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In response to Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon’s (D-PA-05) introduction of the Take Back Our Hospitals Act, which would effectively prohibit private-equity firms from owning hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, the American Economic Liberties Project put out the following statement.

“Private-equity ownership of healthcare facilities drives up prices, lowers wages, reduces access, and degrades patient care,” said Emma Freer, Senior Policy Analyst for Healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Economic Liberties is proud to endorse the Take Back Our Hospitals Act, which would protect patients, employer health plan sponsors, and taxpayers from private-equity profiteering as the latest step towards breaking up Big Medicine.”

The Take Back Our Hospitals Act would prohibit hospitals and skilled nursing facilities that are owned by a private-equity firm from receiving Medicare reimbursements. Extensive research shows that private-equity ownership in health care is associated with higher costs, lower wages, and, perhaps most importantly, worse patient outcomes, including significantly higher mortality.

Economic Liberties has advocated for this kind of structural separation – to ensure insurers, middlemen, and other corporate entities, like private-equity firms, cannot own or control healthcare providers – since 2024, in both white papers and the popular press. In early 2025, Economic Liberties launched the Break Up Big Medicine initiative to bring together independent healthcare professionals, patient advocates, employers, and policy experts who support structural reforms across the healthcare industry. This coalition has activated for in-person events across the country, from Austin to New Orleans, and to support complementary legislation, including:

• The bipartisan Break Up Big Medicine Act by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), which would prohibit insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and wholesale drug distributors from owning or controlling providers.
• The Patients Over Profits Act by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR-04), which would prohibit insurers from owning certain Medicare providers.
• The bipartisan Patients Before Monopolies Act, by Senators Warren and Hawley and Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA-04) and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01), which would prohibit PBMs from owning pharmacies.
• The Medicines for the People Act, by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-12), which would break Big Pharma’s monopoly by creating a public option for pharmaceutical research and development.

Learn more about the Break Up Big Medicine initiative here.

As airports reach peak chaos amidst a government shutdown and massive departures by unpaid TSA agents, the regime's evil idiots moved to resolve their new quagmire by sending in the same brutal, ill-trained, much-despised ICE goons who caused the shutdown - and whose past abuses and corruption now daily come to light. The Beckett-esque result: Images of cranky travelers standing up to six hours in hellish lines overseen by aimlessly loitering henchmen: "Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful."

Late-Stage-Capitalism-Calamity #764: We probably shouldn't be surprised the dumbest president in history abetted by the dumbest people making the dumbest mistakes should have gotten around to wrecking America's air travel after his "Derp State" already decimated all our other public endeavors, institutions and systems of governance - the economy and environment along with science, education, immigration, arts, health care, civil rights, criminal justice, international aid and foreign policy, which he brags he conducts by "speaking with myself, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”

That must be why shameless GOP suck-ups just gave him another made-up award, after his FIFA and second-hand Nobel: a first-ever America First Award, per quivering Mike Johnson a "beautiful golden statue, appropriate for the new golden era in America," a move widely deemed, "unbelievably, gaga cringe levels of pathetic." Other takes on his new participation trophy: "This is the most snowflakiest president," "He should get a 'Most Mentions in Epstein Files Award,'" he got a "very special boy award" just for "insecure man baby presidents,” and, from facepalming MS Now hosts, "Stop! They did not make up another award for him!”

Out in the grim real world, the partial shutdown has left nearly 50,000 TSA agents, most living paycheck to paycheck on as little as $45,000 a year, working without pay for weeks. Nearly 500 have quit, thousands daily call in sick. Union officials say many are sleeping in cars at airports to save gas money, selling blood, taking 2nd or 3rd jobs, defaulting on loans, getting eviction notices, and struggling to afford food and gas: “They’re over their heads in debt.” Denver airport issued a “DONATIONS NEEDED!” plea for grocery or gas gift cards; Seattle opened a TSA food pantry; Chef Andrés' World Central Kitchen, which usually feeds natural disaster victims in Third World countries, is serving hot meals at multiple airports because now we are one.

Meanwhile, per MLK's famed moral arc of the universe, the past atrocities of ICE/DHS - that we watched, raged at and suspected - slowly see the damning light of day. Some are unsurprising, some "jaw-dropping," all horrific. Conditions in detention centers remain "unbelievably inhumane." Interviews and new data show ICE surges consistently hurt the cities they hit, disrupting lives and businesses, stretching thin police departments, leaving budgets and residents scrambling to absorb the fallout. The impact was less drastic in cities, counties, states that declared “ICE-free zones,” but they still left only damage in their baleful wake.

Many people and places are still fighting for due process. Minnesota A.G. Keith Ellison and other state officials just filed a federal suit in D.C. to force Trump and his goons to stop obstructing state investigators seeking to hold accountable the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whose masked killers, inconceivably, remain unnamed. The suit demands stonewalling federal officials hand over records and evidence - including Good's shrink-wrapped car in a storage facility - in the name of justice and their long history of cooperation. The DOJ's Todd Blanche: “We investigate when it’s appropriate. That is not the case here."

In another long-overdue quest for justice, 18 Venezuelan men, among at least 288 abducted from the US and trapped in El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison last year without charges, have filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanding Salvador authorities be held accountable for a vast array of atrocities. They detail harrowing allegations of torture, sexual assault, medical neglect and sometimes daily beatings for 4 months that constitute what advocates term "a human rights catastrophe" - in a place where, victims say guards often boasted, "human rights did not exist."

Concurrently, the American players behind these obscenities continue to be revealed as...obscenities. In a vile exit interview with the Times, Nazi wannabe and Miller soul bro Greg Bovino, who faces multiple lawsuits from civil rights groups, said he only wishes "I'd caught even more illegal aliens." Bovino, who called immigrants "scum" and "trash" - pot/kettle - and argued "all illegal aliens are criminals," said he sought "total border domination." In his fever dreams, he wanted to deport 100 million people, far more than the number of undocumented immigrants; in surges, he'd declare, "This is our fucking city." Not any more, shitstain.

Sadly, (not) his bosses are likewise on the decline. Former ICE Barbie, in her new LOL fake job as "Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas," faces likely investigations for defying court orders, gross mismanagement of DHS and much perjury, including her claim in Senate testimony that her eww-boyfriend Corey Lewandowski didn't approve contracts, except for the multimillion ones he did, plus "success fees." Also, it seems she'll now report not to Rubio but a lowly lackey, and Lewandowski just got canned after photos posted by the US embassy in Guyana showed the pair in a "meeting" about "cartels," aka enjoying a tropical getaway on our dime.

Finally, in a "genuine bombshell, even by Trumpian standards," it turns out ICE lied for over a year to courts and prosecutors when they claimed a legal rationale for targeting and arresting thousands of asylum seekers at immigration courts. In court documents for a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of one of over 90 cases tracked, ICE lawyers admitted an ICE memo they long cited to justify the arrests in fact gave them no authorization for them and did not apply to immigration courts. As to the incalculable damage done by ICE to those thousands of innocents, Seth Magaziner offered a reminder of all the savage rest.

So sure, brilliant move all around to inflict ICE on America's airports, though they're getting paid but TSA agents all around them aren't, and a majority of the testy, trapped travelers already want to abolish them, and amidst the surreal packs of goons in "POLICE ICE” tactical vests, with handguns, radios, handcuffs, Tasers, extra magazines - but no masks - we haven't seen a single image of any of them doing anything but aimlessly loitering - standing, sitting, gabbing, milling, strolling, drinking coffee, scrolling through phones. Mostly, says one TSA dispatch from JFK Airport, "They're just standing - very uncomfortably, it seems like."

Huh. Is it possible the Stable Genius, who knows more about everything than anyone, who when he attacked Iran didn't view the Strait of Hormuz as a potential problem, who insists his imaginary talks with Iran are "going very well" - could it be this strategic mastermind didn't think the whole ICE thing through clearly? Naaah, said dumb and dumber porcine lout Tom Homan, who assured CNN's Dana Bash Sunday night of the wisdom of a plan in the works that would be ready Monday. If it's a plan coming together in 24 hours, she asked, how well thought out could it possibly be? Cue a perfect snapshot of a perfect shitshow.

"How much of a plan does it mean (sic) to guard an exit to make sure no one comes through that exit?" Homan retorted. "These officers are well trained in security and well trained in identification. We're just expanding the thing." "So," noted The Fucking News' Jonathan Larsen. "No plan." Also, "I'll tell you how much of a plan it means! It means at least some of a plan, that’s how much of it means!" Also, Homan magically turned 24 hours into 2-3 weeks in ICE-ese, never mind ICE officers aren't even well trained to do the job of ICE - terrorize brown people - let alone be well trained to pretend they're well trained TSA officers.

Despite these deeply satisfying assurances, people had questions about a Strait-of-Hormuz, what-could-possibly-go-wrong plan to have armed, racist, ill-trained, dumb-and-dangerous-as-a-bag-of-hammers men roaming chaotic airports possibly facing a greater risk of terrorist threats during a Middle Eastern war without any clearly defined tasks. Is the plan to lock down all airports and round up people of color and anyone who resists? Will going through the wrong exit get you shot? Will ICE dress like they're attacking Fallujah? Does ICE even know if we're supposed to take off our belt or our shoes, and which one to beat us with?.

Will there be one ICE person at the exit and 12 more armed with a skin-tone chart to more accurately target victims? If someone doesn't comply, which common ICE tactic will they use: a. Body slamming to the floor b. Tazing c. Non-lethal rounds into the eyes d. Shooting 9 times e. All of the above. Will ICE dress like a 16-year-old's video game avatar, and if the plan begins in 24 hours will they have time to buy grown-up clothes? Does ICE know the long list of what you can/can't bring on airplanes - tasers, brass knuckles, how much hand cream, which books will "require additional screening?" Orwell? Kafka? Epstein Files?

Will they argue that, "Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers, our highly-trained agent fired defensive shots into the cockpit of the illegal alien pilot who was threateningly taxiing towards them, clearly attempting to ram the airport?" How will Bannon's "test run for the midterm elections" fare? Will newly, inexplicably confirmed DHS head Markwayne Mullin really "be fighting 365 days" beside workers not being paid "because of political politics," and why does he have two first names? Will ICE heed the jittery traveler who begged one, "Stop following us, please. Stop following us. Stop following us. Please."

A TSA union head said he's unsure how ICE is helping; so far, he’s seen some "give out bad directions" that ended in the parking area. Some workers say they're creating "a vibe of anxiety... Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one." And crises have arisen. Long lines delayed investigators going to Sunday's fatal collision at LaGuardia Airport. A viral video showed ICE thugs at San Francisco, reportedly tipped off by TSA, detain a Guatemala-born woman and her crying daughter as other travelers protested. DHS claimed they had an order of removal that pre-dated the airport deployment, but city and state officials reiterated, "ICE is not welcome in San Francisco."

In Philadelphia, where about half the airport’s TSA checkpoints are open, city and labor leaders blasted the ICE presence as "political theater" that creates a hostile environment while TSA agents, over half people of color, work "day in, day out without pay." It also enrages other union workers who've seen relatives deported: “Trump has broken everything.” DA Larry Krasner threatened to jail ICE agents if they "make it look anything like what you did in the streets of Minneapolis." "This is how it works," he said. "You commit crimes within (our) jurisdiction, I prosecute you...I will put you in handcuffs...in a courtroom, and if necessary, in a jail cell...And no, I don’t take a phone call from the president saying ‘Let em go.’ The president cannot pardon you."

The president, as usual, has waffled, balked and veered through the airport crisis: Blaming Dems who "want our Country to fail," insisting "no deal" until they support his Save America (sic) voter suppression bill, mindlessly menacing, "NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!”, pivoting to how he might "look at" a deal but whatever it is "I’m pretty much not happy with it." Maybe simply to trigger Dems, he's praised the unfairly maligned "beautiful patriots of ICE" who are "so proud to be there!" Though they're hated and are doing nothing, "The Public is loving ICE." Also, bewilderingly, "They just happen to have much larger and harder muscles than most." Umm.

Amidst America's carnage, ICE in airports is still surreal enough to inspire parody. From Colbert, an ICE meterology report. From The Daily Show, ICE PreCheck (with handcuffs) that speeds you through airport security: "Just pull up to the curb and a friendly masked agent will drag you by your hair directly to your gate...We choose your destination," like South Sudan. Back at the real, stressed, 6-hour-line airport, it's unclear what if any impact the roaming ICE gangs have except adding to the anxiety. Houston - Heaven, Hell, or Houston - has the highest numbers of TSA callouts. The smaller William Hobby Airport has 43%, George Bush International has almost 40%, and is, writes Hunter Lazzaro, "Hell."

"We found it," he declares. Hell is an hours-long line snaking through a dirty never-ending corridor, "carrying your luggage along, an inch at a time, staring at the backs of hundreds of other damned souls all carrying their own luggage." The hallway "extends to eternity." On bad speakers, Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA "plays forever. It never ends." On monitors, Kristi Noem "drones on about immigrants and the greatness of your nation." Sometimes, "packs of ICE agents wander by. Their job is guns." "The long hallway is the most patriotic place in the whole of the country." "There are no planes. There is no runway. There is no Terminal C. You will never reach the security checkpoint, because it is an illusion...an image painted on fog....Houston's Guernica...And the goddamn Lee Greenwood song is still playing. It should have ended by now. It should have ended yesterday...What day is it? Where were we going?... Eternal banality. God Bless the USA.

"You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." - The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

ICE agents at "work" in airports Cartoon from Imgur

Free Speech For People today unveiled a full-page advertisement in The New York Times calling on Congress to impeach and remove Donald Trump from office, as nationwide “No Kings” protests mobilize Americans to defend democracy.

The ad spotlights a growing movement of more than 1,000,000 Americans who have already signed a petition demanding accountability. It urges the public to join the campaign at ImpeachTrumpAgain.org and to participate in protests across the country on Saturday, March 28.

“Donald Trump poses a direct threat to our Constitution and to the rule of law,” said John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. “The constitutional remedy of impeachment exists precisely for moments like this when a president abuses power, defies the law, and attacks democracy itself. Congress must act.”

The advertisement follows a week of high-visibility actions in Washington D.C., including billboard trucks and projections.

On December 11, 2025, 140 Members of Congress voted to advance Rep. Al Green’s articles of impeachment focused on Trump’s threat to execute Members of Congress and his threats and intimidation against federal judges. The vote marked a 77% increase in support for impeachment in the House since the prior House vote in June of last year.

“On March 28, 2026, The People will rise up. The No Kings 3 protest is projected to be the largest mass-mobilization in U.S. history, with over 3,000 actions planned worldwide,” said Jax Foley, Free Speech For People’s Digital Organizing Strategist. “People across this country are organizing, mobilizing, defending their communities, and demanding accountability.”

“For more than a year, FSFP’s team of lawyers, election security experts, and grassroots organizers have been tirelessly and fiercely leading the campaign to impeach and remove Trump and key administration officials,” Foley continued. “We have heard from people across the United States who are with us in the call for No Kings, No Tyrants, and the immediate impeachment and removal of Trump and his co-conspirators. Put the power back in the hands of We The People.

"Millions of people are gathering across the country in nonviolent protest this weekend in the face of an ultra-violent regime," said Jocelyn Medearis-Viera, Grassroots Organizing Strategist at Free Speech For People. "The people are demanding accountability for the political violence we are seeing at home and abroad. There's a solution in the Constitution: Article 2, Section 4, the Impeachment Clause. The movement for impeachment is growing, and it's well-past time for Congress to uphold their duty and responsibility to impeach and remove this lawless president and his co-conspirators."

The full advertisement can be viewed online, and supporters are encouraged to sign the petition, download protest materials, and join a “No Kings” rally on March 28.

President Trump promised to cut energy prices in half within his first year in office. He has done the exact opposite. Electricity prices rose nearly 7% last year, with the typical household paying $123 more for electricity in 2025 alone. Now, Trump’s disastrous Iran war has blocked one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, causing gasoline to rise by over a dollar this month to nearly $4 a gallon as diesel nears all-time highs. Those price increases come on top of heightened AI data center demand, which has driven utilities to file for record rate increases. A new fact sheet from Groundwork Collaborative captures the devastating impact on American households and who they blame.

More than 66% of Americans say their electricity bills have increased over the past year, while just 5% report any decrease. The burden is falling hardest on working families, with lower-income households spending nearly six times more of their income on energy than the wealthiest families. Meanwhile, one in five Americans could not afford their energy bills in 2025, and one in three reported cutting back on food or medicine just to keep the lights on.

Groundwork’s brief explores what Americans think is driving these cost increases and what policies they want decisionmakers to pursue. Nearly half of voters (47%) say tariffs are raising their utility bills, and 65% believe the rapid expansion of AI data centers will push electricity costs even higher. A new poll from Groundwork and Data for Progress finds that a majority of voters (52%) would rather end the Iran war than take temporary half measures to somewhat lower the price of gas, like tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and pausing the federal gas tax.

Click here to read the full fact sheet from Groundwork Collaborative.

On Tuesday, Punchbowl News reported that House Democratic leaders are not planning to hold a vote on a war powers resolution for Iran this week—despite reports that they may have enough support to adopt one. With the House on recess for the next two weeks, that would mean the earliest a war powers vote could happen would be the week of April 13. Meanwhile, multiple outlets have reported that the Pentagon is preparing to send potentially thousands of troops to the Middle East and the U.S. Army has increased the maximum enlistment age to 42. Demand Progress recently released a poll showing that 56 percent of voters think a war with Iran benefits Israel more, compared to only 29 percent who think it benefits the U.S. more.

The following is a statement from Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy advisor at Demand Progress:

“It would be extremely alarming for Reps. Jeffries and Meeks to waver now on forcing a war powers vote. The Trump administration is gearing up to send thousands of troops to the Middle East and the Army just raised the maximum recruitment age to 42. Delaying a war powers vote now effectively gives Trump two more weeks to continue and escalate the war in Iran. This war is a disaster, it’s unpopular and civilians across the region are dying. This is a moment for anti-war leadership, not hesitation. The House should be on the record now, especially when reporting suggests the votes are there to pass a war powers resolution. Each day we delay increases the risk of deeper U.S. involvement and more lives lost. Failing to act now means owning what comes next. Congress must act immediately, not wait weeks.”

Today, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado held a session on “the future of Venezuela” at CERAWeek, one of the world’s largest oil and gas conferences, where she spoke in support of U.S. oil and gas companies’ return to the country with a bold pitch for a “comprehensive plan” on opening up Venezuela’s oil reserves to “100% private investment.” From the CERAWeek stage, Machado publicly offered to meet with oil and gas executives this week about exploiting Venezuelan oil assets currently owned by the Venezuelan state.

In response, Allie Rosenbluth, United States Campaign Manager at Oil Change International, said:

“María Corina Machado’s appearance at CERAWeek shows how conflict and instability open the door for fossil fuel companies to entrench their stronghold across the globe. After Trump’s attacks on Venezuela, one of his priorities was encouraging U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuelan oil – not for the benefit of the Venezuelan people, but to offer fossil fuel executives new opportunities to make a killing.

“If U.S. oil companies return to Venezuela to ramp up production, communities and the climate will pay the price in polluted air and water, elevated risks of cancer and other health problems, and severe climate disasters. Most Venezuelan oil is heavy, sour crude, among the dirtiest and worst kinds of oil for our climate. This dirty oil places the communities in Venezuela – where it is extracted – and in the Gulf South – where it is refined – at even greater risk.

“To protect communities across the world from environmental disasters and more wars for oil, we must reject extractive energy models and build democratic systems that prioritize community health and safety. The future of Venezuela should be determined by its people, not by U.S. fossil fuel executives looking to maximize their own profits.”

This weekend, former Marine, combat veteran, FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who tragically failed to take down a treacherous sociopath, died of Parkinson’s disease at 81. In response, said sociopath took a moment out from his botched, illegal, calamitous war to giddily declare of a man widely deemed "a cut above" who for five decades served his country not himself, "Good, I’m glad he’s dead," thus proving for the 7,648th time what a twisted, vile, piece-of-shit human being he is.

In what one observer calls "an epic tale of diverging American elites," both men, born just two years apart, were raised in privilege in Northeastern cities. Before famously heading the sprawling, two-year investigation into collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, Mueller lived a long life of patrician public service, much of it defending the rule of law as a registered Republican, which stood in sharp contrast to Private Bonespur's grimy, relentless pursuit of private profit. Mueller grew up in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb; he once said that within the "strict moral code" of his father, a DuPont executive, "A lie was the worst sin." He went to prep school, Princeton, NYU, and then, with the Vietnam War unfurling, Quantico and Army Ranger School.

A former athlete and newly forged Marine, he didn't just volunteer for Vietnam; he spent a year waiting for an injured knee to heal so he could serve. In 1968, he arrived in Vietnam a green Second Lieutenant, serving as a rifle platoon leader in Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division. With his Ivy League background - his senior thesis was on African territorial disputes before the International Court of Justice - he was met with skepticism but quickly earned respect as a thorough, quiet, "no-bullshit guy" who maintained his composure even in the intense combat of some of the war's bloodiest battles. After being wounded, rescuing one of his men and being airlifted out, he earned a Bronze Star with Valor, a Purple Heart and multiple other medals.

Though he rarely talked about Vietnam, he credited the Marines with instilling in him a lifelong drive and discipline. In a speech years later, he said he felt "exceptionally lucky" to have survived the war and so felt "compelled to contribute.” He went to law school, served as a prosecutor in California, was a US attorney for Massachusetts and California, and oversaw several high-level DOJ investigations before Bush nominated him as director of the FBI; he was sworn in a week before 9/11. He served for 12 years, the longest tenure since J. Edgar Hoover, under both GOP and Democratic presidents. Even at the upper reaches of power, he was respected for remaining determinedly non-partisan in his unwavering belief that nobody was above the law.

Appointed Special Counsel in May 2017 amidst political turmoil, he kept a stoic silence; he said nothing publicly about the Russia investigation, and his careful team of prosecutors leaked nothing. The probe issued 34 indictments - Manafort, Flynn, Gates, Stone etc - and named ten instances of Trump's obstruction of justice, but failed to indict him. Ultimately, in the view of many unhappy Americans breathlessly awaiting the Criminal-in Chief's downfall, Mueller waffled. To a House Judiciary Committee's query about his decision not to prosecute, he clarified, "We made a decision not to decide whether to prosecute." He added if they "had confidence" Trump didn't commit obstruction of justice, "We would so state. We are unable to reach that judgment.”

But by then, nobody was listening. Some argue Mueller was "set up to fail," if not by temperament by a corrupt system. A too-narrow mandate focused on Russia, "one slice of a much larger conspiracy," ignored "a multiplex of enemies of democracy," from oligarchs to Saudis. And slimy Bill Barr, aka “Coverup-General Barr” for stonewalling scandals from Iran-Contra to Epstein, deliberately undermined the entire process by releasing a four-page summary of a complex, 448-page report so wildly distorted Mueller himself protested it "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his work. Barr's conclusion - “No collusion, no obstruction" - was "a lie, but an effective one." No one was held accountable. Perfidious mission accomplished.

Mueller's death, nearly five years after his Parkinson's diagnosis, prompted a wide range of responses. Some found him directly responsible for Trump being, not in prison where he belongs but free to practice "the cascading criminality that has defined his public life." "I will NOT lionize someone who (failed) at the earliest opportunity to STOP this madness," one critic wrote. "Two things can be true at one time. Mueller was a patriot. And Mueller's lasting legacy is allowing Barr to bully him into silence." Friends and colleagues praised "a person of the greatest integrity" who remained "committed to the rule of law" and whose "courage could never be questioned.” Wrote former Obama A.G. Eric Holder, "Bob made the nation better."

Then there's the irredeemable, "petty, shameful, despicable," "vile and disgusting" cretin who insulted John McCain, called America's war dead “losers” and “suckers,” was disgusted by wounded troops - "No one wants to see that" - and daily, ceaselessly "shows his basic indecency and unfitness for office," or, for that matter, life. “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead," he wrote. "He can no longer hurt innocent people!” Then, malevolently driving home the tragic consequences of his moral and political Pyrrhic victory for all to lament, he signed his revolting post, “President DONALD J. TRUMP." O Hamlet, what a falling off was there. Our great, modern, inexplicable catastrophe: "Sadly, this is the president we have."

On Sunday, his lackeys placed on the White House grounds a statue of Christopher Columbus, a replica of one tossed into Baltimore’s harbor in 2020 by "rioters," aka peaceful protesters after George Floyd's murder. America was overjoyed: No more disastrous war, inaccessible health care, food and gas we can't afford, still-suffering Epstein survivors. The GOP's core principles - spite and stupidity - reign. Let them eat statues. Around midnight, he wrote, “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, TO PUT IT MILDLY!" After his grotesque post on Mueller's death, the folks at Zeteo wrote the White House asking - think Charlie Kirk - if it's ok others react like Trump at his passing. No response as yet. But Lord, how the angels will sing, and the world will rejoice.

Compare and contrast.Image/meme from Bluesky

Living in not just the bleakest but dumbest timeline, we must now witness the "off the charts clownfuckery" that is the spectacle of quivering, grown-ass Trump lackeys faithfully, fearfully shuffling around the halls of power in his fave "old-man-from-Queens" shoes - most ill-sized - foisted on them in some weird submission ritual by a sociopath with daddy issues. What he evidently doesn't know: A. They're made in China, B. Their company is suing him for his illegal tariffs. Up next: Kim Jong Un haircuts for all.

The latest manifestation of Trump's petty megalomania came to light when astute observers noticed that first Lil Marco Rubio, then other White House minions were sporting the same often-too-large shoes, which all turned out to be the $145, black oxford Florsheims regularly worn and touted by Trump. In a cringe origin story recounted by cringe JD Vance, the Favorite Florsheims Saga began at a December meeting in the Oval Bordello when Trump, always laser-focused, began staring at people’s feet and abruptly declared, "You guys have shitty shoes." He asked their shoe sizes. He (likely) ignored/forgot them. The shoes started arriving. He mercilessly badgered them: "Did you get the shoes?" And the dutiful flunkies, having already "left their manhood pickled in a golden jar on Trump’s desk," took on the latest indignity of clomping around in their sadist dad's shoes.

Rubio, Vance, Hegseth, Duffy, Lutnick, Lindsey Graham, Sean Hannity. "All the boys have them,” said a female White House official. "It's hysterical, because everybody’s afraid not to wear them." Beware trump bearing gifts: Armchair analysts took the shoe pageantry and ran with it. It's an ugly game of subjugation, an abuser's way of exhibiting dominance like the belligerent handshake, the belittling nicknames, the savage put-downs if any inferior dares to question or stray. It's a piece of "exquisite and complex satire" about the juvenile male anxiety over penis size. It's a humiliation ritual by a small, hollow, clueless, malignant narcissist with "a black hole of insecurity for a dog shit soul" whose only vestige of identity is a vulgar, outlandish brand - fake hair, fake tan, golf cap, red tie, beloved outdated "mall shoes" - he flaunts before his cowering vassals.

Historically, it's also a classic move by totalitarian leaders intent on establishing both political and psychological fealty. See Mao jackets, Heil Hitlers, Stalin humiliating the clumsy Khrushchev by making him dance at his parties, Trump's own Cabinet meetings become groveling, ring-and-ass-kissing circle jerks. Shoes can be a potent symbol in a performance: Khrushchev, in power, banging his shoe at the UN to punctuate his threat, "We will bury you"; an Iraqi protester hurling one, then two "ritually unclean" shoes at Bush - who deftly dodged - during a Baghdad presser in the ultimate sign of contempt; clowns of any variety, from circus to MAGA, rendered most ridiculous by their flapping shoes. Imagine preening Pete Hegseth, who just banned photos of himself insufficiently hot, with his tight suits and he-man Nazi tattoos, squeezed into or swimming in sloppy clunkers.

Adding insult to injury for these lame heroes of the manosphere, Florsheims, "a brand you last saw when you were cleaning out your dead grandpa’s room and they were under his bed," are uncool. Like most things, they're also the brainchild of immigrants, launched in Chicago in 1892 by German immigrant Sigmund Florsheim and his eldest son Milton. At its peak through two World Wars, a $5 pair of "genuine Florsheims" reportedly sold every 4 seconds; a timely gag in the great Chinatown, set in 1937, has Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes wading through diverted muddy water and scowling, "Goddamn Florsheims!" Its website boasts of "a reputation for being at the forefront of the newest trends while staying true to a legacy (of) quality craftsmanship"; in truth, they're now mostly found in downscale shopping malls and discount stores, struggling to escape a rep as relics of the past.

Today, Florsheim's belongs to parent company Weyco Group Inc. Unsurprisingly - so much again for the Klan-redolent "America First" mantra - they're made overseas in India, China, Cambodia, Dominican Republic. They seem to have a reasonably modern (sorry, "woke") worldview, with Black models and a Sustainability In Action program. And they're suing Trump - atypically, not just multiple federal agencies, but Trump himself - seeking refunds plus interest for the "unprecedented power grab" of his unlawful, unilaterally levied tariffs "without notice, public comment or Congressional authorization." SCOTUS already struck them down last month, citing the possible "mess" of upcoming "refunds of billions of dollars"; on March 4, a U.S. Trade Court judge basically said have at it when he ordered the regime to start paying those ill-begotten billions.

For now, the case is stayed. But many other companies are likewise demanding their money back, and so is a coalition of two dozen states. As the pitchforks come out, online wags stay busy coming up with shoe puns: toeing the line, holding your tongue, comments laced with wit, heels with no soles, a new ad for Sieg Heels: "Nobody puts the step in goosestep like Sieg Heels!” Meanwhile, our own Führer's debased lickspittles stumble across the world stage, tripping on their own moral cowardice en route to the apocalypse. They just need to remember Solzhenitsyn’s elemental advice in Gulag Archipelago: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding." Or, God forbid, flapping those clown shoes.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The Western half of the United States is entering a historic heat wave that will subject millions of Americans to sweltering conditions and is forecast to break records across California, Arizona, and neighboring states. Already on Monday, 39 million people were under heat alerts, and the heat wave will continue expanding and intensifying as the week progresses, pushing temperatures 20–30 degrees above normal across the region.

This heat wave will have massive costs. Big Oil companies should be required to help pay for these costs, given that this is exactly the kind of climate disaster these corporations predicted their products would cause.

This heat wave will impose massive costs.

This heat event will likely inflict massive costs on the region’s public health, economy, and water availability.

Extreme heat is the most lethal weather-related killer, and a heat wave in March is particularly dangerous, since people are not yet accustomed to such high temperatures. As the National Weather Service warned, this event will be “very dangerous, particularly for those not acclimated to the heat and/or traveling from cooler climates.” The 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Wave directly caused well over 1,000 deaths. This event, which features a heat dome similar to the one that drove the 2021 disaster, will likely not have as high of a death toll, but mortality could still be considerable.

Extreme heat also has profound economic effects. Heat waves have cost the world trillions of dollars in recent decades, and $162 billion in losses in the U.S. in 2024, equivalent to nearly 1% of GDP. This month’s heat wave will undoubtedly drain billions of dollars from the affected families, businesses, cities, and states.

Also alarming is the effect this event will have on water availability and fire risk across the region in the coming months. After the warmest winter on record, the Western U.S. has already been experiencing one of the worst snow droughts in decades. This heat wave is forecast to melt the region’s already disastrously low snowpack at least a month ahead of schedule, resulting in a summer of serious drought and dangerous wildfire conditions during the upcoming dry season.

This heat wave is a climate disaster.

Though we’ll have to wait for a weather attribution study to confirm the exact causal connection between this heat wave and human-caused climate change, it is clear that global warming is a key driver of this disaster. As the National Weather Service stated, “Many locations are likely to set both all-time high temperatures for the month of March and their earliest 100-degree temperature on record.” This intensity is at least comparable to—and possibly more extreme than—prior heat waves that studies have shown were caused by climate change. For example, multiple extreme event attribution studies determined that the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Wave would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change. A metastudy of these kinds of analyses found that climate change made that event between 340 times more likely and infinitely more likely, and that “the probability of the 2021 heat wave’s intensity in a preindustrial climate was essentially zero.” Scientists have drawn similar conclusions about the heat wave that baked the Southwestern U.S. in July 2023. This month’s heat wave is similarly outside the parameters of historical precedent.

As Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, put it: “We know that in a warming world we see both more frequent and more extreme heat events. In particular, that’s the most slam-dunk type of event when it comes to thinking about extremes and climate change. And this is going to be exactly that type of event. It will be, in a climatological and statistical sense, record-shattering. I’m using that language intentionally because we’re not just breaking records—we’re breaking long-standing records by enormous margins. Essentially to a point where it would be almost impossible to have heat waves of this kind of magnitude if it weren’t for the warming that’s already occurred.”

Big Oil predicted heat waves like this one and chose to cause them anyway, while lying about climate science.

A relatively small number of major fossil fuel companies are responsible for the majority of all greenhouse gas emissions generated by humanity. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of all global greenhouse gas emissions generated since 1854, and just 57 companies are responsible for 80% of the emissions generated since 2016. Climate attribution science can increasingly quantify the impact of specific companies’ emissions on specific heat waves. A recent climate attribution study published in the prestigious journal Nature found that for a number of extreme heat events, including the 2021 and 2023 heat waves cited above, the emissions of each of the biggest fossil fuel companies—including, for example, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips—made those heat events at least 10,000 times more likely to have occurred, in the median analysis.

These companies didn’t just contribute to this heat wave—they did so knowingly. For decades, Big Oil companies were internally forecasting exactly these kinds of climate disasters. In 1996, for example, Exxon scientist DJ Devlin gave a presentation to the Global Climate Coalition, a group of fossil fuel companies that colluded to spread climate denial during the 1990s, reviewing the science connecting climate change with “suffering and death due to thermal extremes.” He discussed how the elderly, sick, and young would be particularly vulnerable. And he explained the idea of threshold temperatures, referring to the point at which temperatures cross a critical limit beyond which mortality rises significantly.

In addition to extreme, lethal heat waves, Big Oil companies projected numerous other dangerous harms from the use of their products. For example, in 1989, Shell Oil Company produced a confidential planning document that predicted, based on “conventional and probably conservative” assumptions, that the continued burning of fossil fuels would cause “more violent weather—more storms, more droughts, more deluges.”

By the time of this Shell Report, the American Petroleum Institute had already spent years predicting that climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels would be “catastrophic” and have “serious consequences for man’s comfort and survival.” Meanwhile Exxon was forecasting that global warming would do “great irreversible harm to our planet” and cause “suffering and death.”

Even knowing that their products would cause catastrophic climate disasters—including lethal heat waves like this month’s—Big Oil companies developed and orchestrated a multi-decade, coordinated campaign to defraud the public about the dangers of climate change, and blocked solutions that could have prevented these disasters.

There are numerous internal strategy memos and external materials outlining Big Oil’s massive disinformation campaigns. These were designed, in the words of one fossil fuel coalition’s mission statement, to “[r]eposition global warming as theory (not fact).”

Documented tactics that Big Oil companies used to deceive regulators, investors, and consumers about climate change include:

• Publishing deceptive advertisements with false claims about climate;
• Directing bought-and-paid-for scientists to fraudulently undermine the clear scientific consensus on climate;
• Harassing and attempting to discredit scientists and activists engaged in researching and communicating the actual climate science;
• Deceptively attacking renewable energy efforts and policies;
• Greenwashing to falsely promote Big Oil products and brands as climate solutions.

There is also substantial evidence this conspiracy has delayed climate mitigation and adaptation measures that could have prevented climate disasters like this heat wave. In the words of former Senator Chuck Hagel, who co-sponsored the resolution that prohibited the U.S. from ratifying the international climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol:

“I was misled. Others were misled. When [fossil fuel companies] had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly — I mean, they lied.… It would have changed everything [had they told the truth]. I think it would have changed the average citizen’s appreciation of climate change.… And mine, of course. It would have put the United States and the world on a whole different track, and today we would have been so much further ahead than we are. It’s cost this country, and it cost the world.”

Big Oil companies have, indeed, cost this country and the world. Extreme heat waves like the one impacting the Western U.S. this month are one of the catastrophic disasters these companies predicted their conduct would bring about. They should be made to pay.

The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, in response to new revelations from the Washington Post that a Social Security inspector general’s report on phone wait times was modified after the agency reviewed it:

“Inspectors general have a crucial role, conducting independent oversight of agencies on behalf of the American people. The Trump administration is undermining that oversight at every turn.

Shortly after taking office, Trump fired the inspectors general at 19 agencies, including the Social Security Administration. This has clearly had a chilling effect. In response to a request from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) that the IG’s office audit SSA’s handling of its 1-800 number, the IG issued a report days before Christmas, when it received little attention. It also buried the most important finding:

“[A]bout 25 million calls ended without the callers receiving service either because the callers disconnected the calls, the callers did not answer SSA’s callback, SSA could not call back the callers, or all telephone lines were busy. SSA’s wait time metrics do not include the wait times associated with these calls.”

Now, it is revealed that the Social Security IG modified a report to remove the fact that Americans were waiting up to two hours to speak to a representative on Social Security’s 1-800 number. This modification happened after the agency reviewed the report — a clear violation of the IG’s independence.

It is already clear that the Supreme Court and Congressional Republicans are enabling the Trump administration’s Social Security sabotage at every turn. The Supreme Court restored DOGE’s access to private Social Security data, after a lower court had blocked it. Congressional Republicans are thwarting every Democratic effort to investigate data leaks and deteriorating service at Social Security.

Now, thanks to today’s revelations, we know it is even worse. The IG has no ability to conduct independent oversight. There is no meaningful check on the Trump administration’s Social Security sabotage. That will not change until the November elections. If Democrats take control of at least one chamber of Congress, they will gain subpoena power — and the ability to start holding those who are undermining Social Security accountable.”

As President Trump’s escalating war with Iran pushes energy prices higher, Americans are looking for ways to keep electricity bills in check. New polling from Groundwork Collaborative and Data for Progress reveals Americans reject the Trump Administration’s plan to rely on voluntary commitments from corporate actors to lower household bills.

While nearly 90% of Americans say the war on Iran will raise prices on essential items, 60% of voters also view energy demand generated by large commercial energy users as a key driver of rising electricity costs. But rather than take meaningful steps to rein in Big Tech, Trump gathered executives at the White House this month to sign unenforceable “pledges” that their companies will protect Americans from utility bill increases tied to the growing energy demands of their data centers.

Groundwork’s polling shows that Americans reject this reliance on corporations to do the right thing: 60% of voters prefer public sector leadership on energy, saying the public sector should run both grid modernization (60%) and the utilities themselves (58%), as opposed to the private sector.

The new polling also finds that most voters believe cracking down on corporate price gouging is the most effective way to lower electricity bills over simply increasing supply to meet growing demand.

Groundwork’s Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy, Elizabeth Pancotti, shared her reaction:

“Utility prices are up and consumers know the truth: these price increases are being driven by corporate greed and unchecked AI data center growth. Voters feel ripped off by the corporations who hold their utilities hostage and are calling on lawmakers to put an end to the profiteering racket. It’s time for regulators and policymakers to answer the call to protect working families from predatory utility corporations and Big Tech.”

Key Takeaways:

• Voters say their electricity bills are up and hold a range of corporate actors responsible.
  • Two-thirds of voters say their monthly electricity bill has gone up in the past year, including 21% who say it has gone up “a lot.” A plurality of voters (41%) report paying between $101-$200 per month.
  • Voters hold corporate actors accountable for rising costs of utilities including electricity and gas, in particular: utility company profits, compensation for business executives, and energy demands related to AI data center growth.

• Big Tech companies and the AI technology they create are unpopular with voters:
  • Across the board, energy superusers are unpopular with voters, with cryptocurrency companies (-28 net unfavorability), AI data centers (-16) and AI companies (-8) all underwater with voters.
  • Voters across party lines oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their community (57%) and even more (65%) say new AI data centers will raise their energy bills.
  • Majorities of voters believe the development of AI technology in general will lead to fewer jobs in their local community (51%) and the country overall (57%).

• Voters want to see federal action to lower costs and rein in Big Tech.
  • When choosing between ‘cracking down on price gouging from utility and energy companies’ versus ‘increasing supply to meet growing demand,’ six in ten voters say the former is most effective at lowering the cost of electricity, more than double who side with supply (26%).

• Voters say the public sector, not the private sector, should lead on energy:
  • Majorities of voters across party lines prefer public-sector leadership, saying the public sector should run both grid modernization (60%) and the utilities themselves (58%).
  • Voters overwhelmingly say Big Tech companies building data centers should bear the cost of grid upgrades (76% say they should pay all or most of the cost). Meanwhile, large numbers say ‘utility customers’ (62%) and ‘the government, using taxpayer dollars’ (40%) should pay nothing.

Today, Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced landmark legislation that would ensure millionaires and billionaires, who earn most of their money passively through investments, pay the same tax rates as working people. The bill would also move to close common loopholes used by the super rich to avoid paying their fair share in taxes.

Following the bill’s introduction, Morris Pearl, the Chair of Patriotic Millionaires and a former Managing Director at BlackRock, released the following statement:

“For decades, we have been playing a game of Economic Jenga where we pull from the bottom and the middle, load it all on top, and then wonder why the whole thing is about to fall down. We end up with an unfair system that allows for oligarchic wealth to concentrate in the hands of a few individuals. That’s because right now in America, our tax code makes people who have jobs and work for a living pay far higher tax rates than people who make money from investments or inheritances. The money that investors like me make passively from our wealth should not be taxed any less than the money millions of Americans make through their sweat. By closing major loopholes, the Equal Tax Act would ensure that the ultra rich pay income taxes just like all Americans who work for a living and have taxes deducted from their paychecks every week. The Patriotic Millionaires are thrilled to see Senator Markey take this important step forward in reducing historic, extreme, and democracy-destabilizing levels of economic inequality in America.”

Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03) previously introduced the House companion bill in September 2025. The bill addresses the first of three key components from Patriotic Millionaires’ legislative platform, The MONEY Agenda.

For more information about the Equal Tax Act, access a one-pager about the bill HERE. To access the full text of the legislation, see HERE.

Stand Up America’s Executive Director, Christina Harvey, released the following statement ahead of the Senate vote on the motion to proceed to debate the anti-voter SAVE Act:

"Americans are sick and tired of skyrocketing costs, state-sanctioned violence, the unprecedented corruption of this administration, and the Republicans in Congress enabling Donald Trump. Trump knows his approval ratings are plummeting and that if voters have their say in November, MAGA Republicans’ grip on power could finally slip. Instead of earning voters’ support or tackling America’s urgent problems, his number one priority is rigging the rules of the upcoming election.

"Trump has strong-armed Senate leadership into holding an open debate and vote on the SAVE Act, even threatening to block any other legislation unless Congress does his bidding. The SAVE Act would make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote and hand Trump’s Department of Homeland Security the power to tell states who to purge from the voter rolls.

"Senators should reject this desperate attack on our freedom to vote."

Woefully belatedly - but seeking hope and light - we honor the remarkable life of Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, who over six decades "stepped forward again and again and again" to fight for racial, social, economic justice for millions of the disenfranchised. At a moving "Homegoing," his kids offered soul-stirring tributes to the impassioned, "prophetic voice" of a man of faith who doggedly "opened doors, kicked them down when necessary, so that others were no longer locked out....You fought a good fight."

Two ceremonies over two days of prayers, pride, tears, laughs, eulogies and gospel music sought in their own singular ways to celebrate the long rich life life of Jesse Jackson - pastor, activist, organizer, two-time presidential candidate, and head of an ever-evolving "rainbow coalition” of the poor and dispossessed that sought to bridge all conceivable divides. When Jackson died in February at age 84, he was hailed as "a civil rights giant," and he was. On April 4, 1968 in Memphis, the then-26-year-old aide to Martin Luther King was standing in the courtyard below the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, talking to King moments before he was shot and killed. Jackson carried on King's work in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference until 1971, when he resigned amidst leadership changes to form what became the Rainbow PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) Coalition.

But his work grew ever broader, working for decades on multiple fronts for multiple social justice issues in America and around the world. He pushed for voting rights, Native rights, Palestinian rights, welfare rights, tenants' rights, prisoners' rights, women's and gay and trans rights; he led boycotts, fair wage battles, union organizing campaigns; he fought against apartheid in South Africa and helped facilitate the release of U.S. hostages in Iran. He spent years spreading the mantra, per his iconic 1972 appearance on Sesame Street with a ragtag, multi--hued bunch of kids, "I am somebody." A simple message with a big meaning, it hit its mark again and again. "When I hear the phrase 'I am somebody,'" said 13-year-old Daniel Russell-Vincent, attending the March 6 People’s Celebration with his parents, "that makes me think, 'You're going to have something to do with this world.'"

That official, five-hour gathering - video here - was held at the 10,000-seat sanctuary of the House of Hope Church on Chicago’s South Side. It drew three former US presidents, white and black pols from Maxine Waters (87) to Tennessee's Justin Pearson (31), local pastors and dignitaries, the presidents of Congo and South Africa, and thousands of regular Chicagoans who skipped work, drove for hours, and stood in long lines to "show up and say what (Jesse) meant to us, and more importantly what he stood for....Every single person here has a Jesse Jackson story." "The city of Chicago shared him with the whole world," said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. "He was ours, and we were his." "This man has been here my whole life, saying, 'I got you,'" said Detroit Pistons Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side. "That's what Rev. Jesse Jackson means to us in Chicago."

The speeches were eloquent. Bill Clinton: "He lived a big life. He lived with his head and with his heart." Kamala Harris: "He did not waste time waiting, even when the doors in front of him were barred and bolted." Joe Biden: "Jesse kept hope alive for us." Barack Obama, with the stately oratory he draws on in moments of loss, spoke of a child of a poor single mother whose father rejected him, whose first political act was to lead seven black students into a whites-only college library, where they sat down, refused to leave and "got arrested for reading. Think about that. That's how freedom opens its doors." In the Book of Isaiah, he said, "God is looking for a messenger to guide a hardened and resistant people, and the Lord asks, 'Who shall I send?' to which Isaiah replies, 'Here I am, Lord, send me.' Send me, Jesse said, even as a young man. And the world got a little bit better."

He recounted Jackson's life, from his sharecropper family to the Chicago Theological Seminary to Operation Breadbasket to, after MLK's murder, a "country weary of the idea of justice," where "a talker with his immense gifts...rose above despair, and kept that righteous flame alive." "When the poor and dispossessed needed a champion and the country needed healing, the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson stepped forward again and again and again, and said, 'Send me,'" Obama declared, "even while growing up in a world separate and unequal, a world designed to tell a child that he or she could only go so far...'I am somebody.' He was talking about everyone who was left out, everyone who was forgotten, everyone who was unseen (and) unheard. And in that sense he was expressing the very essence of what our democracy should be, the ideals at the very heart of the American experiment."

Jackson also "paved the way for so many to follow." In 1984, as another child of a single mom and new college grad "with good intentions but uncertain how to serve," living in a "janky apartment" with a rabbit-eared-TV, he saw Jackson "own" his first presidential debate. Drawn to Chicago as a young organizer, he went to PUSH headquarters on Saturday mornings "to listen and learn...and when Jesse called your name, you stood up a little straighter (to) make things right." Today, "it can be hard to hope," when each day "you wake up to things you didn’t think were possible" - greed, bigotry, ignorance, cruelty - and "it's tempting to just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass." "But this man," he said, voice breaking, pointing to the coffin, "inspires us to take a harder path. He calls on us (to) be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, 'Send me'...'Cause if we don't step up, no one else will."

The next day, a private, emotional "Homegoing" at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters drew local leaders, allies, friends and family to a celebration where several of Jackson's six grown kids - all at the podium, proof "he raised smart, God-fearing children" - gave searing speeches that often drew tears and amen's from the lively crowd. (Full, moving video here). Jackson had been in failing health for several years; his daughter Jacqueline, his main caregiver, thanked the thousands of doctors, nurses, cooks, Uber drivers and other caretakers who helped him through that time. His son Yusef, who now leads the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, vowed their work will continue "in his name." His eldest son Jesse Jackson Jr., seeking to tell the crowd "who my daddy was" and often weeping as he did, wove a forceful, complex tale that moved from light to darkness and back again.

"We are burying our father today," he declared with feeling, before praising his father's "consistent, prophetic voice." "Who was Jesse Jackson?" he asked. "To the political class that took up most of his time, he was a stranger awaiting a return phone call, reminding (them) of the urgency of the hour." At the same time, critiquing the former day's speeches portraying his father in strictly political terms, he insisted that as a Baptist minister and man of faith "he had a tense relationship with the political order," not based on race or party but "on his unyielding advocacy for the disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected." As such, he demanded solutions "deeply rooted in his own Christian faith," in "his own sense of urgency," and in "the daily lives of (those) he sought to raise up...He took the ministry from Sunday morning, and he delivered it to the people.”

He was also "a funny man, an enjoyable man," he noted. When he was born, his father was doing voter registration work in Selma, and was so overwhelmed by his son's birth "he almost named me Selma." But there were dark times as well: "Being Jesse has not been easy - such was the name of Jesse Jackson." A former Congressman, Jackson Jr. struggled with bipolar depression, and ended up doing time in prison after a 2013 campaign fraud conviction ended his 17-year political career. He tearfully described feeling despair "in the hole," pleading with his father to "get me outta here," and his father urging, "Hold your head up high, son." (Jackson Sr. sought a pardon from Biden, who refused it.) In his soaring, painful, heartfelt eulogy, Jackson Jr. described his father as a transformative figure who "we turned to in our lowest hours...We are better because he lived."

He was echoed by his brother and U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, who in a soaring speech called their father "a miracle, a special occurrence, a force of nature (who) would not be denied." He praised "the iterations of Jesse Jackson Sr. we have seen...Born to be a nobody, he was too tall to hide, too poor to be included, too black to be respected, too bold to be ignored...Look at what the Lord has done." Above all, he said his father was not a politician but "a public servant." The measure of his humanity: "Only somebody who's been claimed by something greater than themselves can stand up for people whose names they don't even know. My father tried to help somebody, to love somebody, to let every child know he is somebody. My father wanted to make sure the world he was leaving was better than the world he was born into. He tried to make the crooked way straight."

Jesse Louis Jackson was, of course, fully human. For decades, he tried mightily, and sometimes he failed. But, his son argued, "He honored the ideals of the Constitution more than any of the 25 slave-holders who signed it in their hypocrisy, and he believed in America more than America believed in itself." Calling out to his father's many mentors - Martin Luther KingJr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Nehru, Gandhi, Castro, all the freedom fighters - Jonathan said, "We have not forgotten, and we will keep fighting for the peacemakers, for civil rights, for equity, diversity, inclusion." Rise, Jesse, rise. Amidst the base, ghastly human dregs that now inhabit our national landscape and wield harrowing power over it, here lived a great man. May he rest in peace and power.

An attendee at the People's Celebration for the Rev. Jesse Jackson holds a program with his imagePhoto by K'Von Jackson

Texas-based company Sable Offshore Corp. announced today that it has restarted oil flow through the pipeline that ruptured and caused one of California’s largest oil spills on the Santa Barbara coast in 2015.

The restart occurred just one day after the Trump administration issued an order under the Defense Production Act, at Sable’s request, directing the company to “prioritize and allocate pipeline transportation services for hydrocarbons…” and “immediately commence performance under contracts or orders for services.”

“I’m distressed and saddened that California’s coast now faces the threat of another oil disaster from this unsafe pipeline,” said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For the sake of the incredible Pacific ocean and all of its wildlife, the community has worked so hard to make sure we’d never see oil flowing through this defective pipeline again. This is a dark day for California and I urge state officials to keep standing up to Trump’s bullying. We’ll keep fighting as hard as we can to protect Santa Barbara’s coast and end offshore drilling in the state once and for all.”

On Saturday State Parks rejected Sable’s application for an easement to use Gaviota State Park for pipeline transport and ordered it to immediately remove the 4-mile section of the pipeline that runs through the park.

The pipeline has been shut down since the massive 2015 spill at Refugio State Beach. Upon investigation, it was determined that the rupture was the result of progressive external corrosion, which remains a threat for the defective pipelines.

In attempting to restart the defective onshore pipeline, Sable has run into widespread public opposition and accumulated a series of state law violations and criminal charges. To date, Sable has still not received all necessary approvals for a restart from California state agencies, including the Coastal Commission.

The Trump administration “Pipeline Capacity Prioritization and Allocation Order” was issued at Sable’s request. Sable appears to be relying upon a recent legal opinion from the Department of Justice to assert that the order preempts state and federal law to allow a restart of the embattled oil project. Such a result would be radical and unprecedented.

“The cynical misuse of a national security law for the benefit an oil company that has repeatedly broken the law is a shocking development, even from this administration,” said Bradshaw. “The courts shouldn’t put up with this brazen abuse of power.”

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wishtoyo Foundation have a pending lawsuit against the Office of the State Fire Marshal regarding the restart, along with a similar lawsuit and request for relief from the Environmental Defense Center. Those cases challenge the agency’s issuance of waivers from corrosion-related pipeline safety requirements without any environmental review, public notice, or opportunity for a hearing. In October the State Fire Marshal informed Sable that its corrosion related repair work failed to meet standards required for restart.

In July 2025 the groups won a preliminary injunction, which was recently upheld by the court. They filed the request in response to Sable’s May 2025 announcement that it had resumed oil production from one of three offshore platforms and was storing that oil in onshore tanks while it sought to restart the failed Las Flores Pipeline System.

Several other lawsuits related to the pipeline restart are ongoing. Among other violations, Sable has been cited by the California Coastal Commission for unlawful work in sensitive coastal habitat and sued by the California attorney general and Santa Barbara district attorney for legal violations tied to unlawful discharge into creeks and waterways.

In December the Trump administration moved to seize control of the pipeline system from the State Fire Marshal and issued Sable an emergency special permit that enables a restart despite the pipelines’ design defects. The state of California has challenged these actions in court, as have environmental organizations including the Center.

The Santa Ynez Unit had been shut down since May 2015, when the corroded pipeline ruptured and released what is believed to be about 450,000 gallons of oil at Refugio State Beach. The oil spill ravaged 150 miles of the California coast and killed hundreds of birds and marine mammals, shutting down beaches and fisheries.

Sable purchased the unit in 2024 from ExxonMobil and has been aggressively pushing to resuscitate the defective pipeline system and restart oil operations ever since.

Earlier today, the Trump administration rolled back a 2024 EPA rule limiting commercial sterilization facilities from releasing ethylene oxide, a potent cancer-causing air pollutant.

Ethylene oxide has long been known to cause a range of acute and chronic health problems. The 2024 rule, which came eight years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that ethylene oxide is 60 times more toxic than previously realized, required commercial sterilization facilities to significantly reduce their emissions of ethylene oxide, install additional control equipment and improve monitoring. These facilities use ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment, as well as some dried food products and spices. Prior to this rollback, EPA had granted legally dubious compliance exemptions to 39 sterilization facilities covered by this rule.

Below is a statement from Darya Minovi, a senior analyst for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Communications Officer Center for Science & Democracy, Clean Transportation, Western States lcohen@ucs.org 617-334-7343

“This dangerous decision puts people across the United States and in Puerto Rico at a higher risk of breathing dangerous fumes known to cause respiratory irritation, nausea, blurred vision, headaches and various cancers. Children are especially vulnerable to the cancer-causing harms of ethylene oxide exposure.

“According to UCS analysis, nearly 14 million people in the United States live within five miles of at least one commercial sterilization facility and more than 10,000 schools and childcare facilities fall within those areas. These communities are disproportionately made up of people of color or those who do not speak English as a first language.

“The science is clear about the risks posed by ethylene oxide. The 2024 rule was long overdue, requiring sterilization facilities to use proven pollution-control technologies to protect workers and fenceline communities from unnecessary cancer risk. And since ethylene oxide is a colorless and nearly odorless gas, many people had no idea they were being exposed. The rule was expected to cut ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilizers by up to 90% and substantially reduce cancer risks for nearby communities.

“This decision is a reckless and self-serving handout to big industry, which asked for this rule to be rolled back. This process sidestepped community input from the start and is an affront to communities that have unknowingly lived with ethylene oxide exposure for decades. These actions show, yet again, that this administration has little to no regard for the health and welfare of working people or any interest in protecting children from exposure to toxic chemicals.

“Ethylene oxide emissions controls need to be strengthened – not dismantled. Communities living near these facilities deserve clean air and policies grounded in science, not decisions that allow dangerous emissions to continue unchecked."

Today, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed rule to roll back public health regulations adopted in 2024 for commercial sterilizer facilities that use ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment and spices. Ethylene oxide, one of the most toxic air pollutants EPA regulates, is a highly carcinogenic flammable gas capable of damaging DNA even in small doses.

The 2024 regulations require most sterilizer facilities to reduce emissions and have continuous emissions monitoring systems by April 6, 2026. According to the EPA, the 2024 safeguards when fully implemented would eliminate over 90% of ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilizer facilities and reduce the number of people exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from ethylene oxide by 92%.

“The 2024 standards would have delivered enormous public health benefits. EPA knows that ethylene oxide is carcinogenic and determined that sterilizers can install effective and affordable pollution controls,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Deena Tumeh. “EPA has no basis to repeal this well-supported rule. By rolling back the rule, the Trump EPA is bending the knee to the sterilizer industry at the expense of millions of people’s health.”

If finalized, Trump EPA’s proposal will allow sterilizer facilities to emit more ethylene oxide. Based on EPA’s own data, this proposal would subject at least 85,000 more people to unacceptable cancer risks compared to the 2024 rule. Many facilities are already in compliance with one or more of the emission limitations in the 2024 rule, but Trump EPA’s proposal would allow these facilities to reduce or eliminate their emission controls and monitoring equipment.

Nearly 14 million people in the United States and Puerto Rico live within five miles of a commercial sterilizer, according to a 2023 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Inhaling ethylene oxide can increase the risk of cancer, including breast cancer and cancer of white blood cells.

Children are particularly vulnerable to ethylene oxide harm because the chemical remains in their bodies longer than it does in adults. Many commercial sterilizer facilities are in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, and compound existing health risks from other local sources of pollution. In 2018, the first Trump EPA determined that ethylene oxide was a major driver of elevated cancer risks that the Agency is now ignoring.

In June 2025, the Trump administration exempted more than 40 percent of sterilizers in the United States from complying with the 2024 rule for two years. These exemptions came after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin invited corporations to email the agency to request exemptions from clean air standards.

The 2024 sterilizer protections were the result of a successful 2022 lawsuit brought by California Communities Against Toxics, Clean Power Lake County, Rio Grande International Study Center, Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, represented by Earthjustice.

Quotes from our clients and partners:

“I remember the EPA informing us that Steri-Tech’s ethylene oxide emissions in my hometown of Salinas, Puerto Rico, were so high that we had one of the highest rates of toxic air cancer risk in the United States” said Victor Alvarado, founder and coordinator for Comité Diálogo Ambiental. “Eliminating the new protections against ethylene oxide emissions is unjust.”

“We understand that industry applied heavy pressure to weaken the previously finalized rule. We also understand that industry remains more concerned with their profits than the lives of those who live near sterilizer facilities, like my community in Laredo,” said Tricia Cortez, executive director of Rio Grande International Study Center. “Sterilizer facilities, like Midwest must be held accountable for their dangerous, cancer-causing emissions. We need an EPA that works to protect us, the people, not financial interests and corporations that continue to cause so much harm to so many.”

“EPA’s decision to roll back commercial sterilizer safeguards is an affront to countless families and workers who were unknowingly exposed to ethylene oxide—a cancer-causing gas—for years, even decades,” said Darya Minovi, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The rule was based on a growing and robust body of evidence showing the toxicity of long-term exposure to ethylene oxide, which EPA, international institutions, and the National Academies have affirmed. Rolling back these protections will undoubtedly harm people’s health, especially children’s.”

“Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card. Sterilizers are some of the largest, most toxic chemical manufacturing facilities in the country,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics and chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team. “Rather than regressing on key protections, these facilities need even more controls in place to ensure the safety of workers and nearby communities.”

Today's University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment dipped to 55.5 in the preliminary March reading, down 2% from 56.6 in February. Year-ahead inflation expectations came in at 3.4%, ending six months of consecutive declines, as consumers see no end in sight to Trump’s illegal war on Iran and chaotic tariff agenda that are sending prices on everyday essentials from energy to food soaring.

The fallout from Trump’s reckless policies goes beyond high prices as overall economic growth stalls. Consumers are strapped as health care premiums continue to spike and the job market plummets. The economy lost nearly 100,000 jobs in February and last quarter’s GDP growth was revised down to a disappointing 0.7%, falling from the 1.4% growth initially reported.

The president has falsely claimed that “the economy is roaring back.” Yet data print after data print shows a spiraling economy. Trump’s relentless missteps have prompted Goldman Sachs to raise its inflation forecast and cut its GDP outlook, putting recession odds at 25%. Despite promising lower prices and a renaissance for American workers, all Trump has delivered is pain and peril.

Groundwork Collaborative's Chief of Policy and Advocacy Alex Jacquez released the following statement:

“President Trump is flooring the gas pedal as he drives our economy over a cliff. As bad as this week’s data is, it understates reality for exhausted consumers who have been hit with even more price hikes caused by the president’s intentional turmoil in the weeks since this data was collected. Instead of working to bring down ever-increasing prices at the pump, the grocery store, and the doctor’s office, the president is betraying working families as his illegal war with Iran stokes inflation.”

BACKGROUND

Consumer sentiment is stuck near historic lows. The index has been below 60 for eight consecutive months and has fallen 23% over the course of Trump’s second term.

Inflation expectations are surging on Trump's war and tariffs. Year-ahead expectations stalled at 3.4%, the same as last month. Trump’s war on Iran is already driving up the price of gasoline and other everyday goods, and his administration is determined to reinstate erratic and poorly targeted tariffs after the Supreme Court ruled against them. The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu noted that sentiment among respondents was considerably lower in interviews conducted after Trump’s attacks on Iran began, with many citing rising gasoline prices as a concern.

Consumers are pessimistic about prices, and for good reason. Today's Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report shows that overall prices rose 2.8% between January 2025 and January 2026. Core PCE came in at 3.1%, the highest since March 2024, and has risen for nine of the past 12 months. Working families were already feeling the squeeze before Trump’s war with Iran poured fuel on the inflation fire.

Growth is slowing as rising inflation and labor market declines wreck family budgets. GDP estimates for the fourth quarter of last year were revised down by 50% to just 0.7%. Growth in consumer spending fell considerably from 3.5% in the third quarter to just 2% in the fourth quarter, as working families are forced to pull back as rising prices and labor market contractions squeeze them from all sides.

We are saddened in the wake of a horrible attack on a synagogue in West Bloomfield. We are sending love and care to Jewish communities throughout Michigan, including our own members who were raised in Temple Israel and have family who attend there. We are so grateful that none of the children or staff on site were hurt. Jewish communities, like all people, deserve to be safe in our houses of worship and schools.

The person who reportedly carried out this attack was a man whose siblings, niece, and nephew were just murdered in Lebanon by Israeli bombs. This is grief upon grief. War always begets trauma and further violence. It is clear that the Israeli government’s atrocities make all of us — including Jews — less safe. Israel carries out brutal wars and genocide against families and children, then falsely claims these war crimes are done in the name of Jews. This leads to more antisemitism.

Time and again we have seen how tragic moments are used to propel increases in militarized policing and violence. We categorically reject this. We will not let this act be weaponized to justify crackdowns on anti-war organizing, or violent retribution against Muslim, Arab, or immigrant communities. We commit to keep fighting for a world where all people live with safety and dignity. That includes fighting antisemitism alongside Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism and all forms of oppression, and halting the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians and assaults on Lebanon and across the region.

JVP members and staff are available for comment.

Members of Congress should vote against any additional funding for President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war on Iran, 251 groups said today in a letter sent to Congress. Waging a war of choice that costs an estimated $1 billion a day not only fails to address the economic squeeze and health care crisis facing Americans, but diverts federal funding from an array of urgent domestic priorities. The letter was led by Public Citizen, Win Without War, MoveOn, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“By launching a war against Iran, Trump has violated the Constitution, defied international law, flouted the will of the American people, and has put millions of lives across the region at risk. A vote for President Trump’s Pentagon supplemental funding package would be a vote to commit the U.S. even further to this crisis, which has already killed seven U.S. servicemembers and nearly 2,000 people from across the region, and which endangers the lives of many more,” the letter reads.

The Pentagon’s budget now totals more than $1 trillion, after an extra $150 billion the agency received in the GOP’s reconciliation bill. A supplemental worth $50 billion would be enough to restore food assistance for four million Americans, establish universal pre-K education, and pay for the annual construction of more than 100,000 units of housing. The groups maintain that this illegal war with Iran cannot be an excuse to fund more weapons instead of priorities here at home.

Other prominent signatories to the letter include Oxfam America, the Service Employees International Union, National Nurses United, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the National Organization for Women, the Union of Concerned Scientists, J Street, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Indivisible, Common Cause, Jewish Voice for Peace, Rising Majority, and Working Families Power.

“More money for the Pentagon will serve to extend and escalate an illegal, unpopular, and devastating war – as well as pave the way for still more Pentagon funding requests,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “The money wasted on this war should instead be invested in meeting the economic squeeze felt by everyday Americans. The $11.3 billion spent on the first six days of the war would, for example, be enough to restore food benefits to the four million people losing them due to the tax and budget reconciliation bill.”

“President Trump’s illegal war has already shown the costs war imposes — American servicemembers killed and injured, thousands of civilians killed in fighting, skyrocketing oil prices, a conflict spiraling over a dozen countries in unexpected ways, and more. That’s exactly why it’s so crucial that the decision to go to war not rest on one person's impulses. Congress must not fund the continuation of this unconstitutional war,” said Christopher Anders, director of ACLU’s Technology and Democracy Division.

“Every penny wasted on bombing children and families in Iran would be better spent on health care and affordable housing in America. Secretary Hegseth and President Trump are ready to spend trillions on another forever war that nobody asked for, but they won't lift a finger to lower costs here at home,” said Sara Haghdoosti, chief of program for MoveOn Civic Action. “A vote for supplemental spending is a vote to continue the war in Iran, and Congress must listen to the vast majority of Americans and stop the reckless spending and bloodshed.”

“People across the U.S. already hate Trump’s illegal war in Iran, and they’re not going to like it any better if Congress wastes $50 billion more of their money on it,” said Shayna Lewis, deputy director of Win Without War. “It’s outrageous that Trump is even asking for more money to spend on bombs when his spiraling war is killing civilians abroad and driving up prices for everyone at home, all with no end in sight. Congress should tell Trump clearly: not one more penny for this foolish, destructive war.”