRC to “to stand up to the Executive Order’s marching orders to ‘promote’ nuclear power—a mission outside its legal regulatory mandate,” and adopt “stronger, science-based radiation protections….Contemporary research shows that radiation’s impact is far greater on females, children, and fetuses—the most at-risk postnatal group being girls from birth to age five. A truly protective framework would replace Reference Man with a lifecycle model.”

"All US radiation regulations and most radiation risk assessments are based on outcomes for the Reference Man,” said Mary Olson, CEO of GRIP, the organization which spearheaded the joint letter, and co-author of Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “Young men like the Reference Man are harmed by radiation, but they’re more resistant to harm than are women and children. Radiation causes cancer in women at twice the rate of adult men, while the same exposure in early childhood, will, across their lifetimes, produce seven times more cancer in young females, and four times more in young males."

"We know that exposure to radiation causes disproportionate harm from both cancer and non-cancer related disease outcomes over the course of the lifetime to women and especially to little girls, but radiation is dangerous for everyone,” said Amanda M. Nichols, Ph.D., lead author of Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “[President Trump’s] executive order will allow the industry to relax the current standards for radiological protection, which are already far from adequate. This will have detrimental health consequences for humans and for our shared environments and puts us all at higher risk for negative health consequences. "

"Living near nuclear power facilities doubles the risk of leukemia in children; and radiation is also associated with numerous reproductive harms including infertility, stillbirths and birth defects.,” said Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Hazard Specialist with the NGO Beyond Nuclear, a signatory to the joint letter. “Exposing people to more radiation, as this order would do if implemented, would be tantamount to legitimizing their suffering as the price of nuclear expansion."

This week, the Trump administration finalized a plan to open up millions of acres of fragile landscapes in the Western Arctic to oil and gas drilling.

The Department of the Interior published a proposed rule in the Federal Register revoking protections for much of the Western Arctic. The final rule will be published on November 17. Totaling more than 23 million acres in size, the Western Arctic is the largest contiguous area of national public lands in the United States.

The Department first announced its proposal to vastly increase oil and gas drilling in the Alaskan landscape in June, limiting public input to a 60-day comment period on the plan.

Since retaking the White House, Donald Trump has consistently acted to give away public lands to corporate polluters and oil and gas firms. Multiple Day One executive orders rolled back protections to make it easier for oil and gas companies to drill on public lands. Trump’s budget reconciliation law supercharged this pro-polluter giveaway, returning royalty rates oil and gas companies must pay for using public lands to levels originally set in the 1920s.

In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Loren Blackford released the following statement:

“One of Donald Trump’s first acts post-shutdown is to serve the Western Arctic on a silver platter to Big Oil CEOs. Make no mistake, leasing out our public lands to private industry is a sell-off in everything but name. This has always been Trump’s plan for our public lands – hand them over through sales, leases, and sweetheart deals that boost corporate bottom lines and sell out Americans’ natural heritage. Time and time again, the American people have shown they will not stand for this kind of giveaway to corporate polluters, and Sierra Club will continue to stand up for these majestic landscapes and the communities and wildlife that rely on them.”

As outrage grows over Chuck Schumer and Establishment Democrats’ refusal to stand up to Donald Trump’s authoritarianism and right-wing extremism, Sunrise Movement announced the launch of the most ambitious primary programs in its history, seizing on the record-breaking number of open seats and challengers across the country.

“For far too long, Democratic leadership has failed to meet the moment; it’s time to clear house," said Sunrise Movement Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay. “I’m extremely excited about the crop of candidates running in 2026. This year, we have an unprecedented opportunity to elect a new generation of leaders who are challenging our broken political system and fighting for a livable and affordable country.”

The initiative will include a nationwide field, protest, and communications program targeting over a dozen congressional primaries. Sunrise organizers and volunteers will mobilize thousands of young people to knock on doors, make calls, and take direct action to elect progressive champions ready to challenge the Democratic Party’s complacency and reimagine what Democratic leadership can look like.

In the 2026 general election, Sunrise will lead one of the largest youth electoral efforts in the country, organizing students on campuses across the country to ensure young voters turn out to reject authoritarianism at the ballot box and are prepared to mobilize in defense of election results if Trump or his allies attempt to subvert democracy.

The initiative marks a new phase in Sunrise’s continued work to confront the threats Trump poses to democracy and to build a political system that works for working people. A central focus of the initiative will be campus organizing, empowering students to resist the Trump administration's attempts to control curricula and limit political expression.

Sunrise will continue to expand its training programs to help young people identify and resist authoritarianism through nonviolent direct action and grassroots organizing. These efforts aim to equip a new generation of activists with the skills and networks to protect democratic freedoms, hold elected officials accountable, and channel this into electoral victories.

During the 2024 general election, Sunrise led one of the largest youth voter programs nationwide, making over 4 million voter contacts to mobilize young voters. The 2026 electoral program will build on this work to pressure Democrats to back policies that mobilize young voters and encourage young people to turn out to vote.